Question for geopolitical nerds and tech nerds.
If you have a stock android phone, it's almost impossible to use it without a Google account. If your nation becomes what is essentially at war with the US, or is under sanction. Does the whole country get their Google accounts blocked, thus rendering their phone almost unusable (without rooting it or reflashing the os etc?).
@quixoticgeek Theoretically yes. Although what would actually happen who knows. It's a step nobody has really tested
But in theory
- Every Android phone stops doing Google services, and any US managed one gets turned into a brick
- Every iphone is a brick
- Every windows PC ransomwares itself
- Every home appliance with a US connection is destroyed or worse
- Every US controlled home battery and solar device stops working
and so on. This is why in reverse the US is scared of China
@quixoticgeek oh and needless to say those nice Tesla cars won't be going anywhere but nor will any US controlled ICE car either or anything with a US cloud based security system
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@quixoticgeek
I have been wondering this and pondering the Fairphone with Murena OS as my next phone when the current Samsung dies.
It isn't dying, and I keep fixing it when needed.
@Maker_of_Things I have a fairphone, but I have stock android on it because lots of stuff like banking apps only work on stock android...
@quixoticgeek
Grrrr, that would be quite an issue!
@quixoticgeek
I can really see why Mum tells me I should be withdrawing cash and hiding it away.
She is expecting war, having lived through WW2 and the revolution in China.
@tony @quixoticgeek more likely the non US operations would be seized. There's a mutually assured destruction aspect not unlike nukes involved
And it's easier to sell US bonds and put the US borrowing rate up to 20%
@quixoticgeek What's the status of Google and Apple accounts in countries already under sanction by the U.S.? I'm genuinely curious. I know that some people sanctioned have been individually targeted, but I dunno if whole countries are locked out.
@jzb @quixoticgeek I remember things like GIthub disabling account from Iranian users (because sanctions). Or Adobe disabling account of Venezuelan users (because sanctions). So I could totally see this happening. This could totally happen.
@etchedpixels @quixoticgeek Almost every fibre of my being is hoping that this madness passes soon and we never find out.
But I have to admit to having some curiosity about how it all would really play out. Again, I don't really want to live through it, and I certainly don't want the U.S. to go down this road and upend our relationships (further) with the rest of the world. But I do have a morbid fascination about what would happen... because if it did, it would be one hell of a shitshow.
@etchedpixels @quixoticgeek It's a damn shame this isn't a movie and not real life. Then again, if you made a movie of this, critics would tear it to shreds. Who would possibly believe the villains are real-life people here? A sex criminal puppet of Russia gets into the White House and has the support of more than 30% of the country? Bannon and Miller? They're effing cartoonishly evil. Absolutely two-dimensional. Roger Ebert would come back from the dead to give it two thumbs down.
And this is our life...
@jzb @etchedpixels @quixoticgeek remember what depends on Google / Amazon / Apple. I'm in Canada and our Governments host everything on US infrastructure. Quebec Healthcare? Azure. BC elections ? Azure. Etc. (that's for the one I do know) Filing taxes? Intuit. The PC in offices ? Microsoft.
Our F35 (overpriced fighter jets)? The remote kill switch is american. The maintenance can only be done by the US company.
Yes, as a nation we are THAT stupid.
@hub Humans in general are not real good at this kind of planning and threat detection. They're just not.
A lot of sci-fi imagines the human race encountering alien life and civilizations that are more advanced than we are. I think we've already invented technology, systems, and structures that are too complex for us to control. And we've let the worst possible people take the wheel.
Sigh. Is 9 a.m. too early for Scotch? Asking for a friend...
@jzb @hub @etchedpixels @quixoticgeek
If it helps with the scotch, it's mid afternoon over here in the UK.
@jzb @etchedpixels @quixoticgeek If it wasn't for the loss of life and bodily harm, the chaos engineer in me really wants this to happen once so the tightly coupled and largely unnecessary dependencies get fixed.
It's not that we can't, it's that we rather deem prevention "not cost effective".
It'd certainly be worth doing a large civil catastrophe drill on.
@hub @jzb @quixoticgeek don’t forget when Israeli intelligence turned pagers into actual bombs. It seems they didn’t incur any negative consequences for this action either.
@jzb @quixoticgeek already happening to international criminal court judge who is Canadian
https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2025/12/12/its-surreal-us-sanctions-lock-international-criminal-court-judge-out-of-daily-life/
Can't use payment cards, more book hotels through things like Expedia.
@etchedpixels @quixoticgeek Properly configured Windows shouldn't brick or ransomware. But they've made it increasingly hard to properly configure. And there may be unknown backdoors by which it could be done more intentionally.
@claralistensprechen3rd @dalias @quixoticgeek Not if they pushed an update to erase it, or if you've got bitlocker dependencies.
@quixoticgeek Worse, a lot of core functionality isn't in Android itself but in Google Play Services which requires a Google account to get and isn't available except for Google-approved phones. That's making AOSP increasingly problematic.
A phone can be replaced. I care less about the phone than about my data.
@CppGuy @etchedpixels @quixoticgeek timely reminder back up all your cloud data locally. Google extracts are a bit of a pain to navigate but better safe than sorry.
@etchedpixels @quixoticgeek I think the Teslas will keep rolling. You just might see a lot more data traffic going back to the US. I mean, the things are rolling sensor platforms. Excellent for information gathering.
@ArtHarg @quixoticgeek look at what happened with some fancy cars getting remote killed in Russia
@jzb @etchedpixels @quixoticgeek The difference between fiction and reality is that reality doesn't have to be plausible.
@etchedpixels @claralistensprechen3rd @quixoticgeek A properly configured Windows doesn't install updates until you run out of "shut up and remind me later" and fail to find the way to bypass that.
@dalias
Nah, a properly configured Windows is called Linux. 
@happyborg @etchedpixels @claralistensprechen3rd @quixoticgeek Never change, fedi.. 🙄
@quixoticgeek I have been using Android and Android based phones for years without a Google account. It works just fine. You definitely do not need to have a Google account to run Android with all of its features.
@jzb
I hope the world can learn about the problems of centralization even without this going much further.
There was some talk by the US government of splitting out Chrome from Google. My dad and I discussed this a bit...
I think Google is too big. But I think the way it needs to be split is not by taking out one product that isn't high friction to switch.
IMO The change we need is making it easy to move across services/platforms + smaller service providers.
@quixoticgeek
Don't be frightened of reflashing the OS.
I recently bought a Pixel (ironically made by google), and changing to @GrapheneOS was remarkably easy. The web installer went very smoothly, no tech skills or software tools needed.
I remember the days of reflashing my Galaxy i9000 and several others over the years. It was a real effort, so I understand why most people would be nervous.
You could also check out @murena
Who sell phones with /e/os preinstalled.
#degoogle
@coffee2Di4 @quixoticgeek There are devices sold with GrapheneOS preinstalled but it's very safe and easy to install it via the web installer with 24/7 real time support via our official chat rooms.
/e/ has very poor privacy and extraordinarily poor security. Sending user data to OpenAI without consent is the tip of the iceberg. They do not provide proper patches and updates. See https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-standard-privacysecurity-patches-and-protections-arent-private for details and links to third party articles. It's not at all similar to GrapheneOS.
@coffee2Di4 @GrapheneOS @murena my concern is that I lose the ability to use the apps I need to survive.
I've not used /e/is myself, but so far, I've not found anything that doesn't work in #GrapheneOS
My banking app complains that I need to 'tap to finish setup' and directs me to Play Services, but still works.
I can install anything from the sandboxed google play, F-droid and the Graphene app store which let me know if any apps have available updates.
Importantly, it is easy to revert to stock OS
@coffee2Di4 @quixoticgeek /e/ has far less app compatibility than GrapheneOS and isn't a robust production quality OS. More importantly, it lacks the basics of privacy and security due to being months and even years behind on Linux kernel, driver, firmware and other patches. It usually takes them weeks to ship incomplete Android Open Source Project and browser engine patches. It's not a privacy or security hardened OS at all. Look at https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/murena-voice-to-text-service-in-e-os-sends-the-users-audio-to-openai-which-is-hidden-away-in-their-terms-of-service/29257 for an idea of their approach.
@quixoticgeek @coffee2Di4 The vast majority of Android apps work fine on GrapheneOS.Can start by keeping things simple through installing sandboxed Google Play in the Owner user if you want a similar experience to the stock OS with far better privacy and security. Alternatively, you can split things up more by making a dedicated profile (work profile, Private Space or secondary user) for sandboxed Google Play as many users do but it's not needed for it to be regular sandboxed apps.
@quixoticgeek @coffee2Di4 A tiny portion of apps ban using any alternative OS via the Play Integrity API. Other than that, nearly all Android apps can be used on GrapheneOS. For apps with bugs caught by our security features, there's a simple per-app compatibility mode toggle to work around all those issues which isn't needed for most apps. Banking apps are the main ones banning using another OS, perhaps around 15% of banking apps in total. You can check https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/ for your bank(s).
@GrapheneOS @quixoticgeek @coffee2Di4 Will the banning by banking apps come to an end once GrapheneOS have published their "own phone" from the manufacturer they are cooperating with?
@OK_OK @quixoticgeek @coffee2Di4 It's not directly related to that but more banking apps will explicitly permit GrapheneOS as the userbase grows further as several have done already.