Oddbean

This is my current #grapheneOS setup. I have three distinct profiles on my phone, each serving a specific purpose. 𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗲: This is my daily driver, free and open-source apps only. It has everything I need for my daily needs. For privacy reasons, I've excluded #bitcoin and #nostr related applications from this profile to maintain a low-profile and avoid leaking my online identity if someone were to snatch the phone out of my hands. 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘆 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗲: This secondary profile is designed as a decoy. I've installed a bunch of normie apps to make it more realistic, and some closed-source ones that I occasionally need. I rarely use this profile. I only switch to it when absolutely necessary, if you know what I mean. 𝗖𝘆𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗽𝘂𝗻𝗸 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗲: This is where my true online identity lies, and where all the bitcoin and nostr apps reside. TOR, E2E chats, secret notes, and files are all here. I only access this profile when I'm alone and confident it's safe to do so. All profiles have different passwords, obviously. Fingerprint disabled. And I've customized the color scheme of the menus for each one of them, so I can easily tell which profile I'm on. While inside the Decoy Profile, you cannot see the installed apps from the other two profiles, but you can see that there are indeed two additional profiles on the device. I've taken extra steps to obscure this information by changing the profile picture on all three profiles to solid dark color that blends with the UI, and removed the profile names by using a invisible character, making them appear identical (i know it's not 100% fool proof but it's the best we can do). All profiles have a pure black wallpaper, and the home screen has no icons, folders or widgets (except on the Decoy Profile). To access an app, I simply scroll up and open it from the default drawer, which displays all installed apps on that profile. This approach saves battery life and adds a slight bit of privacy. Each profile has its own VPN running continuously, using different IP addresses, with killswitch turned on. All my free and open-source (#foss) apps are installed via Obtainium (aka downloads straight from the source). The closed-source 'normie' apps used in the Decoy Profile are from the Aurora Store (aka downloads from Play Store without needing an account). Every app installed has most of its permissions stripped away, leaving only the absolute minimum required. Storage and contact scopes are always used. Microphone, camera, NFC, bluetooth and location services, always turned off, unless absolutely needed for a brief moment. Finally, I have disabled auto-updates on all apps and the operating system itself (by disabling 'System Updater' app). I want to be in control of my device, I choose when to update. I can't risk crowdstrike-like updates, so I wait a few days before updating. #privacy #cybersecurity #opsec https://media.tenor.com/yMj4zV5BtDQAAAAM/mr-robot-rami-malek.gif

Just starting to play with graphene in a pixel, thanks for that insights, the setup have loads of sense. One doubt I have, the apps in the main profile can be accessed from a different profile? Or there are some way to cross use apps between profiles?

From my experience (some of this is the same for factory Android): When you set up a profile or go to the settings for profiles from the main one, you can install any apps from the main profile to any other profile. Each profile can also install apps on its own, just for itself. If you want an app to be in multiple profiles but NOT in the main profile, it can be kinda cumbersome to set it up in each separate profile because updates need to be installed all at the same time to avoid conflicting signatures. It's easier if an app is in the main profile so you can just add it to other profiles from the settings.

I do pretty much the same thing. It helps to also have a separate "travel phone" that you never turn on near your home area, with a data-only sim from silentlink, public wifis, always-on, block-if-disabled wireguard/VPN for encryption and exit nodes while online. Pro tip: use a card or something similar between the phone & your phone case to physically block the camera #Opsec #IdentityManagement #Graphene 🤝

I kinda do this but with a core profile for system functions that can't be done in other profiles, then separate profiles for pretty much every category of stuff I might do - gaming, using nostr, using my google account, etc Can be a bit cumbersome if like, I see a meme on nostr and want to share it on discord, but cybersecurity sucks these days so there's not much else to do about it

GrapheneOS is the way for a true #Bitcoin person. nostr:nevent1qqs82tlcjqapjm4qv7pp3fwjx8jvyvyvydqwhvk26jhj38n26cc6wrcprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumfv9khxarj9e3k7mf0qgs9p3kw9e5u7za00x6jfz9jqsvvffheefaaptr9fdrzf4wqyh840kcrqsqqqqqpexsmnz

I'm running graphene OS on a pixel 8 pro. It's very nice to have maximum privacy but remember the tradeoffs are not having lots of convenient features like tap to pay, kinda crappy UI/UX at times, and random bugs.

Thanks a lot for sharing your setup. I'm not ready to move to Graphene. I guess I too much like the convenience of Google services. But, inspired by your note, I guess I could, on my stock Android phone, simply add a new profile, without Google account, use Aurora to install Amethyst and a Bitcoin wallet, and, on this way, hide this identity and hide, at least from people who may look at my phone, the fact that I'm interested in Bitcoin. Remove anything Bitcoin or Nostr related from the admin profile. Do you think it makes sense and is a step in the right direction? When thinking about my risk profile or op sec or privacy needs, I don't think I need a very strong setup, and I really like Google maps and fingerprint unlock and so on, but I don't want people around to know I'm interested in Bitcoin. Thoughts?

Any step you take towards greater #privacy is a step in the right direction. However, adding privacy measures on top of stock #android are largely ineffective. Stock Android is pure spyware, and all Google services and apps are spying tools. It's also not a great idea to download #nostr or #bitcoin apps from the Aurora Store. If the apps are #opensource code, use 'Obtanium' instead, this allows you to download .APKs directly from their GitHub source. You can still get services like Google Maps and fingerprint unlock working fine, I'm not sure why you'd think they wouldn't work. Uh, #grapheneOS is just a hardened version of Android that's stripped out all the Google shit, but you can still install them back.

Why not use a primary device with an esim to route all your traffic through anonymising networks and connect the other device without sim solely over WiFi? It should be much safer to have a device that only does one job: connect you to the internet through Tor or i2p. And then if needed run different anonymously bought VPN on your secondary device.