Question for geopolitical nerds and tech nerds.
If you have a stock android phone, it's almost impossible to use it without a Google account. If your nation becomes what is essentially at war with the US, or is under sanction. Does the whole country get their Google accounts blocked, thus rendering their phone almost unusable (without rooting it or reflashing the os etc?).
@quixoticgeek @bert_hubert ihm, extend that to all Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace accounts and you have the majority of modern companies being unable to work and access their data.
@quixoticgeek I have been using Android and Android based phones for years without a Google account. It works just fine. You definitely do not need to have a Google account to run Android with all of its features.
@quixoticgeek I have a stock android phone that I call "partly degoogled". I have disabled everything I could disable that is by google and get my software from fdroid whenever I can (with aurora store as backup). I just don't dare taking the next step and installing a custom rom, because once I tried to do it and bricked its sibling.
For now, everything works fine, including banking apps and payment apps. I'm saving to buy a mudita phone (according to their description, it's degoogled)
@quixoticgeek
If things escalate to Google blocking its services in Europe, it will be a welcome wake up call to not have our infrastructure depend on a single (American) company.
Same for other ubiquitous services like WhatsApp. I wonder how even #signal would manage under a complete embargo.
And for those keeping their Win11 laptops up to date: good luck with the mandatory MS-account required to log in now.
(personally I'm on /e/OS, Linux and Signal, with a matrix account on standby)
@quixoticgeek ^^ Great replies on the prospect of Trump waging tech war on Europe (or #Canada) using dependency on US infrastructure and tech companies (Google, Android, Apple, AWS, payment systems etc).
You may need to sit down first. 😱
@quixoticgeek I object to your "almost impossible" as I have used a Google Pixel for at least a year without a Google account. All essential apps worked just fine. However, I wasn't totally sure that it didn't have some ties with Google anyway so my new Fairphone runs Murena (/e/OS) and that feels better.
@alzimon @quixoticgeek I second your comment. Using Nothing Phone with e/os myself. Which admittedly is "reflashing the OS"...
But some apps are exclusively in Play Store (e.g. my Banking App). Thanks to Murena and e/os this works without a Google Account but if they decide to geofence, I will have issues...
@landesfeind I see the problem. Luckily, my banking app works just fine. But my point was that @quixoticgeek predicted immense pain, while actually it's not THAT bad, even without reflashing (at least for my n=1)
@alzimon @landesfeind except for the possible pain of having to change bank account... No pain at all...
@quixoticgeek
I also use /e/os and don't use anything from google store. I use Obtainium to install my apps from Source.
I use the bank and utilities website on phone browser.
Most apps track you anyway.
@quixoticgeek Bought Fairphone 6. De-googled Android. Works well enough without the need for Google crap, plus has better overall data and privacy controls with e/OS/, a custom version of LineageOS I believe.
@quixoticgeek Even if you do not run any big tech on your phone and computer who knows what the ISP and Telco’s use in their systems. My guess is there will be quite some issues.
@quixoticgeek
Just switched tot #grapheneos thuis week.
I van highly recommend it.
Works flawless.
@Johan_Barelds including all banking apps ?
@quixoticgeek
They complain but work, might need google play/services
Here's a list of apps that doesn't work https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide#apps-banning-grapheneos
@mattesilver @Johan_Barelds how many work without Google play services tho ?
@quixoticgeek
You can install google play/services as normal apps, they're just sandboxed
@mattesilver @Johan_Barelds right. The whole point of this exercise is to avoid having the Google shit on the device...
@quixoticgeek a quarter of Apples revenue comes from the EU. Not sure about Google.
They can only do this once, and it will probably destroy their company.
@quixoticgeek
Sicherheitsupdates dürfen das 😊
@quixoticgeek Worse, a lot of core functionality isn't in Android itself but in Google Play Services which requires a Google account to get and isn't available except for Google-approved phones. That's making AOSP increasingly problematic.
@tknarr @quixoticgeek LineageOS devices work fine without that (optionally using microg if you want to support apps that need it; this doesn't require a Google account AFAICT).
@quixoticgeek see what happened in Russia, they were put under most of the stuff imaginable at the time. Or Iran. But Russia was preparing its infra for over a decade for this scenario.
@quixoticgeek yes. You can limit this using GrapheneOS or LineageOS, but most likely your phone is not compatible.
Err, you might still be able to make phone calls. There was a world before android. And it had a longer battery life.
I try to use Google services as little as possible. I don't use stock keyboard, browser, messages, camera, gallery, file manager, calendar, contacts, phone, or gmail/cloud. But bootstrapping to that requires using Google software. And "Play" auto-updates could break things on a lower level
@quixoticgeek Yeah, apps for services that exist outside of the States needed to be hosted on F-Droid yesterday, but they're not completely fucked for delaying. AuroraStore can at least bridge the gaps for app installations. Millions of people would still need to migrate off Google services ASAP but that's an easier goal to obtain once people can still install those apps.
The bigger problem is system updates. It's hard to patch security vulnerabilities when Google's servers are blocked to you. It's even harder when custom ROMs are only getting source for AOSP, the base they all use to build the ROMs, twice a year now instead of every time it's released.
@disorderlyf @quixoticgeek
Having Google's servers blocked is the optimistic case.
The US could also not block the servers, but force Google to put out updates to EU users that brick every phone.
@quixoticgeek It's worse than that. If your login identity on an unrelated website is tied to a Google email account you won't be able to reset passwords, authenticate actions, etc. It's a way to slowly offline a country.
@quixoticgeek What's the status of Google and Apple accounts in countries already under sanction by the U.S.? I'm genuinely curious. I know that some people sanctioned have been individually targeted, but I dunno if whole countries are locked out.
@quixoticgeek
The alternative of Apple is no better.
Maybe some Huawei phones don't use Google 😁 Oh the irony.
@quixoticgeek Probably. Watch this. Lots about US bully in the digital domain. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=39jsstmmUUs&pp=ygUNY29yeSBkb2N0b3Jvdw%3D%3D
@quixoticgeek The right response would be arresting all US national employees of the company complying with sanctions within their borders as criminal saboteurs and holding them til they produce capability for domestic unlocking of devices.
@quixoticgeek Hot take: foreign nation state agent using backdoor access to brick devices civilians need for everyday life is an act of war and a war crime.
@quixoticgeek It would be nice if we had plausible alternatives to Android and iOS.
@lopta total agreement.
@quixoticgeek now I'm wondering how this works for nations currently sanctioned by the US, like Iran
And I'm assuming Chinese businesses or their goverment are also not too happy with the US having this leverage. Huawei has their own OS?
@meeoo this is something I am likewise wondering.
@quixoticgeek
I have been wondering this and pondering the Fairphone with Murena OS as my next phone when the current Samsung dies.
It isn't dying, and I keep fixing it when needed.
@Maker_of_Things I have a fairphone, but I have stock android on it because lots of stuff like banking apps only work on stock android...
@quixoticgeek @Maker_of_Things Switch banks if that's the case. You're Dutch right? ASN for example can be used completely through their website, which yes works fine on mobile as well. No apps needed, not even a mobile phone, and still online banking.
@bart @Maker_of_Things I'm not Dutch.
Does the barcode scanning stuff work on the asn website?
@quixoticgeek @Maker_of_Things
Quick sidenote:
Ditto have a Fairphone (4), running #IodeOS (with MicroG replacing Play Services) -- at least my banking and similar apps just work fine.
Disclaimer: The web pages of the alternative OS usually have some compatibility lists, better take a look first, though.
@quixoticgeek @Maker_of_Things I have a Fairphone. I do not sign into any Google account. I don't run any apps except Signal (sideloaded) and a tiny number of f-droid things that I could do without. I don't regard a phone as secure enough for critical applications anyway. I appreciate that doesn't work for everyone.
@quixoticgeek @Maker_of_Things Not getting shit from bank appsis one surprise advantage of living in Poland
@quixoticgeek @Maker_of_Things From experience, backed up by the list (https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/#poland), they generally work even if you fail Play Integrity or whatever checks - you might have to go without contactless payments, but even the six digit code version of the national mobile payment system works for me fine. Things might get stickier if you go fully de-Googled though, haven't tried that
@quixoticgeek
Grrrr, that would be quite an issue!
@Maker_of_Things @quixoticgeek My banking app only works on stock Android and not rooted! I found out when I rooted my tablet a while back and it told me off!
@quixoticgeek
I can really see why Mum tells me I should be withdrawing cash and hiding it away.
She is expecting war, having lived through WW2 and the revolution in China.
@Maker_of_Things @quixoticgeek I’m constantly being asked by family members recommendations on money investment. I’ve said for a year get it out of America. Depending upon where we are up to I have suggested multiple things. I bought my gold more than a year ago.
@Maker_of_Things @quixoticgeek Seventh and last, phones are internet, as are banks.
Internet root DNS is in the US; not as completely as it was, but no one has been doing "let's turn the root DNS off and see what happens" testing, so let's just assume that the whole thing falls over if the US turns the DNS service off.
This takes out the entire machinery of the economy; the ability to transfer money, credit, and all the stuff (like fuel deliveries) that require the credit system.
@Maker_of_Things here in .NL all cash machines have a dependency on AWS...
@quixoticgeek interesting thought. I wonder if I could get my android phone switched to Linux or something
@quixoticgeek the other comments on this are correct but i will also add that Google and Apple (among others) really like money and would probably find a way to get exceptions on the basis of civilian use or something.
if the US truly cut off all trade relations with Europe, the US economy would be fully cooked anyway. the EU is the US" biggest trading partner!
@bigmarinara oh yes. This is totally mutually assured destruction. EU nations have $8Tn of us debt, if they call it in, that's the US economy bricked. Etc... this doesn't end well for anyone. At all. It would be an event on the scale of the collapse of the Roman empire in the mark it would make on human society and history.
@quixoticgeek i think we're already at "collapse of the Roman Empire" levels of shit by now
no matter what happens next, Trump has blown up the world order the US has sat atop for the past 80 years. all because he and his goons just had to be really, really racist... it's truly something.
@quixoticgeek Theoretically yes. Although what would actually happen who knows. It's a step nobody has really tested
But in theory
- Every Android phone stops doing Google services, and any US managed one gets turned into a brick
- Every iphone is a brick
- Every windows PC ransomwares itself
- Every home appliance with a US connection is destroyed or worse
- Every US controlled home battery and solar device stops working
and so on. This is why in reverse the US is scared of China
@etchedpixels @quixoticgeek Almost every fibre of my being is hoping that this madness passes soon and we never find out.
But I have to admit to having some curiosity about how it all would really play out. Again, I don't really want to live through it, and I certainly don't want the U.S. to go down this road and upend our relationships (further) with the rest of the world. But I do have a morbid fascination about what would happen... because if it did, it would be one hell of a shitshow.
@jzb
I hope the world can learn about the problems of centralization even without this going much further.
There was some talk by the US government of splitting out Chrome from Google. My dad and I discussed this a bit...
I think Google is too big. But I think the way it needs to be split is not by taking out one product that isn't high friction to switch.
IMO The change we need is making it easy to move across services & suggested and smaller service providers.
@jzb
That I need a phone blessed by one of two tech giants to run certain apps is a bigger problem than one dominant browser.
And regarding that browser issue, the bigger problem is web sites being made that require it to function. That only enforces the monopoly. Especially when those web sites are ones that you need for paying bills/taxes. There was a similar problem with MSIE 25 years ago, but then the web was less mandatory for daily life.
@jzb @etchedpixels @quixoticgeek remember what depends on Google / Amazon / Apple. I'm in Canada and our Governments host everything on US infrastructure. Quebec Healthcare? Azure. BC elections ? Azure. Etc. (that's for the one I do know) Filing taxes? Intuit. The PC in offices ? Microsoft.
Our F35 (overpriced fighter jets)? The remote kill switch is american. The maintenance can only be done by the US company.
Yes, as a nation we are THAT stupid.
@hub Humans in general are not real good at this kind of planning and threat detection. They're just not.
A lot of sci-fi imagines the human race encountering alien life and civilizations that are more advanced than we are. I think we've already invented technology, systems, and structures that are too complex for us to control. And we've let the worst possible people take the wheel.
Sigh. Is 9 a.m. too early for Scotch? Asking for a friend...
@etchedpixels @quixoticgeek It's a damn shame this isn't a movie and not real life. Then again, if you made a movie of this, critics would tear it to shreds. Who would possibly believe the villains are real-life people here? A sex criminal puppet of Russia gets into the White House and has the support of more than 30% of the country? Bannon and Miller? They're effing cartoonishly evil. Absolutely two-dimensional. Roger Ebert would come back from the dead to give it two thumbs down.
And this is our life...
@jzb @etchedpixels @quixoticgeek If it wasn't for the loss of life and bodily harm, the chaos engineer in me really wants this to happen once so the tightly coupled and largely unnecessary dependencies get fixed.
It's not that we can't, it's that we rather deem prevention "not cost effective".
It'd certainly be worth doing a large civil catastrophe drill on.
@etchedpixels @quixoticgeek Properly configured Windows shouldn't brick or ransomware. But they've made it increasingly hard to properly configure. And there may be unknown backdoors by which it could be done more intentionally.
@claralistensprechen3rd @dalias @quixoticgeek Not if they pushed an update to erase it, or if you've got bitlocker dependencies.
@etchedpixels @claralistensprechen3rd @quixoticgeek A properly configured Windows doesn't install updates until you run out of "shut up and remind me later" and fail to find the way to bypass that.
@dalias
Nah, a properly configured Windows is called Linux. 
@quixoticgeek oh and needless to say those nice Tesla cars won't be going anywhere but nor will any US controlled ICE car either or anything with a US cloud based security system
@etchedpixels @quixoticgeek Most of the streaming media (Netflix, Amazon, Spotify) gone. No AWS. No Azure..
Nobody is going to test that..
@tony @etchedpixels yeah. MasterCard and visa are gonna stop working too, I assume.
@quixoticgeek Apple phones would cease to get OS updates, and presumably lose access to iCloud, maybe email. But it’s possible to use one without iCloud.
…notifications would be a pain though, I think they need to work through Apple servers.
@quixoticgeek the same applies to Apple phones
@DrHyde I assume as much, but I have only had an apple phone for 1 week, so don't have direct experience of them really
