- cross-posted to:
- privacyguides@lemmy.one
- cross-posted to:
- privacyguides@lemmy.one
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Mullvad is awesome. i think this is the second android bug/incident they brought to light?
Anyway, really really hope this gets fixed upstream, maybe by Graphene
How much you wanna bet this was intentional by Google? 😏
They didn’t bring it to light, it was a user report posted on reddit. They merely investigated it further. Nothing against mullvad, it’s a great vpn, but credit where credit is due.
Imagine using Android at this point
Privacy is when you fully isolate yourself from the world.
All things I use, besides JavaScript on websites and firmware, is basically open source.
I am lucky to use open protocols for communication only, as when deleting Facebook my friends were willing to use Matrix with me.
I can do many many compromises.But still, I have OnePlus 6T with mobile Linux and absolutely cannot switch now. I would love to, but working camera and some alternative to Organic Maps is a must I cannot jump around when Android is “just” fine now.
LineageOS with Jerboa over Mullvad VPN here. Not many options on mobile devices.
Lineage OS is so much better than stock Android
Yea unfortunately. Hopefully the enshittification of new versions will speed up the development of alternatives
And Android runs a shit load of portable devices beyond phones.
Most handheld store scanners are Android based today. Inventory management devices (like warehouses have used since the nineties) used to be Palm-based, are largely Android now, because it’s core is Linux. They don’t have to run the standard Android shell, they can run their own.
I’ve used medical monitors that are Android based.
As opposed to iOS, the beautiful walled of garden of Eden?
Imagine making idiotic statements at this point.
Imagine being rude for no reason
You’re the rude ignoramus here. Do you use iPhone by any chance as your daily phone? Or an impractical Linux phone?
I honesty don’t understand the rudeness. What I said is unpopular as 8K monitors and I do think it can be downvoted but why being rude? I just don’t want to participate in toxicity because then I become toxic too. Ignorance is the best in this case. And I use LineageOS that’s based on Android btw
Then why did you exactly say “imagine using android”? Makes no sense even if you were trying to make a joke hidden beneath many layers of logic.
Well yea that didn’t really make sense. I guess that’s what being autistic is. Anyways upvoted and thank you for not being toxic
You and I don’t have to imagine that, dummy. We’ve already done it.
Well idk about you but I did it many times unfortunately. Imagine accusing people in what you’ve done yourself I guess. Very pathetic indeed
I’m not accusing you. I’m stating a fact that I included myself in… You are indeed a dim bulb in the pack.
Bruh I meant myself. I accused others in what I do myself. I didn’t accuse you
You’re not very self aware, are you?
Realistically speaking, I’m not. Technically speaking, accusing people in what I do too may not be considered bad but that depends on the culture. Anyways I didn’t mean to be rude when I made that original comment. I still don’t understand how was it rude. I guess it’s my English knowledge that sucks again
You said “imagine doing a thing” implying it was a really dumb idea… Like imagine eating a tidepod… Crazy right?
But it was “imagine using a android” which like 70% of the world uses… Now your implying 70% of the world is doing something so dumb it is surprising you.
People sensibly ask you, what should they be using instead if they care about freedom etc, and your reply is use something that doesn’t exist yet…
So now the full circle is imagine doing a thing, crazy! , you should really be using something that doesn’t exist yet… You created a rhetorical situation thats impossible, and that’s why people respond very negatively to you. Your logic is inconsistent.
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I didn’t know the imagine phrase means it’s stupid. I thought it’s just judgment (e. g. imagine killing people). And I didn’t even say it very seriously. I already explained the reason. If you care to actually be fair, read that
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In this case I understand why people would respond negatively but imo rudeness and general toxicity is not justified. These things are always bad. Well maybe except the cases when the other side acts the same way or is just evil and you use toxicity as a form of terminating the person’s ability to hurt others. Though if what I said really was extremely rude, probably it’s fair idk
I haven’t been rude to you. Or at least I don’t think I have been.
I explained everything as clearly as I could.
Remember with communication, it’s not your intent it’s the perception that’s important. And yes your initial phrase came off as hostile and condescending
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Well, yes, I prefer desktop. But you know, in some countries some people have nothing else than phones. I am glad that Mullvad has posted this and hopefully Google can fix the bugs soon.
Are they interested in fixing it though?
Upvoted.
Huh why don’t you just downvote everything I say like everyone else does?
Well, I didn’t see the other comments till now, and wrote Upvoted as an alternative to Insightful which I was intending it to sound. I appreciated your comment because I think Google likely have their own priorities.
Well yea I understand. I just didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t want to just upvote and not reply because I don’t want to ignore nice (no I’m not saying that upvoting me makes you nice) people in this toxic and hopeless world. In the contrary I want to promote them. Though nobody (probably even myself) will believe in it after everything I’ve done and said here for various reasons. I guess it’s an imagine being sus moment
All fine. Your comment where you mentioned autistic suddenly made me “understand” the let-s-call-them misunderstandings in this thread. And I agree about the toxic world, but we’re all in the same boat, so I’d say we may as well be nice to each other at least a few seconds per day. Sometimes small things can make a big difference.
And use what? iOS?
Well iOS does have its advantages but tbh there are no fully usable alternatives for Android now. Hopefully Linux will get better on phones because I feel like we do need an alternative at this point
Well, we live in right now, and right now, mobile Linux just isn’t suitable for many people, and the hardware that actually supports mobile Linux is a whole other story. It’s certainly not possible to just not have a phone at all anymore, either. Calyx, Graphene and Lineage are the current best options. To say someone is stupid for using these is, well, stupid.
I didn’t say that people who use Android are stupid and neither I intended to. What I meant is that Android is really enshittificated now. “It’s certainly not possible to just not have a phone” is another story. I think relying on phones too much hurts people and the world a lot but again that’s a whole new story
Stock android is definitely enshitified - but there is still hope with custom os’s
That’s nonsense. You can pretty much deal with any unrooted Android phone with Android 9 and above with this smartphone guide. https://lemmy.ml/post/128667
Then its no longer stock?
They can change small thing or two, but nothing at the core. Look: when Samsung add something to Android vs when Google.
Okay, but saying “Imagine using Android” paints a certain picture. And, yes, relying on phones is dangerous. It’s not that it’s impossible to live without a smartphone, it’s that arbitrary systems have been put up in society that have created a large dependence on them.
Agreed in everything. Will try to be more careful about what I say next time
What other alternative is there?
No real alternatives yet unfortunately. Though if you only use a browser, Linux may work
Any system app on Android, the captive portal login and more CAN all bypass a VPN in “block all other connections” mode.
Android is really problematic and having as little system apps as possible is the only fix.
“The report detailed how the user managed to leak DNS queries when disabling and enabling VPN while having “Block connections without VPN” on.”
Not to diminish the severity of the issue but I can’t imagine this being the factor that pushes the average person to ios over android.
I’m not sure of anyone who switches from iOS. Once you are in the ecosystem they won’t let you leave.
Why is this stupidity repeated ad nauseum? I’ve successfully switched from iOS to Android and back to iOS again without any hindrance.
It’s not any different from switching from windows to Linux.
Then why can’t I use an Apple watch with anything but Apple products? Why do I need a Mac to create iOS apps?
Lmao. People really are just out there on the raggedy edge. The watch communicates with a shit ton of sensors and other tech only found on Apple devices. Also, last I checked, I can’t run an Android Watch on iPhone fully, there is always a slew of things that don’t work or kinda work. Maybe Apple didn’t want that experience for its users.
You need a Mac to build Apple apps because why in the actual fuck would you use a PC to do that!? What’s the point?
I’m not defending Apple as they clearly gate a lot of shit but the complaining about the dumbest shit ever doesn’t make them Nazis. Also, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, all of them are the same level of asshole. Big Tech is trash. This is not new news.
You could use an Android watch with iOS but Apple will not let you. I don’t get why you are defending Apple
What do you mean don’t let you? https://screenrant.com/samsung-galaxy-watch-4-use-with-iphone-compatible-explained/
Same shit as with Apple on Android, basic functionality, nothing more.
So you blame Apple for Android having basic functionality with an aWatch but then blame Apple for a Samsung Watch having basic functionality on iOS? So it’s just Apple’s fault all the way around then?
I guess you also missed the part where I say all big tech is the same? And are all basically shit? Or you just didn’t read that far…
If you just have an iPhone and nothing else and treat it like a smart phone it is very easy to migrate over to android and vice versa. If you get invested in the apple ecosystem it might be hard to leave or use some other products that are gimped without an iPhone
Third party products will not work well with an iPhone as Apple makes sure that there products work best. Additionally, iphones have very bad SMS and MMS support.
Source on bad sms and mms support? I use an iPhone and both seem to work fine…
The amount of leaks iOS intentionally does, let alone the part where they tell you to use their own (not so) Private Relay feature, is enough to stick around on Android.
Uhhhh, source? Those are pretty bold claims to just casually toss out
Here!
https://protonvpn.com/blog/apple-ios-vulnerability-disclosure/
https://mullvad.net/en/help/using-mullvad-app-on-ios#vulnerabilities
Those remain unpatched btw and have been around since iOS 14 or so.
Cheers 🥂
The other fellow provided some links, but this is a serious, in depth technical elaboration on the topic. https://gist.github.com/iosecure/357e724811fe04167332ef54e736670d
The one that irks me is how some apps that have already established a connection can ignore the VPN. I always wondered about that, like if I enabled my VPN, what happens to existing connections. One thing I couldn’t find is what apps can do this? If it’s third party apps, that’s pretty serious. But if it’s just Apple apps or default ones, that’s a far less of a concern seeing as Apple seems to bypass VPN anyway for its in-house wares.
You should treat Apple as a third party to your data. Apple is not your friend. No corporation is your friend. Apple is even worse than the average corporation.
LOL. They built the entire fucking OS. If they want to siphon my data, they can. Without anyone knowing. Also everything is linked to my Apple ID. So what’s the point? They already know everything and have tied it all together with my unique IDs, device serial numbers and the payment data associated. What’s the point the of running FaceTime over a VPN? They already know everything…
At some point you have to stay calm and think rationally.
Now if Twitter or some random app I downloaded from GitHub can bypass my VPN, then yeah, that’s a pretty big concern as they currently have nothing on me.
I’m going to ignore the “corpos aren’t your friend” because FUCKING DUUUHHHHHH
If you have sold your soul to Apple already, then that is not a problem. You may take this as offensive or factual, I do not care. Why? Because I use Android phones without a Google account. You may think, this person does not have a life, I do. But I also have a life. I use online groceries and use shopping sites through Firefox web browser. I have WhatsApp and Discord with lots of restrictions and a firewall with 400k+ domains blocked all the time.
How much data you consider okay to give away to corpos is up to you. However, understand that once you give away this or that data about you, there is no way to return back to an option or time where nobody had that data about you.
Yes, I am pretty anal about my privacy, security, anonymity and freedom. And I am shameless about it.
Just use rethink dns with a wireguard tunnel and block every app except those you trust and need !
I tried out rethink DNS but I did not manage in any way to just use my VPNs DNS. Would you have a hint how to make it work?
You have to put wireguard in simple mode .
Thank you so much. Me just stupid.
Nah we all don’t know some things .
That will not solve this issue.
I think rethink prevents dns leaks .
The issue seems to be related to how Android falls back for DNS query, beneath the firewall of your choice. In a building, people do not walk from or through upper floors. They need to enter through the ground floor and then go up.
What I don’t understand though, doesn’t using mullvad automatically set their own DNS?
On the desktop it does. But on Android things are maybe different ? Not directly related but I remember (long time ago) wanting to tether from an Android phone with Mullvad VPN app in use, to a computer, only to find out that the Android defaults (In Android not in the Mullvad app) needed a button swiped to make it work correctly on the other device.
This is not a feature in stock AOSP.
This is a feature in calyxos, lineageos
I thought sharing the VPN was blocked and not possible. Do you remember how you did?
Ive recently managed to do this;
Settings> Network & Internet> Hotspot & Tethering> Allow Clients To Use VPN
Not in pixel :( I would love this
I think that’s a feature in newer android versions, but maybe some manufacturers disallow it.
Only if your Android connection is set to automatic DNS. Additionally, they are assuming it is an OS bug. However, they also acknowledge that they had to fix something on their app to mitigate. I tried myself with Wireguard instead, killed the network access to it, and nothing ever left my phone, as Android immediately killed all connections due to the VPN always on feature.
So, I’m going to take their claim with a grain of salt until AOSP says something about this and denies or confirms the alleged bug.
I think the problem is Reddit user (who Mullvad cites) not knowing that the Private DNS feature in AOSP/Android defaults to Google DNS, and that you need to set a custom DNS of your choice to prevent this.
If you do this, you’ll be using the DNS you assign instead of using the VPN’s DNS, as intended. That will make you stand out from the rest of the same VPN users, effectively affecting privacy.
Either stand out or let your ISP or Google/Cloudflare or VPN read all your domain visit queries. It is better to not let ISP or Big Tech decipher your internet history for obvious reasons.
One DoT provider you could choose is… Mullvad: https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls
mine gives me three choices. Off, Automatic, and Private DNS (type in your own). should i set mine to off then? will that prevent the leak?
I am not sure what off does. Might need to recheck Android documentation. But I remember the custom one definitely uses whatever you set, and nothing else. No Google/Cloudflare DNS.
For example, if you like AdGuard, you can just enter
dns.adguard.comthere.so automatic will allow the leak?
Automatic on Android always falls back to Google or Cloudflare DNS in the same way systemd DNS resolving works. Or if that does not work, ISP is being sent whatever domain queries user is requesting directly. I am going off from connecting the dots between what I know about Private DNS from Android documentation, and what the Reddit poster did not mention who Mullvad cited in their blog post. I am assuming that the time gap between Android’s killswitch turning off and on with always-on settings is giving time for DNS queries to go through (detected by Wireshark), and since the default DNS provider is almost never set by people on Android, this may be happening.
