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I captured 72 hours of idle Android packets behind pfSense

45 points · 27 comments · youngmanyk

  1. aucisson_masque · · focus · HN ↗
    Grapheneos with Google play services (sandboxed) only send 12 packets per hour, instead of around 350.

    That’s great, but the sandboxed Google play services are by default set to normal in battery usage. Meaning it’s subject to dooze and other ways to artificially limit its background activity.

    You neee to set the battery usage to unrestricted to reliably revive notification.

    I wonder what the packet count would have been with unrestricted Google play services.

    1. like_any_other · · focus · HN ↗
      I'm less interested in the quantity, and more in the content of those packets. Do they contain my GPS movement history? A list of installed and opened apps? My contacts list, messaging text log, and list of visited websites?

      The data I really care about protecting would fit into a few kilobytes, so knowing the phone sends, for example, a minuscule 2 MB/day, brings me no comfort.

      1. aucisson_masque · · focus · HN ↗
        Google play services on ‘stock’ android has access to absolutely everything. Including list of apps.

        Obviously they send back this data to Google, for legitimate and advertising reasons. For instance, how would they backup apps you have installed if they didn’t know what you installed in the first place.

        On grapheneos, it doesn’t have access to this data, but it can still gather a lot of data (just as regular apps on Android). Location (even without location permission), WiFi devices around, Gyroscope so they know if you are standing, driving or else, etc…

        Android is rotten to the core.

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