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Comment by Svoka | Hacker News Reader

Seems like a pure virtue signaling: they don't sell or make hardware. It is mandated only for pre-installed operating systems, from what I understand.

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They've partnered with Motorola to have it preinstalled on phones, this is in TFA.

Could just ship it along on an SD card with a single button install you do yourself. Technically not preinstalled.

I'm sure noone in the legal system of California would notice that trick!

Well correct me if I'm wrong but dumb laws are usually not written by people who know much shit about fuck. So it's entirely possible they wouldn't.

You sound like a teenager fighting his parents. "Technically you didn't say WHICH bed I had to be in by midnight!!!!! I was in A bed, I followed the rules!!!!"

Society (mostly) works because we all agree that laws have intents. The wording is crafted as best as possible, and for the rest we have judges to shutdown lawyers trying to be a moffkalast smart asses.

Call it what you want, I still think that if the, ahem, intent, of a law is to reduce personal freedoms then it should be protested in as many annoying ways as possible. Should at least get some publicity even if it gets struck down.

Sounds like it exposes a ton of attack surface. Better to just have a card with a link to the webinstaller, probably.

This is emblematic of a misunderstanding technologists often have about the law. We try to treat it like code we can exploit and hack around. But there is no compiler deterministically producing outcomes. Of course, this misunderstanding is often bolstered by the accurate observation that lawyers and businesses find loopholes and favorable interpretations that to us appear much like the exploits we propose. The critical element that's often missed, though, is the human one. To get away with an exploit, to have the case law updated to reflect your favorable interpretation, you need power, influence, and alignment on your interests. There are tax "loopholes" now that are commonly used but in a prior era, under the same laws, would have seen you dragged into court and eviscerated. If you tried your cute SD card trick a judge would tear you a new one. If Microsoft tried it, they could maybe talk to the right people before the case and come to an understanding that this little loophole was convenient for dev devices or something, and convince a judge to rule that they could do it, but only if accompanied by some external age confirmation they could self-attest to, with some wording that makes it clear that the trick is only usable by large and well-respected institutions. The law is not an impartial arbiter that you can outsmart. It's the enforcement mechanism for multiple tiers or rules that bind different classes. This age gathering law is a classic moat law. It exists to prevent outgroups from shipping software that's incompatible with this age communication system, and in a business-to-business context serves to establish obligations between ingroup members. Any other clever interpretation of the law will be discarded regardless of specific wording.

Right, my bad. It's easy to forget our society is a convoluted backroom quid pro quo even if we pretend otherwise on paper.

Preinstalled devices is not the main goal of the partnership. GOS is ok without having that to start. Motorolas stock OS will still be available.

Let me add that the typical GrapheneOS user will probably prefer to install the OS themselves rather than trust what comes preinstalled.

The typical GOS user generally doesnt want to do that. Flashing is a hurdle that increases barrier for entry. Reducing or eliminating that burden is ideal. Greenboot support would make flashing a little easier.

> typical GOS user generally doesnt want to do that

How do you know this? Is there an official (or even unofficial) source of GOS preinstalled devices that a substantial amount of "typical GOS user" has acquired?

Or maybe you are talking about "potential user of GOS"?

In any case: if you installed it yourself you mostly have to trust the source of the installer. If you purchase a pre-installed device you're basically back to the android/ios model: you have to trust the manufacturer AND the maker of the OS

I have helped a significant number of GOS users install GOS to their device. If you perform post install steps correctly then you do not need to trust where you got it from, as the post install steps are there to verify your install is genuine. If GOS gets greenboot support for motorola devices, then not getting a yellowboot screen will show it is genuine and you wont need to trust anything.

Virtue signal away. I’m with whatever device and OS purveyors are willing to tell these tyrants to get stuffed.

I haven’t cut over to it completely yet but I think this’ll be the last nail in the coffin for my time as an Apple user. It’s already a loveless marriage , it’s already over, I’m already sleeping with GrapheneOS on the side. it’s asking when I’m going to leave her and it’s always “soon, baby. soon.”

As they should, I was personally surprised so many people were surprised come ICE raids that government can buy and track location via apps, advertising and your phone in general. Regular people need an idea, who is.. uhh.. less likely to sell them down the river.

Its a statement for the future. They arent bound to add this now but they could be in the future. They will adapt accordingly to avoid it.

The California law does apply to existing OS, right?

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