Those articles don’t really support the claim? At all?
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-organized-crime-preferred-phone-3573578/ is unsourced but, taking at face value, seems like what one would expect. People aren’t getting stopped at checkpoints and forced to divulge what OS their phone is running and being taken to a black site if they run GrapheneOS. But someone holding up a pixel in a sea of cheap motorolas DOES raise some eyebrows. Same as someone with a ridiculously expensive rolex walking around The Hood and so forth. And, presumably, people who have been arrested for other reasons raise even more eyebrows if their phone isn’t running a stock OS which…
Look, with a just police force (ha!), that actually is a very reasonable stance. Back in the day it was having a Blackberry. For a decade or so it was having two phones until people learned to not do anything personal on a work phone and that became kinda normal. There are activities that are generally associated with “weirdos” and “criminals” and I think even the GraphenOS devs would acknowledge their userbase fall firmly into the former. If you see someone with a Blackberry hanging out leaning against a 7-11? You maybe hang out across the street for an hour and keep an eye on them. Arrest someone and they have three burner phones in their pants pockets? Maybe you look a bit deeper.
That is actual investigative work. Of course, the problem is that it instead becomes “That gameboy looks like a drug dealer’s phone. We are going to stop and frisk you and maybe sexually assault you in the back of the cruiser if we are bored”.
I’m keyed in on a lot of “high level” protest discussion as well as what investigative journalists need to do for actual safety. And one of the biggest topics that regularly comes up is the idea of “the burner”. In theory, if you are crossing a questionable border or think you might be stopped, you bring a completely blank burner. If they hack into it, you are safe, right?
Wrong. Because you are now an anomaly. NOBODY has no social media and NOBODY has no documents on their laptop. So what are you hiding? Let’s beat it out of you.
Which is why general best practices are often considered to have a real device that you actually use everyday and take through those checkpoints and on the riskier protests. But you make damned sure there is nothing incriminating or sensitive on there. Optimally through having your “burner” be the one you do said activities on, but also through just removing it well before you get on the plane or get in the car.
And a lot of that applies to device choice too. That cool ass Linux Phone might seem like a great idea but now you stand out from the crowd quite a bit. Same with taking your top of the line iphone to Korea where Samsungs grow on trees and so forth.
Well, in my region it typically is already sufficient to look Arabic to become the guest of a “random” police control.
Compared to that, having a closer look at people running GrapheneOS on their phones sounds relatively well-grounded and almost reasonable.
At least not totally crypto-racist (although I have the feeling that still comes on top…)
Oh I 500% assume racism is a big part of this too.
Not familiar with Catalonia but I assume there are at least a few ethnic groups that are associated with “rich” and this is a way to group them in.
Which, funny enough, was also kind of the deal with Blackberries. Yeah, Dealers had them. Because Dealers like buying expensive shit (See also: really expensive Rolex in a neighborhood where everyone is on food stamps) AND because they were ridiculously ahead of their time tech wise. You know who else had them? Business and (proto-)tech folk. And cops LOVED to say that the kid who actually made something of themselves going back home to visit family must be a Dealer because they have the same phone all their co-workers do.
Which gets back to: As part of an investigation, it is good. It is one part of a potential puzzle. In the reality of ACAB… ACAB.
I am about as “normal” as you get. I am a middle-aged white male, and I use a Pixel 6 Pro with Graphene OS installed. I switched to Graphene OS for security in the wake of an ugly divorce involving a campaign of stalking and harassment when I began to suspect my prior phone had been compromised.
To be fair, most people are stupid and trust the shitty system they are born in, so they don’t look for their own freedom, as they are convinced they are free.
Same with taking your top of the line iphone to Korea where Samsungs grow on trees and so forth.
Fun fact: iPhones are really popular in South Korea, especially for younger generations and considered more cool than boomer’s Samsung, though Samsung is gaining some traction with newer flagship models recently, so yeah it won’t make you stand out.
Fair enough. I was mostly just thinking back to when I was researching luggage tags and the general guidance was “airtags have the best coverage in the US and some Western European countries. For East Asia, it is generally fine but a lot more hit and miss as most countries vastly prefer Samsung Androids”. And my experience in Japan and Korea lined up with that where my luggage had ridiculously high fidelity with a samsung tag or whatever they are called.
But the point still stands. If you have a high end phone that basically nobody around you will have, you’ll stand out.
Not OP but there is few sources on that :
https://www.androidauthority.com/why-i-use-grapheneos-on-pixel-3575477/
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Catalan-cops-link-Google-Pixel-phones-to-organized-crime.1050210.0.html
Thanks!
Turns out that OPs heading is a little bit exaggerated, as nobody is confiscating anything.
Those articles don’t really support the claim? At all?
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-organized-crime-preferred-phone-3573578/ is unsourced but, taking at face value, seems like what one would expect. People aren’t getting stopped at checkpoints and forced to divulge what OS their phone is running and being taken to a black site if they run GrapheneOS. But someone holding up a pixel in a sea of cheap motorolas DOES raise some eyebrows. Same as someone with a ridiculously expensive rolex walking around The Hood and so forth. And, presumably, people who have been arrested for other reasons raise even more eyebrows if their phone isn’t running a stock OS which…
Look, with a just police force (ha!), that actually is a very reasonable stance. Back in the day it was having a Blackberry. For a decade or so it was having two phones until people learned to not do anything personal on a work phone and that became kinda normal. There are activities that are generally associated with “weirdos” and “criminals” and I think even the GraphenOS devs would acknowledge their userbase fall firmly into the former. If you see someone with a Blackberry hanging out leaning against a 7-11? You maybe hang out across the street for an hour and keep an eye on them. Arrest someone and they have three burner phones in their pants pockets? Maybe you look a bit deeper.
That is actual investigative work. Of course, the problem is that it instead becomes “That gameboy looks like a drug dealer’s phone. We are going to stop and frisk you and maybe sexually assault you in the back of the cruiser if we are bored”.
I’m keyed in on a lot of “high level” protest discussion as well as what investigative journalists need to do for actual safety. And one of the biggest topics that regularly comes up is the idea of “the burner”. In theory, if you are crossing a questionable border or think you might be stopped, you bring a completely blank burner. If they hack into it, you are safe, right?
Wrong. Because you are now an anomaly. NOBODY has no social media and NOBODY has no documents on their laptop. So what are you hiding? Let’s beat it out of you.
Which is why general best practices are often considered to have a real device that you actually use everyday and take through those checkpoints and on the riskier protests. But you make damned sure there is nothing incriminating or sensitive on there. Optimally through having your “burner” be the one you do said activities on, but also through just removing it well before you get on the plane or get in the car.
And a lot of that applies to device choice too. That cool ass Linux Phone might seem like a great idea but now you stand out from the crowd quite a bit. Same with taking your top of the line iphone to Korea where Samsungs grow on trees and so forth.
Well, in my region it typically is already sufficient to look Arabic to become the guest of a “random” police control.
Compared to that, having a closer look at people running GrapheneOS on their phones sounds relatively well-grounded and almost reasonable.
At least not totally crypto-racist (although I have the feeling that still comes on top…)
Oh I 500% assume racism is a big part of this too.
Not familiar with Catalonia but I assume there are at least a few ethnic groups that are associated with “rich” and this is a way to group them in.
Which, funny enough, was also kind of the deal with Blackberries. Yeah, Dealers had them. Because Dealers like buying expensive shit (See also: really expensive Rolex in a neighborhood where everyone is on food stamps) AND because they were ridiculously ahead of their time tech wise. You know who else had them? Business and (proto-)tech folk. And cops LOVED to say that the kid who actually made something of themselves going back home to visit family must be a Dealer because they have the same phone all their co-workers do.
Which gets back to: As part of an investigation, it is good. It is one part of a potential puzzle. In the reality of ACAB… ACAB.
What a fucking absurd statement.
I am about as “normal” as you get. I am a middle-aged white male, and I use a Pixel 6 Pro with Graphene OS installed. I switched to Graphene OS for security in the wake of an ugly divorce involving a campaign of stalking and harassment when I began to suspect my prior phone had been compromised.
But “searching for an answer” and “actually implementing the answer” makes you not a normal person.
To be fair, most people are stupid and trust the shitty system they are born in, so they don’t look for their own freedom, as they are convinced they are free.
Yeah. GrapheneOS is focused on security against external agents, so its userbase is prosecuted people, like journalists.
Which are not normal people, aka weirdos.
The good kind though
Well of course!
Fun fact: iPhones are really popular in South Korea, especially for younger generations and considered more cool than boomer’s Samsung, though Samsung is gaining some traction with newer flagship models recently, so yeah it won’t make you stand out.
Fair enough. I was mostly just thinking back to when I was researching luggage tags and the general guidance was “airtags have the best coverage in the US and some Western European countries. For East Asia, it is generally fine but a lot more hit and miss as most countries vastly prefer Samsung Androids”. And my experience in Japan and Korea lined up with that where my luggage had ridiculously high fidelity with a samsung tag or whatever they are called.
But the point still stands. If you have a high end phone that basically nobody around you will have, you’ll stand out.
Barbaric
Kinda how in some countries using any circumvention tools are a means of arrest and suspicious behavior