Original GrapheneOS responses to WIRED fact checker

Intelligence wanted in, and Donaldson seemingly would have been happy to oblige.

According to the linked responses, the keys were not deleted because of disagreement over financial share, but over how the keys were to be used (in particular, in potentially dangerous security-wise ways), for which he did not want personal responsibility over (the keys belonged and used by him even before that project)

It was not a disagreement about shares, it was a hostile takeover. Someone who never owned the project sought to steal it.

Question 17: Did your and Donaldson values begin to diverge? Was Donaldson more concerned with making money than you were?

Answer: [...] In 2018, matters between Micay and Donaldson came to a head over Donaldson’s desire to pursue business deals with criminal organizations, and his attempts to compromise the security of CopperheadOS, including by proposing license enforcement and remote updating systems that would allow third-parties to have access to users’ phones. As part of this process, Donaldson began to demand that Micay provide Donaldson with the “signing keys” - i.e. the credentials required to verify the authenticity of releases of CopperheadOS. Donaldson advised that, in order to secure certain new business, potential customers required access to the Keys.

The keys had been in continuous use by Micay, in his personal capacity, since before the incorporation of Copperhead. However, more importantly, any party with the keys could mark malicious software as “authentic”, and thereby infiltrate devices using CopperheadOS.

Micay was unwilling to participate in that kind of security breach. Since Donaldson had control over certain infrastructure for the open source project, he would be able to incorporate (or hire others to incorporate) the privacy-damaging features described above for all future releases of CopperheadOS. Micay therefore deleted the keys permanently and severed ties with Copperhead and Donaldson.

Question 25: Did things between you and Donaldson devolve when he approached you about a compliance audit? Did he tell you that he needed to know how the signing keys were stored?

From Wired:

We understand that Daniel's recollection was not that James wanted to know more information about how the signing keys were stored, but that he wanted direct access to them.

Question 26: Did you suspect his request was tied to a deal he was brokering with a large defense contractor? Did you believe this would put the entirety of CopperheadOS’ user base at risk?

Answer: Yes and yes.

The large defense contractor in question was Raytheon. The decision to destroy the signing keys was not based on a financial disagreement, but an existential one. Every single CopperheadOS user back then would have been compromised otherwise. It's of course a big deal given the implications, but it acted as a last resort for Daniel to stop a hostile takeover attempt fueled by greed, which he ultimately took because there was no other way out.

That's not healthy for any project.

Rossmann wanted to work with GOS and they didn't want him. So Rossmann made that video to make Daniel look bad for revenge probably. Saying he was leaving GOS was a lie, not that GOS can push malicious updates which was also a huge lie. Even after pointing that out that part wasn't corrected because Louis doesn't care about accuracy, he only cares about making Daniel/GOS look bad. He used his big following to punish Daniel. Now he works with Nick from Calyx after he got pushed out and are doing business together.

The more you learn about the story, the more you see the Copperhead stuff was just the beginning and those involved held grudges and pushed their grudges onto more people who bought their lies and it continued. Privacy-focused OSes that pretend to compete with GrapheneOS suck. GrapheneOS is led by someone with integrity, unlike some other projects.

With a non-profit project of highly principled security experts, there is at least a high probability that they'd rather blow up the project than compromise. People elsewhere in the thread criticize Micay because he deleted the CopperheadOS keys, but to me it increases trust in the GrapheneOS project, since he clearly puts the security of his users over money, fear, and whatnot.

In the end trust arises from running a project or company long-term without evidence that you somehow compromised security.

I wonder in general how this situation could be improved. Second or third independent reproducible build + confirmation signing?

The project is not going to relinquish control to any 3rd party. Not even the Motorola partnership is given control over the GOS project. The hypothetical you describe is not possible by design.

The GOS project takes no issue with critical thinking, and encourages it. But that is often used as an excuse to handwave attacks. There is a very big difference between criticism/critical thinking and attacking them.

Note that there are more individuals in the project than Micay. Multiple people handle multiple responsibilities, its not one person.

I'm much more concerned with companies that claim to support LGBQT+ and then stick a flag up for 10 minutes once a year, or companies who make 10% of their workforce redundant because they want to pay themselves more, or companies who on one hand support green initiatives and then behind the scenes do the complete opposite.