Technology

Google says it's no different than checking IDs at the airport.

Fucker, if I own the airport, own the planes in the airport, am the only person using my own planes in my own airport, then nobody is asking for my ID.

Our phone, our software choice.

The Android ecosystem has been feeling more like an invasive chaotic advertisement machine the past few years. The play store is a cesspool, the weather app switch was poorly executed, Google Podcasts went to the graveyard, and Google pay getting shut down meant I had to switch back to vomits Venmo.

I still have Android gaming handhelds, but why wouldn't I just get an iPhone the next time I go to replace my phone? I can't believe I'm even saying that after being so die hard Android so for years.

Wtf is this

Well. They will try anyway.

Fuck Google

The phone I have now is half way paid off... I will say it. It is a Samsung S23. I didn't want it. It is just my other phone literally died from a single drop of water! I won't get into the details. But I want grapheneOS or the most private OS I can.

Right now I have been carrying my phone less than before. I used to take it even to grocery store trips, but I am just getting sick of the endless monitoring, even if I am a terminally online person. I literally cannot leave my apartment without being on camera since my landlord has all the corridors and exits/entrances on 24/7 surveillance.

I know that a phone can be tracked even when on a private OS. And the EU's rules on wanting a copy of every single message sent out from all messaging apps (including signal) will still affect non-EU people, too. It fucking sucks.

I'd also say, it's likely rooting your phone would work around this, though I don't recommend that from a security perspective.

Two things especially worth noting from the article.

If you have a non-Google build of Android on your phone, none of this applies.

This means that at least GrapheneOS will be unaffected for now. Other ROMs without gapps will be unaffected only as long as you don't install gapps. Since Graphene has a sandbox for them, I'm assuming it'll be fine. That is, unless Google decides to lock the bootloader entirely.

In September 2026, Google plans to launch this feature in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. The next step is still hazy, but Google is targeting 2027 to expand the verification requirements globally.

So most users worldwide still have at least 1.5 years until it's implemented. Plenty of time to get a Pixel and install Graphene on it. Or to figure out some other plan.

Don't get me wrong - this is insane, unreasonable and horrible news for everyone. We should push back as hard as physically possible against it. However, at the very least we still have some time to figure things out before the policy rolls out.

Lets build a Raspi phone

so no modded apps, no emulation, no unauthorised chat apps. hopefully some root mod will make this irrelevant.

Only thing I care about, how will this impact my streaming devices that rarely get is updates

I am toying with the idea of creating a PDA of sort from a raspberry pie, touchscreen and a powerbank. Case can be 3d printed, it would be bulky af and equipped with Tails or some other secure OS.