Received request from a friend in Minneapolis.
I suggested FairPhone/Murena and they found this Cape.co. The finding a compatible wireless carrier and managing a VPN piece thru them off. They need an easy solution that gives them peace of mind, but they are not techy at all. “Being able to research and pick a carrier, phone and OS was overwhelming.”
This person is not nefarious, but they rightly believe the government is being nefarious in their town and they want to resist while being safe. The marketing from Cape hit the nail, but it’s marketing.
I’m not there to help, so looking for experienced condensed advice on the device.
I should add - this will be a daily driver and I’ve already advised to leave the device home for protests, etc. due to tower tracking. We’re at the next layer.
Thanks for the feedback. For clarity, Cape is offering a GrapheneOS installed out of box to the user for a surcharge. This is what connected the title: https://www.cape.co/blog/cape-supports-grapheneos
Why would I do that?
I would never trust a phone with Graphene pre installed. I suppose you can check the hash on boot, but to be completely sure that you’re secure, you should install it yourself.
Also, the dude who started that company used to work for Palantir. Its not out of the realm of possibility that someone who worked for them saw how horrible they were and decided to fight against that, but they’re a new company and I would be extremely hesitant to trust someone with that track record until they’ve been heavily audited and proven themselves trustworthy.
Good point. Can only trust the device and service as far as the company. And nobody is giving good reason to trust Cape.
Hey OP, if you ever get around to checking the hash on boot (if possible), it would be worth it to update the post and let everyone know if you were able to validate or not. That would be an interesting tidbit.