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by exceptione13 hours ago |
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upvoteby asnelt13 hours ago|
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I couldn't immediately find whether GrapheneOS grants READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE to Google Play. It might very well be that the GrapheneOS sandbox spoofs a fake IMEI, and I do hope so.

In any case, my parent comment was meant for stock Pixels, as mentioned by armadyl further up in this thread.

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upvoteby nickspacek13 hours ago|
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https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play

> Google Play receives absolutely no special access or privileges on GrapheneOS as opposed to bypassing the app sandbox and receiving a massive amount of highly privileged access.

It doesn't mention IMEI here, but hopefully READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE is included in "privileged access."

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upvoteby exceptione12 hours ago|
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There is an AppStore app, I am not sure if this is the one we are talking about? <https://github.com/GrapheneOS/AppStore/blob/main/app/src/mai...>

That one lists:

  ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE
  ENFORCE_UPDATE_OWNERSHIP
  FOREGROUND_SERVICE
  FOREGROUND_SERVICE_SPECIAL_USE
  INSTALL_PACKAGES
  INTERNET
  POST_NOTIFICATIONS
  QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES
  RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED
  REQUEST_DELETE_PACKAGES
  REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES
  UPDATE_PACKAGES_WITHOUT_USER_ACTION
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upvoteby gruez12 hours ago|
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That's grapheneos's own app, separate from the play store or play services.
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upvoteby exceptione11 hours ago|
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True. I think this one is closer to the truth: <https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_packages_apps_GmsComp...>

There is no READ_PRIVILEGED_PHONE_STATE mentioned there.

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upvoteby gruez11 hours ago|
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That's also incorrect, because the gmscompat app is just a helper app. Play services can and does request additional permissions. Those permissions are handled by the OS under the play services app, not gmscompat. If you want RCS for instance, you must grant play services and google messages phone and ICC auth access, which isn't seen in gmscompat at all.
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upvoteby exceptione10 hours ago|
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  > That's also incorrect, because the gmscompat app is just a helper app.
Hmm, ok. I was reasoning the helper app was needed to get around the default assumptions from Google Play Services.

  >  Those permissions are handled by the OS under the play services app
Yes, but I assume you don't mean that as that GOS makes special hard-coded provisions for the play services. GOS claims to run Play Services like any other unprivileged app, and so any additional permission it would want would have to be consented by the user and should be visible to the user. If not, then GOS wording would be quite a bit unfortunate at least.

EDIT: "GmsCompatConfig is the text-based configuration for the GrapheneOS sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer. It provides a large portion of the compatibility shims." [1] This seems to indicate that the permissions requested by Play Services are being honored with the shims from the helper app. That would alleviate the permission problem.

1. https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_packages_apps_GmsComp...

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upvoteby mindslight12 hours ago|
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That's the application software side. I would assume the IMEI and IMSI are both going out to the cell network though, and I would presume that it's trivial to tie a phone number to those with how the mobile industry generally sells subscriber data to various data brokers. The only question is how permissive those data brokers are (their major constraint is how much most people become aware of this dynamic), but when dealing with a major APT like Google I'd assume they're tuned into the best ones with songs about bona fide purposes.
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upvoteby exceptione12 hours ago|
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Are you talking about the US here? I am hoping this would be off-limits in Europe.
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upvoteby mindslight11 hours ago|
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Yes I am talking with a US perspective. I would hope the GDPR would prevent such things in (most of) Europe. But I also personally wouldn't assume so given that there are still the same dynamics of keeping the info flows private to avoid scrutiny, and claiming plausible "legitimate purposes" and "consent".
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