from Hacker News

LineageOS Android Distribution

by arunc on 10/6/23, 5:59 PM with 6 comments

  • by steelframe on 10/7/23, 11:49 PM

    Getting a backdoor into an official Google or Samsung phone would seem to be a particularly difficult task to pull off. At the very least, they have an interest in protecting their reputations, and they have non-trivial resources they can apply to ensure the integrity of their source code and image repositories.

    What assurances do we have that these third-party ROMs aren't somehow compromised or backdoored? Are the individuals maintaining the repo trustworthy? What would it cost to bribe one of them? How many people are paying attention, and who would notice? Given that many people using third party ROMs are inherently distrustful of mainstream phone distributions for whatever reason, would they be a particularly attractive target for state spy agencies? Seems there may be a combination of increased susceptibility to poor security practices or corruption combined with increased motivation on the part of some attackers to compromise the software.

  • by tortoise_in on 10/7/23, 6:18 PM

    The only answer to walled garden of apple. Custom ROMs gives freedom!

  • by paulryanrogers on 10/7/23, 3:23 AM

    Latest news from 10 months ago. Hope they're still hanging in there. Not sure I'll ever go back to 3P ROMs, unless I keep another phone beyond its official EOL.