GrapheneOS and Forensic Extraction of Data

Summary

Hi, I am writing an article and I am sharing a draft with you. I will be glad if you share your thoughts and suggestions with me. GrapheneOS is an Android-based, open source, privacy and security-focused mobile operating system for mobile phones. It is one of the most secure and privacy protecting operating systems (and yes, it does this task comparable and in some scenarios even better than iOS, but we will come to that later). However, in the beginning of May, someone started an attack on GrapheneOS across social media platforms. The perpetrators were misrepresenting consent-based data extraction as GrapheneOS being compromised. Which would be funny if it wasn't so stupid. So let's see what happened and what actually consent-based data extraction means. Digital forensics Digital forensics is the process of uncovering and analysing electronic data in order to gather evidence for legal proceedings. It involves the use of various techniques and tools to examine digital devices such as computers, smartphones, and storage media to identify, preserve, analyse, and present digital evidence. Digital evidence refers to any data or information that is stored or transmitted in digital form and can be used as evidence in a legal investigation or trial. Digital evidence is often used in criminal investigations to help establish a suspect's guilt or innocence, and can also be used in civil litigation, regulatory investigations, and other legal proceedings. Unfortunately, sometimes digital forensics can be abused. It can be used against investigative journalists or political activists, it can be used for privacy violation, to intimidate or harass someone, to tamper with evidence, etc. That is why GrapheneOS developers are working hard to protect mobile phones from tampering and try to make data extraction without user's consent as hard as possible. Cellebrite Cellebrite is a leading Israeli company in the digital intelligence and digital forensics field. Their main digital foren...