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The infuriating part is that chain-of-trust certificate signing has been a fundamental part of the web for decades. It would be trivial for Google to allow third party signing authorities, for the benefit of people who aren't comfortable handing over all their personal details to Google.
The only reason they've chosen not to is because protecting users isn't as important to Google as sucking up all that sweet sweet verified personal data.
I don't think it's about the data. There's not much volume here. I think instead it's about blocking apps they don't like. Like some pesky ad blocking apps for YouTube. They know more people would reach for YouTube adblockers as they keep increasing the ads on the free tier as well as the price of the Premium tier. The way to prevent that is to make it extremely difficult to install such apps.
Code signing is expensive, and will force out some smaller devs from the market, and is the main scare tactic Microsoft is using on Windows.
Side note. We need to do something, now. Only problem is, I don't know what
It's the year of the linux phone
wonder if my phone carrier would be ok if i show up with a phone with a new OS they haven't heard about
wonder if my phone carrier would be ok if i show up with a phone with a new OS they haven't heard about
For what one data point is worth, I do it to my phone carrier all the time.
They should not care as long as it has a compatible SIM/modem combo.
Yet…. Just wait until they require an approved OS for “safety” to activate a SIM. Just think BF6 and Secure Boot.
I'm so upset that this isn't all that matters. Carriers usually setup really nice contracts with manufacturers for things like exclusivity and marketing.
The solution is what it has always been.
Since DAY ONE phone hardware should have been as standardized and open as normal PC hardware - able to run any operating system that you want.
But every time it got brought up for DECADES, techbro corporate apologists were ready to line up and talk about all the reasons that wouldn't work and how companies would NEVER do that, as if that was some kind of sensible counterpoint.
Now the noose is closing and all it's going to take is the combined forces of the richest companies in the world to crush what little competition remains. Undercut or sue Fairphone into oblivion, for example. The lawsuits don't even have to have merit - they can eat the costs for a few quarters to ensure no viable alternative to the walled garden ever gets a foothold.
The thing to be done now is minimize your mobile usage altogether and try to make it to the tech dystopian endgame with a few local files of your own left.
Go to the Android developer verification site and fill out the Google Form in the bottom of the page on the right under Share your feedback.
Give any employees inside google that agree with you the materials they need to show management it's unpopular even with developers, (even if you aren't actually one) and give Google's shareholders concern that this isn't just media speculation, it's real people with real concerns.
The answer is likely a de-googled phone. We have some aftermarket variants of Android available. Though installing a new operating system on a phone isn't very mainstream. And skipping the Play services comes with consequences. Push notifications sometimes won't work, some apps outright refuse to work, and things like contactless payment are impossible. I've lived without Play services for a few years. Now I have them sandboxed in GrapheneOS. I wonder what they're going to do to address this.
Does contactless pay work in the sandbox? What about ticket apps like mlb ballpark?
I'm pretty sure Google locks us out and Google Pay is impossible, despite the operating system being more secure, having hardware attestation and not even being rooted.
Ticket and banking apps sometimes work, sometimes they don't. They're doing their best and a lot of things are fine. There's a community maintained list for banking apps here: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/
Even with Play Services enabled on GrapheneOS through Sandboxed Google Play, this wouldn't affect it, as this would be a system-level change that only affects stock Android and OEM-modified variants of Android that are "Certified Android"
GrapheneOS would not have to put much, if any effort into blocking this.
It can still affect other OSs, though not directly but by killing off open source projects
Honestly, given the ID requirements this feels like more efforts to track everything everyone does. It means any app with sufficient user base is trackable back to a real person. A real person they can arrest, bully or otherwise deal with if they don't like what they've built.
difficulty: 99% of mobile phone owners either won't care or will consider it a good thing that their apps are all signed. As though a professional cybercriminal doesn't have a dozen ways of getting a fake ID.
If you are an EU citizen then you need report this to the consumer protection services.
Here are some links I have found. There might be better ways to contact them but this is what I got for now. Feel free to correct me or add more ways to make our voices heard.
If you are unsure about the problem, you can contact the European Commission at: comp-market-information@ec.europa.eu or write to:
European Commission, Directorate General for Competition Antitrust Registry B-1049 Brussels, Belgium
Are there currently any viable alternatives to Android and iPhone?
the easiest path would be Chinese phones without GMS like Huawei,OPPO,vivo,Xiaomi,Honor
Or use graphene os without google play services. No google play, no restrictions.
Didn't they ban Huawei phones in the US
Yes, they banned Huawei in the free market.
Yeah this is going to affect android in multiple ways. I'm guessing that the emulators and YouTube apps are out, the Devs will have all their apps banned if they bother to register.
Personally I have a developer account but some apps I give away as open source. Now I'm going to have to register those apps and if one of them isn't up to Google's standards (whatever they say that is on the day) then ALL of my apps get banned!
I have multiple old android devices which can't use lineagos because they are locked or just too obscure. But right now they can be used with f-droid apps for games and ad-free content. I'm guessing that's going to change.
The barrier to entry will go up and even more old android devices will be thrown away. Make sure you buy a mainstream device that has a chance of being supported beyond the manufacturers 2 year support window - in my experience mobile and tablets actual lifespan is 4-5 years, up to 10 with new battery. Why are we forced to throw them away after 2 years? It's a total scam.
Of course it's a scam. But its also a money grab and a power grab. Google is completely gone from "do no evil" to "heil Trump"
What's worse, is that I do self hosting and almost all self host apps are open source on the android side, so now I may loose several of those apps if they don't want to sign or are banned by Google.
You're gonna own nothing and you're gonna be free...
This will be an amazing gift to open-source devices. Android has been the elephant in the room, open and free enough and too huge to ignore.
When the elephant goes away, a lot of people will be free to innovate.
Graphene OS is working well for me and installation was pretty straightforward. As people have said, though, it needs access to the bootloader.
And a Pixel - the only device it currently runs on (not a criticism, it's because Pixel is the only device with a TPM).
Lineage runs on a lot more phones. It's nit as secure as Graphene, but arguably more secure than what a phone ships with.
I find this unbeliable.
But, maybe, this will finally make some viable mobile Linux alternatives exist?
I'm curious to understand how Google defines "malicious apps" that they're using as the justification for this.
Conceivably, google revoking a certificate will mean an app installed outside of google play, will stop working for users.
How do they feel about celebrite? And the other companies that violate user privacy as their sole reason for existing. Will they still get "permission" for their apps? Seems like a great way to protect users by not issuing one to them...
They don't care as I understand, they just want to hold an iron grip over their ecosystem
