289 lines
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HTML
289 lines
20 KiB
HTML
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<li aria-current="page"><a href="/">GrapheneOS</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><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="/contact">Contact</a></li>
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<h1 id="grapheneos">
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<a href="#grapheneos">GrapheneOS</a>
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</h1>
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<p>GrapheneOS is an <a href="/source">open source</a> privacy and security focused
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mobile OS with Android app compatibility. It's focused on the research and development
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of privacy and security technology including substantial improvements to sandboxing,
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exploit mitigations and the permission model. GrapheneOS also develops various apps
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and services with a focus on privacy and security. Vanadium is a hardened variant of
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the Chromium browser and WebView specifically built for GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS also
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includes our minimal security-focused PDF Viewer, our hardware-based Auditor app / attestation
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service providing local and remote verification of devices, and the externally
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developed Seedvault encrypted backup which was initially developed for inclusion in
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GrapheneOS.</p>
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<p>GrapheneOS is a collaborative open source project, not a company. It's used and
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supported by a variety of companies and other organizations. It won't be closely tied
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to any company in particular. There will eventually be a non-profit GrapheneOS
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foundation, but for now the developers represent the project.</p>
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<p>GrapheneOS improves the privacy and security of the OS from the bottom up. It
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has a hardened kernel, libc, malloc and compiler toolchain with many low-level
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improvements. These changes are designed to eliminate whole classes of serious
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vulnerabilities or provide meaningful barriers to exploitation. We avoid making
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changes without a clear rationale and we regularly work towards simplifying and
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replacing these low-level improvements. The malloc implementation is our own <a
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href="https://github.com/GrapheneOS/hardened_malloc/blob/master/README.md">hardened_malloc</a>
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providing cutting edge security for modern systems. The hardened_malloc project is
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portable to other Linux-based operating systems and is being adopted by other
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security-focused operating systems like Whonix. The <a
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href="https://github.com/GrapheneOS/hardened_malloc/blob/master/README.md">hardened_malloc
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README</a> has extensive documentation on it. Our work also heavily influenced the
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design of the <a href="https://www.openwall.com/lists/musl/2020/05/13/1">next-generation
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musl malloc implementation</a> which offers substantially better security than musl's
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previous malloc while still having minimal memory usage and code size.</p>
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<p>There are also many under-the-hood changes at a higher level, including major
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improvements to SELinux policies particularly for the app sandbox. GrapheneOS tries to
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avoid impacting the user experience with the privacy and security features. Ideally,
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the features can be designed so that they're always enabled with no impact on the user
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experience and no additional complexity like configuration options. It's not always
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feasible, and GrapheneOS does add various toggles for features like the Network
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permission, Sensors permission, restrictions when the device is locked (USB
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peripherals, camera, quick tiles), etc. along with more complex user-facing privacy
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and security features with their own UX.</p>
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<p>GrapheneOS has made substantial contributions to the privacy and security of the
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Android Open Source Project, along with contributions to the Linux kernel, LLVM,
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OpenBSD and other projects. Much of our past work is no longer part of the downstream
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GrapheneOS project because we've successfully landed many patches upstream. We've had
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even more success with making suggestions and participating in design discussions to
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steer things in the direction we want. Many upstream changes in AOSP such as removing
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app access to low-level process, network, timing and profiling information originated
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in the GrapheneOS project. The needs of the upstream projects are often different from
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ours, so they'll often reimplement the features in a more flexible way. We've almost
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always been able to move to using the upstream features and even when we still need
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our own implementation it helps to have the concepts/restrictions considered by the
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upstream project and apps needing to be compatible with it. Getting features upstream
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often leads to an improved user experience and app compatibility.</p>
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<p>Official releases are available on the <a href="/releases">releases page</a> and
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installation instructions are on the <a href="/install">install page</a>.</p>
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<p>The official GrapheneOS releases are supported by our
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<a href="https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Auditor/releases">Auditor app</a> and
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<a href="https://attestation.app/">attestation service</a>. The Auditor app and
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attestation service provide strong hardware-based verification of the authenticity and
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integrity of the firmware/software on the device. A strong pairing-based approach is
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used which also provides verification of the device's identity based on the hardware
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backed key generated for each pairing. Software-based checks are layered on top with
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trust securely chained from the hardware. For more details, see the <a
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href="https://attestation.app/about">about page</a> and <a
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href="https://attestation.app/tutorial">tutorial</a>. These also support other
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operating systems.</p>
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<h2 id="never-google-services">
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<a href="#never-google-services">No Google apps or services</a>
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</h2>
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<p>GrapheneOS will never include either Google Play services or another implementation
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of Google services like microG. Those are not part of the Android Open Source Project
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and are not required for baseline Android compatibility. Apps designed to run on
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Android rather than only Android with bundled Google apps and services already work on
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GrapheneOS, so a huge number of both open and closed source apps are already available
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for it.</p>
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<p>AOSP APIs not tied to Google but that are typically provided via Play services will
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continue to be implemented using open source providers like the Seedvault backup app.
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Text-to-speech, voice-to-text, non-GPS-based location services, geocoding,
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accessibility services, etc. are examples of other open Android APIs where we need to
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develop/bundle an implementation based on existing open source projects. GrapheneOS is
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not going to be implementing these via a Google service compatibility layer because
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these APIs are in no way inherently tied to Google services.</p>
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<p>We're developing support for installing microG as a regular app without any special
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privileges. This will allow users to choose to use a partial reimplementation of Play
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services in a specific profile. We won't be supporting arbitrary signature spoofing by
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microG or any other app since it seriously compromises the OS security model. Guarding
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it by a permission isn't enough, both because users don't understand the substantial
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impact on the security model and it weakens security for the verified boot threat
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model where persistent state such as granted permissions is controlled by an attacker.
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Instead, the OS will specifically make microG signed with our microG signing key
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appear to other apps as signed with the Google Play services key. It won't bypass any
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other signature checks, only a check for Play services, and other apps also won't be
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able to pretend to be Play services to intercept FCM messages, obtain Google
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credentials, etc. It will not be granted any privileged permissions or other special
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capabilities unavailable to a regular untrusted app.</p>
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<p>In the longer term, we also plan to offer a more minimal compatibility layer which
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pretends that Google services are offline rather than implementing them. Users will
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have the choice between no implementation of Play services, microG and this minimal
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implementation not implementing Google services. This choice will be available because
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we won't be bundling any of this into the OS. Ideally, Google themselves would support
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installing the official Play services as a regular Android app, rather than taking the
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monopolistic approach of forcing it to be bundled into the OS in a deeply integrated
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way with special privileged permissions and capabilities unavailable to other cloud
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service providers competing with them.</p>
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<h2 id="history">
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<a href="#history">History</a>
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</h2>
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<p>GrapheneOS was founded by Daniel Micay in late 2014. It started as a solo project
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incorporating his previous open source privacy/security work. The project initially
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created a port of OpenBSD malloc to Android's Bionic libc and a port of the PaX kernel
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patches to the kernels for the supported devices. It quickly expanded to having a
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large set of homegrown privacy and security improvements, particularly low-level
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hardening work on the compiler toolchain and Bionic. Work began on landing code
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upstream in AOSP and other upstream projects. A substantial portion of these early
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changes were either successfully landed upstream or heavily influenced the upstream
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changes which replaced them. The project was able to move very quickly in these days
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because there was so much low hanging fruit to address and it wasn't yet trying to
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produce a highly robust, production quality OS.</p>
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<p>In late 2015, a company was incorporated which became the primary sponsor of the
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project. GrapheneOS was previously known as CopperheadOS while it was sponsored by
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this company. The intention was to use the company to build a business around
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GrapheneOS selling support, contract work and customized proprietary variants of the
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OS. The company was supposed to serve the needs of the open source project, rather
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than vice versa. It was explicitly agreed that GrapheneOS would remain independently
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owned and controlled by Daniel Micay. This company failed to live up the promises and
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is no longer associated in any way with GrapheneOS. The fact that the company was
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accidentally founded as 'Coppperhead Limited' was just the beginning of a multi-year
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trainwreck holding back and poisoning a successful open source project it ended up
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leeching off rather than supporting.</p>
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<p>In 2018, the company was hijacked by the CEO who attempted to take over the project
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through coercion, but they were rebuked. They seized the infrastructure and stole the
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donations, but the project successfully moved on without them and has been fully
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revived. Since then, they've taken to fraudulently claiming ownership and authorship
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of our work, which has no basis in fact. They've tried to retroactively change the
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terms of their involvement and rewrite the history of the project. These claims are
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easily falsified through the public record and by people involved with the open source
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project and the former sponsor. This former sponsor has engaged in a campaign of
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misinformation and harassment of contributors to the project. Be aware that they are
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actively trying to sabotage GrapheneOS and are engaging in many forms of attacks
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against the project, the developers, contributors and supporters. Meanwhile, they
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continue profiting from our open source work which they falsely claim as their own
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creation.</p>
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<p>After splitting from the former sponsor, the project was rebranded to
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AndroidHardening and then to GrapheneOS and it has continued down the original path of
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being an independent open source project. It will never again be closely tied to any
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particular sponsor or company.</p>
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<h2 id="copyright-and-licensing">
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<a href="#copyright-and-licensing">Copyright and licensing</a>
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</h2>
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<p>The copyright for GrapheneOS code is entirely owned by the GrapheneOS developers
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and is made available under OSI-approved Open Source licenses. The upstream licensing
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is inherited for the modifications to those projects and MIT licensing is used for our
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own standalone projects. GrapheneOS has never had any copyright assignment and the
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developers have always owned their own contributions.</p>
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<p>The tiny portion of the code written by people under contract with the former
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sponsor has not been included in the project since it was ported from Android Oreo to
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Pie in 2018. This code became obsolete and was no longer useful. The vast majority of
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the code from the previous era was owned by Daniel Micay, with very few exceptions. It
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was never written under any contracts or employment agreements, was never assigned to
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any company or organization and was the continuation of the original independent open
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source project. The code was originally published under the same permissive open
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source licenses that are used by GrapheneOS today. Only a small portion of this
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historical code is actually still in use today. Most has become obsolete or has been
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replaced by rewrites taking better approaches than in the past.</p>
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<p>There was an era from September 2016 until the project split from the former
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sponsor in 2018 where non-commercial usage licensing was used for revisions to the
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existing permissively licensed code. This was an attempt to prop up the sponsor that
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was supposed to be supporting the open source project. This did not impact ownership
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of the code and Daniel Micay has relicensed the portions of the code that are used by
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GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS does not contain any code based on code under non-commercial
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usage licensing. Great care was taken to avoid pulling in anything that was not solely
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owned by Daniel Micay, which was the case for nearly everything in the project.</p>
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<h2 id="roadmap">
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<a href="#roadmap">Roadmap</a>
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</h2>
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<p>Details on the roadmap of the project will be posted on the site in the near
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future.</p>
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<p>To get an idea of the near term roadmap, check out the
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<a href="/contact#reporting-issues">issue trackers</a>. The vast majority of the
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issues filed in the trackers are planned enhancements, with care taken to make sure
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all of the issues open in the tracker are concrete and actionable.</p>
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<p>In the long term, GrapheneOS aims to move beyond a hardened fork of the Android
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Open Source Project. Achieving the goals requires moving away from relying on the Linux
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kernel as the core of the OS and foundation of the security model. It needs to move
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towards a microkernel-based model with a Linux compatibility layer, with many stepping
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stones leading towards that goal including adopting virtualization-based
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isolation.</p>
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<p>The initial phase for the long-term roadmap of moving away from the current
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foundation will be to deploy and integrate a hypervisor like Xen to leverage it for
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reinforcing existing security boundaries. Linux would be running inside the virtual
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machines at this point, inside and outside of the sandboxes being reinforced. In the
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longer term, Linux inside the sandboxes can be replaced with a compatibility layer
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like gVisor, which would need to be ported to arm64 and given a new backend alongside
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the existing KVM backend. Over the longer term, i.e. many years from now, Linux can
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fade away completely and so can the usage of virtualization. The anticipation is that
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many other projects are going to be interested in this kind of migration, so it's not
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going to be solely a GrapheneOS project, as demonstrated by the current existence of
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the gVisor project and various other projects working on virtualization deployments
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for mobile. Having a hypervisor with verified boot still intact will also provide a
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way to achieve some of the goals based on extensions to Trusted Execution Environment
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(TEE) functionality even without having GrapheneOS hardware.</p>
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<p>Hardware and firmware security are core parts of the project, but it's currently
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limited to research and submitting suggestions and bug reports upstream. In the long
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term, the project will need to move into the hardware space.</p>
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<h2 id="device-support">
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<a href="/faq#device-support">Device support</a>
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</h2>
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<p>See <a href="/faq#device-support">the FAQ section on device support</a>.</p>
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</main>
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<footer>
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<a href="/"><img src="/logo.png" width="512" height="512" alt=""/>GrapheneOS</a>
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<ul id="social">
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<li><a href="https://twitter.com/GrapheneOS">Twitter</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://github.com/GrapheneOS">GitHub</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS">Reddit</a></li>
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