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			526 lines
		
	
	
		
			37 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			HTML
		
	
	
	
	
	
| <!DOCTYPE html>
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| <html lang="en" prefix="og: https://ogp.me/ns#">
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|     <head>
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|         <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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|         <title>Usage guide | GrapheneOS</title>
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|         <meta name="description" content="Usage instructions for GrapheneOS, a security and privacy focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility."/>
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|         <script type="module" src="/js/redirect.js"></script>
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|     </head>
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|     <body>
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|         <header>
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|             <nav id="site-menu">
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|                 <ul>
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|                     <li><a href="/">GrapheneOS</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="/features">Features</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="/install/">Install</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="/build">Build</a></li>
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|                     <li aria-current="page"><a href="/usage">Usage</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="/faq">FAQ</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="/releases">Releases</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="/source">Source</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="/history/">History</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="/articles/">Articles</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="/donate">Donate</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="/contact">Contact</a></li>
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|                 </ul>
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|             </nav>
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|         </header>
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|         <main id="usage">
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|             <h1><a href="#usage">Usage guide</a></h1>
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|             <p>This is a guide covering some aspects of using GrapheneOS. See the
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|             <a href="/features">features page</a> for a list of GrapheneOS features.</p>
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| 
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|             <nav id="table-of-contents">
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|                 <h2><a href="#table-of-contents">Table of contents</a></h2>
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|                 <ul>
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|                     <li><a href="#auditor">Auditor</a></li>
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|                     <li>
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|                         <a href="#updates">Updates</a>
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|                         <ul>
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|                             <li><a href="#updates-settings">Settings</a></li>
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|                             <li><a href="#updates-security">Security</a></li>
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|                             <li><a href="#updates-disabling">Disabling</a></li>
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|                             <li><a href="#updates-sideloading">Sideloading</a></li>
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|                         </ul>
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|                     </li>
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|                     <li><a href="#web-browsing">Web browsing</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="#camera">Camera</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="#exec-spawning">Exec spawning</a></li>
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|                     <li><a href="#bugs-uncovered-by-security-features">Bugs uncovered by security features</a></li>
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|                     <li>
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|                         <a href="#wifi-privacy">Wi-Fi privacy</a>
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|                         <ul>
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|                             <li><a href="#wifi-privacy-scanning">Scanning</a></li>
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|                             <li><a href="#wifi-privacy-associated">Associated with an Access Point (AP)</a></li>
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|                         </ul>
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|                     </li>
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|                     <li><a href="#lte-only-mode">LTE-only mode</a></li>
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|                 </ul>
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|             </nav>
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| 
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|             <section id="auditor">
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|                 <h2><a href="#auditor">Auditor</a></h2>
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|                 <p>See the <a href="https://attestation.app/tutorial">tutorial page on the site for the attestation sub-project</a>.</p>
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|             </section>
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| 
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|             <section id="updates">
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|                 <h2><a href="#updates">Updates</a></h2>
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| 
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|                 <p>The update system implements automatic background updates. It checks for updates
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|                 approximately once every four hours when there's network connectivity and then
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|                 downloads and installs updates in the background. It will pick up where it left off if
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|                 downloads are interrupted, so you don't need to worry about interrupting it.
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|                 Similarly, interrupting the installation isn't a risk because updates are installed to
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|                 a secondary installation of GrapheneOS which only becomes the active installation
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|                 after the update is complete. Once the update is complete, you'll be informed with a
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|                 notification and simply need to reboot with the button in the notification or via a
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|                 normal reboot. If the new version fails to boot, the OS will be rolled back to the
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|                 past version and the updater will attempt to download and install the update
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|                 again.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>The updater will use incremental (delta) updates to download only changes rather
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|                 than the whole OS when one is available to go directly from the installed version to
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|                 the latest version. As long as you have working network connectivity on a regular
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|                 basis and reboot when asked, you'll almost always be on one of the past couple
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|                 versions of the OS which will minimize bandwidth usage since incrementals will always
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|                 be available.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>The updater works while the device is locked / idle, including before the first
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|                 unlock since it's explicitly designed to be able to run before decryption of user
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|                 data.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>Release changelogs are available <a href="/releases#changelog">in a section on the releases page</a>.</p>
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| 
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|                 <section id="updates-settings">
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|                     <h3><a href="#updates-settings">Settings</a></h3>
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| 
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|                     <p>The settings are available in the Settings app in System ➔ Advanced ➔ Update
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|                     settings.</p>
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| 
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|                     <p>The "Check for updates" option will manually trigger an update check as soon as
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|                     possible. It will still wait for the configuration conditions listed below to be
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|                     satisfied, such as being connected to the internet via one of the permitted network
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|                     types.</p>
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| 
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|                     <p>The "Release channel" setting can be changed from the default Stable channel to the
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|                     Beta channel if you want to help with testing. The Beta channel will usually simply
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|                     follow the Stable channel, but the Beta channel may be used to experiment with new
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|                     features.</p>
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| 
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|                     <p>The "Permitted networks" setting controls which networks will be used to perform
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|                     updates. It defaults to using any network connection. It can be set to "Non-roaming"
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|                     to disable it when the cellular service is marked as roaming or "Unmetered" to disable
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|                     it on cellular networks and also Wi-Fi networks marked as metered.</p>
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| 
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|                     <p>The "Require battery above warning level" setting controls whether updates will
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|                     only be performed when the battery is above the level where the warning message is
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|                     shown. The standard value is at 15% capacity.</p>
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| 
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|                     <p>Enabling the opt-in "Automatic reboot" setting allows the updater to reboot the
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|                     device after an update once it has been idle for a long time. When this setting is
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|                     enabled, a device can take care of any number of updates completely automatically even
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|                     if it's left completely idle.</p>
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|                 </section>
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| 
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|                 <section id="updates-security">
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|                     <h3><a href="#updates-security">Security</a></h3>
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| 
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|                     <p>The update server isn't a trusted party since updates are signed and verified along
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|                     with downgrade attacks being prevented. The update protocol doesn't send identifiable
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|                     information to the update server and works well over a VPN / Tor. GrapheneOS isn't
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|                     able to comply with a government order to build, sign and ship a malicious update to a
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|                     specific user's device based on information like the IMEI, serial number, etc. The
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|                     update server only ends up knowing the IP address used to connect to it and the
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|                     version being upgraded from based on the requested incremental.</p>
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| 
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|                     <p>Android updates can support serialno constraints to make them validate only on a
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|                     certain device but GrapheneOS rejects any update with a serialno constraint for both
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|                     over-the-air updates (Updater app) and sideloaded updates (recovery).</p>
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|                 </section>
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| 
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|                 <section id="updates-disabling">
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|                     <h3><a href="#updates-disabling">Disabling</a></h3>
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| 
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|                     <p>It's highly recommended to leave automatic updates enabled and to configure the
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|                     permitted networks if the bandwidth usage is a problem on your mobile data connection.
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|                     However, it's possible to turn off the update client by going to Settings ➔ Apps,
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|                     enabling Show system via the menu, selecting Seamless Update Client and disabling the
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|                     app.  If you do this, you'll need to remember to enable it again to start receiving
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|                     updates.</p>
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|                 </section>
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| 
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|                 <section id="updates-sideloading">
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|                     <h3><a href="#updates-sideloading">Sideloading</a></h3>
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| 
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|                     <p>Updates can be downloaded via
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|                     <a href="https://grapheneos.org/releases">the releases page</a> and installed via recovery
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|                     with adb sideloading. The zip files are signed and verified by recovery, just as they
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|                     are by the update client within the OS. This includes providing downgrade protection,
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|                     which prevents attempting to downgrade the version. If recovery didn't enforce these
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|                     things, they would still be enforced via verified boot including downgrade protection
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|                     and the attempted update would just fail to boot and be rolled back.</p>
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| 
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|                     <p>To install one by sideloading, first, boot into recovery. You may do this either by
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|                     using <code>adb reboot recovery</code> from the operating system, or by selecting the
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|                     "Recovery" option in the bootloader interface.</p>
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| 
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|                     <p>You should see the green Android lying on its back being repaired, with the text "No
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|                     command" meaning that no command has been passed to recovery.</p>
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| 
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|                     <p>Next, access the recovery menu by holding down the power button and pressing the volume
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|                     up button a single time. This key combination toggles between the GUI and text-based mode
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|                     with the menu and log output.</p>
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| 
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|                     <p>Finally, select the "Apply update from ADB" option in the recovery menu and
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|                     sideload the update with adb. For example:</p>
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| 
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|                     <pre>adb sideload blueline-ota_update-2019.07.01.21.zip</pre>
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| 
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|                     <p><strong>You do not need to have adb enabled within the OS or the host's ADB key
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|                     whitelisted within the OS to sideload an update to recovery. Recovery mode does not
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|                     trust the attached computer and this can be considered a production feature. Trusting
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|                     a computer with ADB access within the OS is much different and exposes the device to a
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|                     huge amount of attack surface and control by the trusted computer.</strong></p>
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|                 </section>
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|             </section>
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| 
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|             <section id="usb-peripherals">
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|                 <h2><a href="#usb-peripherals">USB peripherals</a></h2>
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| 
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|                 <p>GrapheneOS defaults to ignoring connected USB peripherals when the device is
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|                 already booted and the screen is locked. A USB device already connected at boot
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|                 will still work. The purpose is reducing attack surface for a locked device with
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|                 active login sessions to user profiles to protect data that's not at rest. This
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|                 can be controlled in Settings ➔ Security ➔ USB accessories. The options are:</p>
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| 
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|                 <ul>
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|                     <li>Disallow new USB peripherals</li>
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|                     <li>Allow new USB peripherals when unlocked (default)</li>
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|                     <li>Allow new USB peripherals (like stock Android)</li>
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|                 </ul>
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| 
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|                 <p>This option has no impact on the device acting as a USB peripheral itself when
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|                 connected to a computer. Android defaults to charge only mode and requires opt-in
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|                 to the device being used for file transfer, USB tethering, MIDI or PTP.</p>
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|             </section>
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| 
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|             <section id="web-browsing">
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|                 <h2><a href="#web-browsing">Web browsing</a></h2>
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| 
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|                 <p>GrapheneOS includes a Vanadium subproject providing privacy and security enhanced
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|                 releases of Chromium. Vanadium is both the user-facing browser included in the OS and
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|                 the provider of the WebView used by other apps to render web content. The WebView is
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|                 the browser engine used by the vast majority of web browsers and nearly all other apps
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|                 embedding web content or using web technologies for other uses.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>Using Vanadium is highly recommended. Bromite is a solid alternative and is the
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|                 only other browser we recommend. Bromite provides integrated ad-blocking and more
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|                 advanced anti-fingerprinting. For now, Vanadium is more focused on security hardening
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|                 and Bromite is more focused on anti-fingerprinting. The projects are collaborating
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|                 together and will likely converge to providing more of the same features. Vanadium
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|                 will be providing content filtering and anti-fingerprinting, but it needs to be done
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|                 in a way that meets the standards of the project, which takes time.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>Vanadium is designed for use on GrapheneOS and does not duplicate the OS privacy
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|                 and security features such as the hardened malloc implementation. This leads to some
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|                 of the differences from Bromite, such as relying on OS support for encrypted DNS
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|                 rather than enabling Chromium's DNS-over-HTTPS support.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>Chromium-based browsers like Vanadium and Bromite provide the strongest sandbox
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|                 implementation, leagues ahead of the alternatives. It is much harder to escape from
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|                 the sandbox and it provides much more than acting as a barrier to compromising the
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|                 rest of the OS. Site isolation enforces security boundaries around each site using the
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|                 sandbox by placing each site into an isolated sandbox. It required a huge overhaul of
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|                 the browser since it has to enforce these rules on all the IPC APIs. Site isolation is
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|                 important even without a compromise, due to side channels. Browsers without site
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|                 isolation are very vulnerable to attacks like Spectre. On mobile, due to the lack of
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|                 memory available to apps, there are different modes for site isolation. Vanadium turns
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|                 on strict site isolation, matching Chromium on the desktop. Bromite enables strict
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|                 site isolation on high memory devices, including all the devices that are officially
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|                 supported by GrapheneOS.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>Chromium has decent exploit mitigations, unlike the available alternatives. This is
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|                 improved upon in Vanadium by enabling further mitigations, including those developed
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|                 upstream but not yet fully enabled due to code size, memory usage or performance. For
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|                 example, it enables type-based CFI like Chromium on the desktop, uses a stronger SSP
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|                 configuration, zero initializes variables by default, etc. Some of the mitigations are
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|                 inherited from the OS itself, which also applies to other browsers, at least if they
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|                 don't do things to break them.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>We recommend against trying to achieve browser privacy and security through piling
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|                 on browser extensions and modifications. Most privacy features for browsers are
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|                 privacy theater without a clear threat model and these features often reduce privacy
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|                 by aiding fingerprinting and adding more state shared between sites. Every change you
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|                 make results in you standing out from the crowd and generally provides more ways to
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|                 track you. Enumerating badness via content filtering is not a viable approach to
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|                 achieving decent privacy, just as AntiVirus isn't a viable way to achieving decent
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|                 security. These are losing battles, and are at best a stopgap reducing exposure while
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|                 waiting for real privacy and security features.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>Vanadium will be following the school of thought where hiding the IP address
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|                 through Tor or a trusted VPN shared between many users is the essential baseline, with
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|                 the browser partitioning state based on site and mitigating fingerprinting to avoid
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|                 that being trivially bypassed. The Tor Browser's approach is the only one with any
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|                 real potential, however flawed the current implementation may be. This work is
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|                 currently in a very early stage and it is largely being implemented upstream with the
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|                 strongest available implementation of state partitioning. Chromium is using Network
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|                 Isolation Keys to divide up connection pools, caches and other state based on site and
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|                 this will be the foundation for privacy. Chromium itself aims to prevent tracking
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|                 through mechanisms other than cookies, greatly narrowing the scope downstream work
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|                 needs to cover. Bromite is doing a lot of work in these areas and Vanadium will be
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|                 benefiting from that along with this upstream work. The focus is currently on research
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|                 since we don't see much benefit in deploying bits and pieces of this before everything
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|                 is ready to come together. At the moment, the only browser with any semblance of
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|                 privacy is the Tor Browser but there are many ways to bypass the anti-fingerprinting
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|                 and state partitioning. The Tor Browser's security is weak which makes the privacy
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|                 protection weak. The need to avoid diversity (fingerprinting) creates a monoculture
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|                 for the most interesting targets. This needs to change, especially since Tor itself
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|                 makes people into much more of a target (both locally and by the exit nodes).</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>WebView-based browsers use the hardened Vanadium rendering engine, but they can't
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|                 offer as much privacy and control due to being limited to the capabilities supported
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|                 by the WebView widget. For example, they can't provide a setting for toggling sensors
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|                 access because the feature is fairly new and the WebView WebSettings API doesn't yet
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|                 include support for it as it does for JavaScript, location, cookies, DOM storage and
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|                 other older features. For sensors, the Sensors app permission added by GrapheneOS can
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|                 be toggled off for the browser app as a whole instead. The WebView sandbox also
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|                 currently runs every instance within the same sandbox and doesn't support site
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|                 isolation.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they're currently much more vulnerable
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|                 to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn't have
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|                 a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be
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|                 used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means
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|                 having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one.
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|                 Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS
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|                 hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox runs as a single process on mobile and
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|                 has no sandbox beyond the OS sandbox. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic
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|                 sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS <code>isolatedProcess</code>
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|                 feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to
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|                 provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running
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|                 them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox's sandbox is
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|                 still substantially weaker (especially on Linux, where it can hardly be considered a
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|                 sandbox at all) and lacks support for isolating sites from each other rather than only
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|                 containing content as a whole.</p>
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|             </section>
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| 
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|             <section id="camera">
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|                 <h2><a href="#camera">Camera</a></h2>
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| 
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|                 <p>The Camera app included in GrapheneOS is very basic and can't take full advantage
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|                 of the hardware. It doesn't offer much in the way of configuration. In the long term,
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|                 it's going to be replaced. In the short term, there are other apps available providing
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|                 more capabilities and better support for taking advantage of the hardware.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>The Pixel 3 (but not the Pixel 3a) and Pixel 4 (but not the Pixel 4a) have a
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|                 Pixel Visual Core / Pixel Neural Core providing a hardware-based implementation of
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|                 HDR+. HDR+ captures many images and intelligently merges data across them, taking
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|                 into account motion, etc. It substantially improves the quality of images,
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|                 especially in low light. This is used transparently for third party apps that are
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|                 compatible with it, and there isn't an explicit switch to turn it on or off for
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|                 most of them. An example of a compatible app is Open Camera's default
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|                 configuration, or Open Camera with the Camera 2 API and other settings (including
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|                 the the various knobs / toggles outside of the settings menu) left alone. In
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|                 general, HDR+ will work transparently in most apps as long as they keep things
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|                 simple and use a good minimalist approach to taking pictures. It should work
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|                 transparently in most messaging apps, etc. with internal support for taking
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|                 pictures.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>In addition to supporting HDR+ via the Pixel Visual Core, or similar features on
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|                 other devices with the same constraints, Open Camera offers advanced configuration and
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|                 various advanced features. Make sure to enable the Camera 2 API in the settings, which
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|                 should be the default, but the app doesn't have a great user interface / user
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|                 experience. You probably don't want to use the traditional HDR feature in the app.
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|                 That's not HDR+, but rather captures 3 images and merges them in a way that isn't at
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|                 all intelligent and causes a lot of blur and distortion. The HDR+ implementation can
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|                 actually benefit from the camera not being completely steady as it's smart enough to
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|                 match up the picture and it provides it with more data vs. a traditional HDR
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|                 implementation where it essentially doesn't work without a tripod and is not really at
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|                 all useful on a phone unless you actually have that for it.</p>
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|             </section>
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| 
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|             <section id="exec-spawning">
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|                 <h2><a href="#exec-spawning">Exec spawning</a></h2>
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| 
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|                 <p>GrapheneOS creates fresh processes (via exec) when spawning applications instead of
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|                 using the traditional Zygote spawning model. This improves privacy and security at the
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|                 expense of higher cold start app spawning time and higher initial memory usage. It
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|                 doesn't impact runtime performance beyond the initial spawning time. It adds somewhere
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|                 in the ballpark of 100ms to app spawning time on the flagship devices and is only very
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|                 noticeable on lower-end devices with a weaker CPU and slower storage. The spawning
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|                 time impact only applies when the app doesn't already have an app process and the OS
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|                 will try to keep app processes cached in the background until memory pressure forces
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|                 it to start killing them.</p>
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| 
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|                 <p>In the typical Zygote model, a template app process is created during boot and
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|                 every app is spawned as a clone of it. This results in every app sharing the same
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|                 initial memory content and layout, including sharing secrets that are meant to be
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|                 randomized for each process. It saves time by reusing the initialization work. The
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|                 initial memory usage is reduced due to copy-on-write semantics resulting in memory
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|                 written only during initialization being shared between app processes.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                 <p>The Zygote model weakens the security provided by features based on random secrets
 | |
|                 including Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), stack canaries, heap canaries,
 | |
|                 randomized heap layout and memory tags. It cripples these security features since
 | |
|                 every app has the values for every other app and the values don't change for fresh app
 | |
|                 processes until reboot. Much of the OS itself is implemented via non-user-facing apps
 | |
|                 with privileges reserved for OS components. The Zygote template is reused across user
 | |
|                 profiles, so it also provides a temporary set of device identifiers across profiles
 | |
|                 for each boot via the shared randomized values.</p>
 | |
|             </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
|             <section id="bugs-uncovered-by-security-features">
 | |
|                 <h2><a href="#bugs-uncovered-by-security-features">Bugs uncovered by security features</a></h2>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                 <p>GrapheneOS substantially expands the standard mitigations for memory corruption
 | |
|                 vulnerabilities. Some of these features are designed to directly catch the memory
 | |
|                 corruption bugs either via an explicit check or memory protection and abort the
 | |
|                 program in order to prevent them from being exploited. Other features mitigate issues
 | |
|                 a bit less directly such as zeroing data immediately upon free, isolated memory
 | |
|                 regions, heap randomization, etc. and can also lead to latent memory corruption bugs
 | |
|                 crashing instead of the program continuing onwards with corrupted memory. This means
 | |
|                 that many latent memory corruption bugs in apps are caught along with some in the OS
 | |
|                 itself. These bugs are not caused by GrapheneOS, but rather already existed and are
 | |
|                 uncovered by the features. The features are aimed at preventing or hindering exploits,
 | |
|                 not finding bugs, but they do that as part of doing their actual job.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                 <p>Similarly, some of the other privacy and security improvements reduce the access
 | |
|                 available to applications and they may crash. Some of these features are always
 | |
|                 enabled under the hood, while others like the Network and Sensors toggles are
 | |
|                 controlled by users via opt-in or opt-out toggles. Apps may not handle having access
 | |
|                 taken away like this, although it generally doesn't cause any issues as it's all
 | |
|                 designed to be friendly to apps and fully compatible rather than killing the
 | |
|                 application when it violates the rules.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                 <p>If you run into an application aborting, try to come up with a process for
 | |
|                 reproducing the issue and then capture a bug report via the 'Take bug report' feature
 | |
|                 in Developer options. Report an issue to the GrapheneOS OS issue tracker and email the
 | |
|                 bug report capture zip to contact@grapheneos.org with the issue tracker number in the
 | |
|                 subject like "Bug report capture for issue #104". The bug report capture includes
 | |
|                 plain text 'tombstones' with logs, tracebacks, address space layout, register content
 | |
|                 and a tiny bit of context from memory from areas that are interesting for debugging.
 | |
|                 This may contain some sensitive data. Feel free to provide only the tombstone for the
 | |
|                 relevant crash and filter out information you don't want to send. However, it will be
 | |
|                 more difficult to debug if you provide less of the information. If the app doesn't
 | |
|                 work with sensitive information, just send the whole tombstone.</p>
 | |
|             </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
|             <section id="wifi-privacy">
 | |
|                 <h2><a href="#wifi-privacy">Wi-Fi privacy</a></h2>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                 <p>Wi-Fi on GrapheneOS is very privacy-friendly and is essentially anonymous as long
 | |
|                 as apps do not leak uniquely identifying information to the network. GrapheneOS avoids
 | |
|                 allowing itself to be fingerprinted as GrapheneOS, other than connections which are
 | |
|                 documented (see the FAQ) and can be easily disabled or forced through a VPN
 | |
|                 service.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                 <section id="wifi-privacy-scanning">
 | |
|                     <h3><a href="#wifi-privacy-scanning">Scanning</a></h3>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                     <p>MAC randomization is always performed for Wi-Fi scanning. Pixel
 | |
|                     phones have firmware support for scanning MAC randomization going
 | |
|                     <a href="https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/04/changes-to-device-identifiers-in.html">significantly beyond a naive implementation</a>.
 | |
|                     On many other devices, there are identifiers exposed by Wi-Fi scanning beyond the MAC
 | |
|                     address such as the packet sequence number and assorted identifying information in the
 | |
|                     probe requests.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                     <p>Avoid using hidden APs (i.e. APs not broadcasting their SSID) since all
 | |
|                     known hidden SSIDs end up being broadcast as part of scanning for networks to
 | |
|                     find them again. SSIDs are not broadcast for standard non-hidden APs. Hidden
 | |
|                     APs are only hidden when no devices are connected. It makes little sense as a
 | |
|                     privacy feature, especially for a non-mobile AP where knowing the AP exists
 | |
|                     can't be used for tracking it since it doesn't move. The feature reduces your
 | |
|                     privacy rather than increasing it. If you need to use a hidden AP, make sure
 | |
|                     to delete the saved network afterwards.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                     <p>Wi-Fi and Bluetooth scanning for improving location detection are disabled by
 | |
|                     default, unlike the stock OS. These can be toggled in Settings ➔ Location ➔ Wi-Fi and
 | |
|                     Bluetooth scanning. These features enable scanning even when Wi-Fi or Bluetooth is
 | |
|                     disabled, so these need to be kept disabled to fully disable the radios when Wi-Fi and
 | |
|                     Bluetooth are disabled. GrapheneOS doesn't yet have an implementation of a coarse
 | |
|                     location service to supplement GPS location, so enabling these options doesn't
 | |
|                     actually do anything at the moment. Implementing a supplementary location service is
 | |
|                     planned but we need a robust, secure and private implementation via a local database.
 | |
|                     The initial focus will likely be a cell phone tower database, so these features still
 | |
|                     wouldn't be relevant.</p>
 | |
|                 </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                 <section id="wifi-privacy-associated">
 | |
|                     <h3><a href="#wifi-privacy-associated">Associated with an Access Point (AP)</a></h3>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                     <p>The DHCP client uses the anonymity profile rather than sending a hostname so it
 | |
|                     doesn't compromise the privacy offered by MAC randomization.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                     <p>Associated MAC randomization is performed by default. This can be controlled
 | |
|                     per-network with Settings ➔ Network & Internet ➔ Wi-Fi ➔ <network> ➔
 | |
|                     Advanced  ➔ Privacy.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                     <p>In the stock OS, the default is to use a unique persistent random MAC address for
 | |
|                     each network. It has 2 options available: "Use randomized MAC (default)" and "Use
 | |
|                     device MAC". In GrapheneOS, the default is generating a new random MAC address when
 | |
|                     connecting to a network. It has 3 options available: "Use fully randomized MAC
 | |
|                     (default)", "Use per-network randomized MAC" and "Use device MAC".</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                     <p>GrapheneOS also disables support for stable link-local IPv6 addresses, since these
 | |
|                     have the potential to be used as identifiers. It's more sensible to use typical
 | |
|                     link-local address generation based on the (randomized) MAC address since link-local
 | |
|                     devices have access to both. As of Android 11, Android only uses stable link-local
 | |
|                     privacy addresses when MAC randomization is disabled, so we no longer need to disable
 | |
|                     the feature.</p>
 | |
|                 </section>
 | |
|             </section>
 | |
| 
 | |
|             <section id="lte-only-mode">
 | |
|                 <h2><a href="#lte-only-mode">LTE-only mode</a></h2>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                 <p>If you have a reliable LTE connection from your carrier, you can reduce attack
 | |
|                 surface by disabling 2G / 3G connectivity in Settings ➔ Network & Internet ➔
 | |
|                 Mobile network ➔ Preferred network type. Traditional voice calls will only work in
 | |
|                 the LTE-only mode if you have either an LTE connection and VoLTE (Voice over LTE)
 | |
|                 support or a Wi-Fi connection and VoWi-Fi (Voice over Wi-Fi) support. VoLTE /
 | |
|                 VoWi-Fi works on GrapheneOS for most carriers unless they restrict it to carrier
 | |
|                 phones. US carriers other than T-Mobile tend to be missing these features due to
 | |
|                 us not including their proprietary apps.</p>
 | |
| 
 | |
|                 <p>This feature is not intended to improve the confidentiality of traditional calls and
 | |
|                 texts, but it might somewhat raise the bar for some forms of interception. It's not a
 | |
|                 substitute for end-to-end encrypted calls / texts or even transport layer encryption.
 | |
|                 LTE does provide basic network authentication / encryption, but it's for the network
 | |
|                 itself. The intention of the LTE-only feature is only hardening against remote
 | |
|                 exploitation by disabling an enormous amount of legacy code.</p>
 | |
|             </section>
 | |
|         </main>
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