armadyl

99.9% of people would not intentionally enable ads even if they liked the content this is an insanely unrealistic option.

More like the quality ones get their content ripped and viewed for free with tools like archive.is or people just posting the full text in comments on this forum even.

Subs only aren’t viable for publications with full staff imo

But no one said we have to copy that flawed concept. macOS and Linux already have a good solution, requiring your full unlock password in a privileged dialog to authorize changes.

You use operating systems that have significantly worse security than GOS, iOS and even stock Android as your examples?

Also you literally are the owner with GrapheneOS, lacking security is not "full ownership." You can create your own build of GOS, you can modify it ahead of time, you can literally see all of the source code it's running.

Claiming GOS isn't true ownership is like complaining that you can't change your car's wheel alignment while driving it and saying it means you don't truly own your car.

You’re right, they just fall for installing updates or CLI tools which install compromised dependencies and run wild on a rooted system before getting caught 24 hours later.

You are free to make your own build of GrapheneOS with root access and have extremely reduced security. Just don’t expect support on the forums and waste everyone’s time when something happens.

All of which have beyond horrific security. GrapheneOS is the only acceptable alternative from mainstream Android.

It's not really about supply chain security it's about the hardware itself. PC manufacturers in general just can't keep up since they don't have full control/integration over the hardware stack like Apple does. Also CPU, secure element etc security is limited but Qualcomm is catching up pretty quickly I believe if they aren't there already. We won't talk about Intel and AMD. But that's beyond my knowledge so I can't say anything too specific that's just what I have from general knowledge I'm sure someone will jump in with additional info if needed.

I don't think Apple is particularly any more secure against the US government than Intel is with supply chain vulnerabilities but I have nothing to back that up with aside from vibes.

Conversely, a Linux system with no verified boot can be easily tampered with without the user detecting it by people lower than the government such as casual hackers. So in a world where your government is going crazy, you're opting for an operating system that can be penetrated with relative ease (e.g. with persistent root malware) both by a non-government hacker on top of a state backed one.

This is incorrect macOS is fundamentally more secure than desktop Linux operating systems and it isn't particularly close.

No amount of Linux hardening will get a system even close to an M-chip Mac. Software insecurities aside, desktop Linux OS systems have almost none of the hardware-backed security benefits that Macs do.

The person you replied to is right, the "security" of Linux might as well be nonexistent compared to macOS and especially iOS/Android. Even the developers of Secureblue (https://secureblue.dev/) state that despite their hardening and mitigations Linux still lags far behind macOS (and possibly Windows) security-wise. The only Linux derivative that has proper security is Android, and even better GrapheneOS.

https://privsec.dev/posts/linux/linux-insecurities/

https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html

I also commented here on Linux phones, the same can apply to Linux as a desktop OS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46997397

Also on top of that Linux/Windows laptops also lack the hardware-backed security that Macs and to an extent some Chromebooks have.

None exist, it's literally all slop.

How beneficial is this versus just being theater? The example used in this is the government accessing the reporters laptop via biometrics.

But in this case, and especially under this admin legal or not this app won't stop them, unless I'm misunderstanding the macOS security model. Even with FDE enabled, sending it to the lock screen with biometrics disabled will not do anything to stop them from being able to access the contents of the hard drive via forensic methods with relative ease.

I think that at best this will only stop the casual person (i.e. a family member or roommate/random snooper)? In which case there would be no point to switch away from biometrics.

You're far better off just keeping more private information on the iPhone and isolating that data from a Mac, since that has far more resistance to intrusion in AFU mode than a Mac.

If you're in a situation where this is a pressing issue, it's not a good solution as it's trivial to detect if it's a fake environment, especially if they get suspicious and run external forensics on it.

iirc the GrapheneOS team won't implement this feature for that reason

it's just moving the risk from your cell provider to Google

Yeah and imo Google has better account access controls than any other mobile provider, especially if you enroll in the Advanced Protection Program.

The main downside of GV that I didn't have with jmp.chat is that numbers are almost guaranteed to be detected as VOIP which sucks but whatever.

Well that's subjective. But Proton's response to that is also valid imo (which is also subjective):

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1nd07w0/comment/nd...

Protonmail is widely believed to be compromised and some evidence supporting this has come forth in two separate incidents in the last year.

There has been no evidence of this, stop spreading misinformation. They're clear on what they can and can't hand over and what you can do to reduce the information that they can hand over like billing info. For some inexplicable reason people expect a corporation to disregard legal government warrants and subpoenas. Thinking any company would do this is next level delusion. Even if you self-hosted, you wouldn't be able to escape this because it would just end up with you in jail.

The only protection against that is end to end encryption. And to this day Proton has handed over zero data that falls under their E2EE umbrella.

At best, even if you assumed that they were collecting incoming/outgoing emails before encryption it would be nonsensical to think that this wasn't happening to other providers, it's just the nature of email. Nobody who cares about absolute privacy should be using it as a means of critical communication regardless.

The notion that Proton capitulates and somehow hands over your emails or other encrypted data is false and completely unsubstantiated. Unlike Google on the other hand, who will hand over your entire inbox unencrypted with zero issue to DHS/the FBI merely for writing a letter to an attorney:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/02/03/hom...

https://archive.is/kmWHG

I'm not sure what the OP does, but at least for me I find myself chained to Google Voice for SMS 2FA use because it's basically the only phone number provider that cannot be exploited with a sim swap attack (same deal with Google Fi). And while I don't necessarily trust Google, their account security is leagues ahead of anyone else imo.

I previously looked at jmp.chat but they didn't really inspire confidence on the security front.

"A plane crashed? See! FAA regulations are useless and the agency needs to be disbanded."

Stripe does this to me and it's starting to get annoying. They offer an unsubscribe option to remove you from current mailing lists but perpetually have you auto added to new mailing lists effectively making the unsubscribe option useless.

It was more of a security related change. MV3 overall objectively is far better for browser security than MV2. MV2 was essentially giving extensions a full on free RCE pathway. MV3 is what it should’ve been from the start imo.

That domain is blocked by Hagezi's Ultimate list. Definitely remove that user's comment

As a general principle, application developers should not have free rein to modify my system's configuration, and OS's should do their part to make it very difficult for developers.

Funny enough macOS, iOS, iPadOS and Android do this and they are constantly attacked for it.

I do think there needs to be more strict adherence by developers to standards like XDG but I don’t know how it could be enforced.

AlBugdy and the person you are replying to are literally right re: server delivered backdoors. Using E2EE applications in a browser moves the trust back from the client to the server.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47664103

That isn't how any of this works. The main value proposition of Signal is that we do trust its end-to-end encryption. Protonmail sending a "web page" that "leaks your key"? WTF?

Yes and it's that you also trust the client, with a server that dynamically delivers code you have no way of knowing fully what payload it's sending you. An example of this vulnerability was discussed when it was pointed out that 1P, Bitwarden and others were susceptible to server side backdoors if used from the web in that research study that came out last month that was posted here.

And no, mobile apps are not really sandboxed, they have full access to your mobile device once you install it and give it access - and let's be real, most people are just going to blindly click "allow" for anything the app requests after installing an app.

This is genuinely just not true, even if you click allow for all permissions on Android and iOS. An application on a non-rooted device doesn't have "full access."

from a security standpoint

Ironically applications are far more secure running in the OS sandbox than the browser if you're on Android or iOS.

I switched to using my iPad Pro M5 + Magic Keyboard nearly full time. I use it for literally everything and also have it connected to an external monitor.

The only asterisk is that I also own a Mac Mini but I keep it attached running headlessly to my router and access it from the iPad via Jump Desktop and only use it exclusively for dev work (I only use a single external monitor anyway even with a normal Mac) or if I really need Chrome occasionally. But macOS used in that way feels almost native to the iPad.

Prior to this I was looking at an MBP and selling the iPad but this has convinced me to stay with it for the time being and maybe just upgrade the mac mini to a studio instead and continue to use it remotely.

People hate on it but so far I've been using it this way and it really feels next gen to the point that using a Macbook with macOS vs. the iPP + iPadOS feels genuinely archaic. With the latest iPadOS beta too things have gotten better on the Safari from as well and tabs no longer refresh as aggressively (though it's not perfect still).

Not to mention the significantly higher amount of security with iPadOS and AppleCare benefits (specifically theft protection) that comes with this setup.

If Android desktop mode improves a bit more and the Motorola devices for GOS next year look good then it wouldn't be inconceivable that I could drop my devices from 3 to 2 and not need a proper PC or Mac at all.

This is a Chrome thing.

This is blatant misinformation. Firefox (and all of its derivatives) also does this.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1372288

Yeah I'm not sure what the point of this article is really or am I probably misunderstanding something? There's no such thing as 4K HiDPI on a 4K monitor. That would be 2160p @ 2x on an 8K monitor. 4K at 100% scaling looks terrible in general across every OS.

Do you also not have root on your laptops or desktops? I don't get why it's so different. I don't just want to open TikTok and Instagram, I want to use my phone computer as a computer. I assumed HN folks would get it.

The security models of desktop operating systems are far, far behind those of mobile operating systems (Android/iOS). ChromeOS, followed by macOS are the closest to mobile security but are still severely lacking. Windows is farther behind and desktop Linux might as well be minimum security. It’s not even an equivalent comparison as you’re comparing mobile OSes to ones on a platform with a fundamentally worse security architecture.

I mean, even to an extent some of the Linux distributions understand the security problems with the traditional model. Look at what Universal Blue is doing with their images and leaning more into Flatpaks and containers for any developer like etc tooling while actively discouraging installing things via rpm-ostree.

I would choose something as locked down as GrapheneOS for its security if I was going to use it to install random apps left and right and give them root or run JavaScript from random sites on a browser I gave root to. Anyway, not having root seems like a very weird way to harden security. What about compartmentalization?

The first sentence is inherently incompatible with the security structure of GrapheneOS (for example). The point is to not give applications root, giving them root circumvents basically all of the protections GrapheneOS and Android give the user. Yes, mobile operating systems were designed sandbox first to treat all applications as untrusted. However it doesn’t matter if you’re only giving “trusted” apps root, all it takes is one supply chain exploit, one malicious developer, one anything to make that app with root do something its not supposed to do.

Not having root is the best way to harden security. Mobile OSes are designed to be heavily compartmentalized, each application runs in its own sandbox. Giving an application root circumvents the entire thing, allowing that application in theory to see into other sandboxed apps etc. If you want a real world example look at all the malware exploits that come into iOS via iMessage, one of the only apps on iOS that’s not fully sandboxed like normal apps.

And what's wrong with my my terminal app having root sometimes? How is shadycryptonews.xyz/exploit.js going to leverage it? How would even the Official Authoritarian Police State app leverage it?

The problem is that we don’t know how they could leverage it, so the solution is to eliminate that pathway entirely.

This is also my issue with the push for Linux phones onto the average person (instead of the community coming together and forking AOSP if they want to escape Google). The platform has zero real sandboxing, and the average person still wants to use Meta apps as shit as they are. These big tech companies’ and governments’ apps would go absolutely crazy on Linux phones.

What's the threat model for someone who doesn't blindly give apps root or do anything stupid, really?

To not get unknowingly pwned. Realistically even if you have a trusted app, you or the community can only verify that it’s trusted at a specific point in time. Realistically a community cannot verify that an app or package etc is consistently not malicious and will more often than not lag behind in the implementation of the exploit vs its discovery, it doesn’t matter if its closed or open source.

To be clear though my view is that we shouldn’t be pushing root-capable mobile operating systems onto the average person and that no root is infinitely more secure than having it. Maybe companies could provide alternatives, i.e. offering devices with rooted versions available but offering no customer support if something goes wrong with the software. But it certainly shouldn’t be a default available feature for the majority of the population.

—

An edit: Also preventing root allows devices to pass attestation checks. I know it has a dirty connotation in light of how companies are behaving recently, but it really is a security benefit for a device to be able to prove that it’s base operating system is unmodified (i.e. no persistent malware is present).

GrapheneOS - root or adb not supported, so no

Like the other poster said, you can get root on GOS. However it's highly ill advised and severely breaks the security model of devices. 99% of the time nobody, especially the average person, needs root on their phone (imo). Allowing that easily just opens up the average person to getting duped into getting their phone rocked with exploits and possibly persistent malware.

There is no reason that a lack of root access should be viewed as a negative within the context of GrapheneOS. In that case why even mention or choose GOS? Just choose an Android fork with poor security or a Linux phone with zero security instead.

They're actually partnering with Motorola and have phones coming out next year! It sounds like they'll be the Motorola Signature, Razr and Fold (iirc).