Step 1 of installing GrapheneOS for de-googling your life: Buy a Google Pixel phone

Look - I know, I know. I get it. Google allows you to unlock the bootloader while maintaining the phone’s unique and excellent hardware security features. The argument makes sense. It is compelling. Other manufacturers do not give you this freedom. I am not arguing about that. I have a Pixel phone running GrapheneOS myself.

However… It is just so very obviously ironic that one needs to trust Google’s hardware and purchase a Google product to de-google their life through GrapheneOS. I think that it is a perfectly valid position for someone to raise their eyebrows, laugh, and remain skeptical of the concept either because they do not want to support Google at all, or because they simply will not trust Google’s hardware.

The reason why I think that this is “controversial” is because I have seen multiple instances of someone pointing out the irony, followed by someone getting defensive about it and making use of the technical security arguments in an attempt to patch up the irony.

I think that the distrust of governments and generally those in power is a world-wide phenomenon. But I personally don’t think that it is unwarranted. Corruption, abuses of power, and conspiracies are widespread.

I see - thank you for adding that context, I think that this title change is in itself quite interesting… Because then they did intend to use a sensationalist title, and only changed it later.

I have double-checked out of curiosity and I do see that your post’s title is the title indexed by google:

I am sorry for jumping into the assumption that you had changed the title yourself.

Good point - reported

Exactly! I was worried you wouldn’t be able to read in between my lines 😌

But in all seriousness this is such a huge failure of our media to resort to scaremongering instead of staring the facts.

I agree.

But in this case that is not what is happening… The linked article does not make the claim that is present in the title of this post at all!

The actual title of the linked article is: Leaked German military documents laid out a doomsday scenario where Russia wins in Ukraine then invades Europe

The article explicitly states:

The documents are not a prediction but part of worst-case-scenario planning, a common exercise within militaries. A German official called the scenario “extremely unlikely.”

So I don’t think that the title of this post is fair. Russia could go to war with NATO in 2024, and you don’t need a leaked document to tell you that. But there is nothing in this article that makes this possibility seem any more or less likely.