this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2024
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Once LinageOS is installed your bootloader is always unlocked so anyone who finds your phone if lost owns it. GrapheneOS and a few other ROMs I forget the names of allow the bootloader to be relocked keeping android security model intact allowing the device to still be secure.
Is the bootloader really that important for a lost phone? If someone finds your phone can't they just tear it apart and read the storage with external tools? A locked bootloader sounds more like an anti-tampering measure and not for protecting your phone's content after it's lost.
that's not the problem that BL locking solves. this is solved by storage encryption. BL locking solves 2 other problems:
It is largely an anti-tampering measure. Without it you could have things injected into the system. For example, a stalker could install a hidden tracking program as a service and then return your phone without you knowing.
Iirc it's also a prerequisite for full-disk encryption on modern android. So, without it your user data is available to be dumped in an unencrypted state. Most phone thieves are interested in reselling the phone, so they're provably not going to go through the effort and risk damage to the phone just to dump encrypted data from the chips directly. However, if it's just available unencrypted from fastboot why not dump it? They could get info that could be used to blackmail or scam you or people you know. Or they could just sell the data.
How modern? It's still working on Evolution X with Android 14 (although maybe it needs custom rom support).
It would be a bit less secure since the bootloader itself could be compromised, however (but I wouldn't be concerned about random thieves/snooping in this case).
https://source.android.com/docs/security/features/encryption/file-based
I did not remember correctly, kind of. From AOSP, Android 7 and later use file-based encryption (FBE) rather then full-disk encryption (FDE). FBE is dependant on verified boot, which itself requires a locked bootloader.
Custom ROMs may have back ported FDE, modified FBE, or implemented their own encryption.
No because the data is encrypted especially on Graphene OS and even on stock pixel phones data at rest is fully encrypted and pixel phones also have a onboard security chip as well. So unless you can unlock the user data it would be useless. That is why a locked bootloader is so important it is needed to ensure at rest encryption its a requirement for it.
That would be a security issue, not a privacy issue. Maybe that was what RelativeArea0 meant but if so I think that confused people because "privacy" implies somehow corpos/the state is spying on you through Lineage
LOS has privacy issues though, if I remember correctly. like, default DNS server is 8.8.8.8of google, assisted gps contacts a global server of I think qualcomm to speed up getting a GPS fix, and others I don't remember now
Ah, so not that significant and fixable? GOS has an assortment of calls home as well (to their own servers at least, but still a third party).
well not sure if fixable
It could be included as both with a unlocked bootloader all user data could be easily retrived with physical access to device.
That kind of data access is generally included under security not privacy (which is more about telemetry), but obviously with a state threat model privacy and security can become blurred, and that kind of data access is of concern if you are at risk of having devices seized by the state.