Fairphone 4 is making hundreds of unwanted connections per day, to the same addresses. - eviltoast

So I got Fairphone 4, with /e/ os, a couple of days ago. When I connected it to my NextDNS I saw that it was trying to connect to some weird addresses, like every 5-10 minutes. I searched Internet a bit and found out that it was something with snapdragon cpu and location services. I travel a lot and use Organic Maps for navigation, so location was enabled almost all day on the phone. I turned off location services and connections stopped, and everything was fine for a couple of days.

Today I came home, checked logs in NextDNS and saw that phone started doing the same connections almost constantly even with location turned off.

Can I do something about this, other than allowing these connections? These connections are probably so numerous because they are getting blocked. If I allowed them, phone would maybe call home once in a couple of hours. I would rather not allow them, but I don’t want 20% of battery to be eaten by this.

  • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
    64·
    1 year ago

    Naa that’s not something with “snapdragon cpu and location services” it’s something with snapdragon + the OS allowing it and most likely profiting from it. Fairphone guys have been petitioned multiples times to open their platform and/or collaborate with projects such as GrapheneOS and CalyxOS so user can have private and secure phones but they don’t care.

    CalyxOS does support the Fairphone 4 however that’s only due to the persistence and reverse engineering efforts of the CalyxOS project / community. If you decide to use it you won’t have a secure bootloader anymore due to a bug in Fairphone’s firmware that they choose not to fix. That’s how “fair” the “Fairphone” really is.

    Here is more relevant information for you from here:

    XTRA is technology offered by Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. in the US and QT Technologies Ireland Limited in the European Economic Area to improve mobile device performance. XTRA downloads a data file from Qualcomm containing the predicted orbits of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) satellites. Using the XTRA data file reduces the time the device needs to calculate its location, thus saving time and battery power when using location-based applications. Newer versions of the XTRA software also upload a small amount of data to us. We use the uploaded data for purposes described in this Policy, such as maintaining and improving the quality, security, and integrity of the service. XTRA uploads the following data types: a randomly generated unique ID, the chipset name and serial number, XTRA software version, the mobile country code and network code (allowing identification of country and wireless operator), the type of operating system and version, device make and model, the time since the last boot of the application processor and modem, and a list of our software on the device

    Before you say this is the CPU’s fault, it isn’t, at least on its own. GrapheneOS also deals with this kind of stuff and has patches and options so you can block it.

    • Cossty@lemmy.worldOP
      51·
      1 year ago

      After looking into it more, I don’t think I would use Graphene OS even if it was supported on FP4, main dev seems like a lying man baby.

      On the other hand, I didn’t know Calyx OS has support for FP4, I might try it out.

      • fl42v@lemmy.ml
        2·
        1 year ago

        I don’t really remember strcat “lying”, yet there are some evidence of him being… Let’s say unstable. GrapheneOS, tho, is another story as it’s trying to improve the android’s privacy/security model instead of simply not making things worse. For example, they are behind hardened malloc - for security, and have storage & contact scopes (i.e. letting the user choose which files/directories exactly an app can access) - for privacy. While the former feature has been adopted by a few other roms and even desktop Linux distributions, the latter I’ve seen only on graphene so far, which is quite a shame. Same goes for sandboxing play services

        • Cossty@lemmy.worldOP
          21·
          1 year ago

          Thanks, that was interesting and eye opening read. Do you know if he is still working on graphene os or is he out? Because some users mentioned that he left.

      • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        Why so much hate towards GrapheneOS? The thing is carefully planned and executed. About Calyx… just don’t forget that you won’t get a secure boot… anyone who gets you phone can temper with your boot.