this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/39255

Is self-hosted enough to avoid push notifications going through Apple and Google servers?

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[–] plague_sapiens@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (19 children)

That's why everyone should use GrapheneOS. Sandboxed GooglePlay services can be used, if needed. I personally use 3 proprietary apps, one of them is WhatsApp Business (self-employed and for stupid dipshits that won't use anything else...), which is more privacy-friendly than the personal client itself. Join the resistance! Use GrapheneOS :)

Good read about push notifications on GOS: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/9407-this-is-why-i-use-grapheneos

[–] Rootiest@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago (9 children)

Sandboxed GooglePlay services can be used, if needed.

I don't see how that would prevent this at all.

What is being discussed here is governments compromising the push notification service on Apple's servers (and presumably Google's as well)

Sandboxing Google services on your phone does nothing to change the fact that virtually all apps that receive messages/notifications are going to be using the push notification APIs that are compromised.

Whether or not private data is sent in those pushes and whether or not they are encrypted is up to the app developers.

It's common for push messages to simply be used as a triggering mechanism to tell the device to download the message securely so much of what is compromised in those cases will simply be done metadata or even just "a new message is available"

But even so, that information could be used to link your device to data they acquired using other methods based on the timing of the push and subsequent download or "pull"

The problem is that if you go ahead and disable push notifications/only use apps that allow you to, you are going to have abysmal battery life and an increase in data use because your phone will have to constantly ping cloud servers asking if new messages/notifications are available.

[–] plague_sapiens@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yeah you're right. Sandboxed gplay services can still be used to surveil clients, good thing you can use another profile with gplay services and install apps (which needs those) on there, meaning no potential leaks for apps that use their own push notification service and closed APIs (Google or Firebase). Good thread about it: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/9407-this-is-why-i-use-grapheneos

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