I saw this on infinity for Reddit earlier, I don’t know if there’s a workaround for this or not.
They talk as if they’re protecting our privacy when it’s really a global surveillance net. The spin doctoring is insane.
“Privacy Sandbox” is just Google-controlled surveillance carried out with your phone/PC as the primary data provider. We’ve reached maximum perversion of the English language.
this sort of gaslighting through corruption of vernacular used to amuse me, but now I feel like the withering wojak face anymore
are you referring to the new “Privacy Sandbox” or the old “Privacy Sandbox”. because if there calling this new thing a “Privacy Sandbox” after the old one lost public attention after they kept promising it for years, I am going to laugh or maybe cry.
what they originally called “Privacy Sandbox”
it was a browser feature to remove the HTTP cookie and replace it with a cohort system. your browser would receve signals about your habbits. that you were buying domino’s pizza and announce to upcoming sites that you like pizza, but ya know… in a “safe” way.
I still see, “chrome is going to replace the cookie” and “RIP the humble cookie” every once in a while.
I’m pretty sure the old Privacy Sandbox was called FLoC, wasn’t it? This is definitely part of Google’s continued efforts to kill the (third-party) cookie in such a way that tracking your user activity will still be possible, but that Google itself will maximally benefit from because they’re the ones controlling how it’ll get implemented.
And given Google’s near-unilateral control of web browsing standards, who will say no? Their biggest partners? Mozilla?
Straight up 1984 Newspeak, where the Ministry of Truth is really concerned with lies, the Ministry of Peace is concerned with war, the Ministry of Love is concerned with torture, and the Ministry of Plenty is concerned with starvation.
It’s honestly Doublethink.
Whenever Google gets exposed for bad practices, people ignore it. And they believe this stuff is good or don’t care.
Bruh, so when android phones are turned off they’ll still waste energy locating people and sharing the location. And most phones don’t have a removable battery! Fucking nuts.
the new google massive surveillance apparatus is ready to be deployed
What do you think Google Maps and GSF are
More like, already deployed, this is just the announcement.
Apple already does it with their iPhone, just saying.
I know
Where is that mentioned? I can’t find that in the article
I also couldn’t find a mention, and it definitely does not make sense (and likely isn’t even possible) to run Bluetooth without Android itself running
…which uses a crowdsourced device-locating network to help you find your lost or misplaced devices and belongings quickly – even when they’re offline.
Maybe this line is being misinterpreted?
It’s definitely possible. It may be using specific hardware to do the powered off tasks. Or it never be truly off, a small os running to managing these powered off tasks.
The second is more likely, it’s cheaper and easier. It can also be applied to older devices and requires less integrated design.
It’s mentioned in the linked article about Find My Device.
This is what it says
1. Locate offline devices
Locate your compatible Android phone and tablet by ringing them or viewing their location on a map in the app — even when they’re offline. And thanks to specialized Pixel hardware, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro owners will also be able to find their devices if they’re powered off or the battery is dead.
I don’t know that means Bluetooth will be running when the device is off. “Specialized hardware” could mean a full Bluetooth modem on backup power, but more likely it’s means there’s a low power beacon. Would be interesting if anyone does a teardown of the Pixel 8.
For non-Pixel 8 devices, definitely not. I assume “Offline” refers to the case where your device doesn’t have WiFi/LTE, but can still use Bluetooth to communicate with devices that do.
That is why we took our time when designing the new Find My Device, which uses a crowdsourced device-locating network to help you find your lost or misplaced devices and belongings quickly – even when they’re offline.
That doesn’t say that. Although the article linked from there does, for Pixels.
And thanks to specialized Pixel hardware, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro owners will also be able to find their devices if they’re powered off or the battery is dead.
even with a dead battery? how? there must be something ‘turned on’ to send bluetooth signals or is this magic?
I suspect it still draws battery power, but extremely small amounts. Few mah left in the battery could power a BLE beacon for weeks. There would be some limit to this as draining the lithium battery too deeply will damage it.
Not necessarily, there are lots of completely passive beacon technologies. I seem to remember reading a few years ago about beacons powered by Wifi signals.
Obviously you also need other phones to be able to pick up those signals so it might take until phones with Android 15 become commonplace which might take a while. But it’s definitely doable.
Pixel 7 with GrapheneOS is looking like a good long term choice right now.
Graphene is built on Android. If you enable all the gsf on graphene with android 15 it can probably still run in the background while off.
“Probably” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
It’s all speculation at the moment.
kinda what @null@slrpnk.net said, we should probably wait for graphineOS’s expert opinion on the matter.
They said they won’t support it https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/11520-android-find-my-device-when-powered-off/2
OP blocked for clickbait.
Not a single mention in the article about whether Bluetooth is turned on or off.
Samsung has an opt in option for the Smart thing network. I guess Google will go the same route.
I think mod should step in and fix the title.
You’re right that it’s not at all what the article was saying.
I see HOW op got to that assumption.
It seems like a waste of battery
Can someone explain where the code for this will be located (aosp, gsf)? How can I make sure that it will never ever be activated? What Graphene’s response? etc
They said they won’t support it https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/11520-android-find-my-device-when-powered-off/2
it looks like its going to be a hardware feature. if the main CPU is off, it implies the radio circuitry and its CPU (the BBM) are still powered. give google this at least, the special new Bluetooth API will be accessible to whatever OS is alive and awake to send commands (even if I don’t trust that “off” means “off”). the fact that its using encryption (that’s too complicated to be made out of Integrated Circut logic) means its likely another software feature added to the BBM co-processor (it handles all radio tasks on the phone). this all but confirms the BBM (at least going forward) will still get power, be awake and have access to the (transmit (TX) and reseave (RX) functions of the) radios even when everything else is properly off.
EDIT: or it could be an abuse of a generic BLE beacon mechanism that’s “just there for whatever the consumer would need it for”. but if they are doing proprietary encryption like they claim, that’s not really possible without updating the BBM’s software to add another feature.
How effective do you believe that a Faraday cage would be against this mechanism?
Probably about as effective as keeping an air tag or tile tracker in one. That is, if the problem behavior isn’t correctly disabled by or even encouraged the OS.
We could wait for the implementation from the GrapheneOS team ! I’m pretty sure that they would implement it in a way that would be safe for the user.
If it’s hardware controlled, then the Graphene OS team would have to find a flaw in the hardware, or trust that when they tell the hardware to shut off, that it really does shut off, or find a way to verify that the hardware is really of. But even if they could tell the hardware to shut off, verify that it’s off, and then shut down, the hardware could turn back on after the software is off and the software would be none the wiser.
The only way 2 ways anybody can be relatively sure this feature is off are:
- pulling the battery:
- good luck with that with phones that don’t have removable batteries
- hopefully there won’t be a small backup battery to power this specific circuit
- physically disconnecting this circuit from other circuits:
- that might mean saying goodbye to bluetooth functionality on the phone
The alternative is getting a linux phone with hardware that doesn’t have this feature.
Fuck, okay, Linux on my phone now, because corporations just spray shit on everything
I hope linux phones will become more of a thing as they aren’t there yet IMO. But of course you can always get a second hand phone… forgot that option
I hate that they don’t support them after a while, those with a locked bootloader wont even get a chance. It makes these phones junk from all the CVEs that are being found.
- What old model would you recommend?
- Is something like postmarketOS viable yet?
- What phones are/will be effected?
- Do existing phones planned for the program have the payload sitting there dormant or will the system updater (on googled android) need to download the payload?
- pulling the battery:
damn that really sucks… sounds like it may just be an OS/firmware change then that activates the radio controller?
either way this is is exactly why we need a new community built piece of hardware. we cannot keep being slaves to Google’s whims just to use Graphene. i know there are other OS’s but either way it’s still Big Tech dependence.
You can turn off the phone???
Not completely. My understanding is that the baseband radio still always runs even when the application OS is shutdown, and it (often) has its own connections to the GPS, camera and microphone, sometimes even the filesystem (Samsung RFS). The battery not being removable makes this even more problematic IMO.
I guess the recommendation of turning off the Bluetooth to save battery, or the sarcastic comment that usually says “bro, just turn off the phone if you care too much about the battery” are gonna be obsolete now aren’t they?
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They are deeply involved with CIA/deepstate/MIC and are censoring and propagandizing their own population on behalf of the Capitalist ruling elite. Scum corporation…
Postmarket OS Here I come! Now just the problem of banking apps …
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Unfortunately many require 2FA with their app to log in via web browser
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Isn’t that the normal behavior? I can put my phone in my pocket and still have Bluetooth
…no? how do you use your phone if its off?
The programs keep running when the screen is off
we are talking about turning the phone off
Bluetooth doesn’t work when your phone is off
This is going to change, ergo the news article
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That’s not possible. You would need the hardware running which would mean it isn’t off
yes, exactly, thats one of the issues here
… you never actually turn off your phone, huh? Haha
With android 15. Pay attention! 😅
