Can somebody confirm that flashing LineageOS and then MicroG instead of Gapps will free me from the botnet?

Can somebody confirm that flashing LineageOS and then MicroG instead of Gapps will free me from the botnet?

Other urls found in this thread:

arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/shielding-mac-addresses-from-stalkers-is-hard-android-is-failing-miserably/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

From what I've seen microG is open source implementation of Play Services and allows to use Google apps freely. This makes me uncomfortable, it really looks like botnet in disguise

I will continue to bump and summon the botnetlords

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Yes

Ditch the G, grab the F

Removing Google services gets you less botnet, not no botnet. Similarly MicroG is just a harm-reduction thing - you're trying to patch botnets that use play services and trick them into having less information. Flash Lineage and stick to F-droid and you'll have made progress, but there's a limit to how far you can go. Your carrier can still track you, since it can work out your position by triangulating you based on what cell towers can hear you. It can interfere with your transmissions in all the ways a regular wireline ISP can. And bricks-and-mortar stores these days are pulling tricks like recording the MAC addresses of phones that scan for (not even connect to!) their wi-fi, so they can recognize you by your phone if you walk into the store again. Even if that phone is gapps-free.

If you're worried about your privacy step one is to leave your phone at home whenever you can. Step two is to leave it on airplane mode when its with you, and only turn that off when you must communicate with it.

Thanks. Let's say I have a social life and am not neet-level paranoid, and just want to ditch google. I can tolerate all the ISP and MAC bullshit, but is MicroG removing all the data mining from google? I mean fears like recording location even when disabled, collecting characters from the keyboard and botnet in general

The answer is "Yes, but..". You still have to worry about apps sending data to Google through regular channels. (for instance, displaying a webpage that gas Google analytics embedded into it). You need to avoid contacting Google yourself. If you watch Youtube on the device by any means, Google's going to see it. And so on.

What apps are you intending to use that need play services so badly?

>recording the MAC addresses
Too bad it can't be spoofed... :^)

It can't due to the way a lot of mobile chipsets are built - they use the burned-in MAC for scanning for addresses and the spoofing only takes place when they actually associate and send data.

arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/shielding-mac-addresses-from-stalkers-is-hard-android-is-failing-miserably/
>Equally alarming, of the six percent of Android phones the researchers saw providing randomization, virtually all of them periodically sent out probes using their unique MAC address, a flaw that largely rendered the measure useless.

>flashing LineageOS and then MicroG instead of Gapps
that doesn't work because Lineage devs didn't enable signature spoofing
but you're lucky, the microG guys have put up their own Lineage fork today, so you would flash that instead

>will [it] free me from the botnet?
but no, you can't escape from the botnet unless you literally stop using a mobile phone. closest you'll get is Replicant, and most pragmatic option is the microG LineageOS

Damn, better make it a habit to disable wifi when leaving home then. I think there's some task automation apps in f-droid will have to see if they can toggle wifi depending on location.

Also a really stupid question... why would the phone need to send out probes and scan for APs when the APs broadcast their existence?

Basically, to save time. The device wants to display a list of available networks quickly, and not have to listen for 30 seconds (or whatever) to see what its heard. So it sends out a "anyone home?" message to tell APs to broadcast their existence in response.

The linked article also mentions that a lot of wi-fi chipsets have a flaw which allows a message to be sent to them which will induce them to broadcast in response, even if they're not associated with an AP, so an AP intent on tracking you doesn't have to wait and see if you transmit, either.

Also passive scanning (paradoxically) uses more power, because the wi-fi chip has to be powered on and listening on all channels for several seconds. Active probing lets it power up, hear responses, and go back to low-power mode very quickly, so essentially all laptops and mobile devices default to doing this.

What about botnet from your device hardware?
Also I use g Apps since always and will try your shit soon then.

>Signature spoofing
Care to elaborate?

MicroG devs forked lineageOS for this purpose

Nanomod includes a patch for this amongst other goodies

Snapchat XD

Or just use Tingle.

No it allows you to use apps that require Google services freely, like Snapchat. Using Google apps would still be botnet.
I still don't use it since it would just be extra bloat for me as I don't use any apps that require it.

how do you update the microG itself?

>carrots

sauce of this boobalicious semen demon?

This would be a really great album cover

Doesn't your phone only send out unsolicited WiFi probes when looking for hidden SSIDs?

Hyur from Final Fantasy XIV

No, it sends them out whenever wifi is enabled.