Why this? To explain with documentation why risen will never again consider installing GrapheneOS on a daily driver phone. risen will not support GrapheneOS with donations or anything else. risen will not support anyone who supports GrapheneOS. Anyone considering giving money or other support is encouraged to read these transcripts and see why they should not support GrapheneOS either, unless or until the leader and supporters cease the behaviors seen here.
GrapheneOS Daniel Micay (strcat, strncat, thestinger) and associates, among other things:
TL;DR Opinion: GrapheneOS (Daniel Micay, strcat, strncat, thestinger, and associates) are frequently involved in central to creating what some call drama or toxicity in forums and sites across the Internet. Don't take my word for it. Search
Nitter (Twitter public alternative mirror) ,
Teddit (Reddit alternative), GitHub, GitLab, HackerNews, Matrix Groups, YouTube, wherever Android operating systems or applications software are discussed, and see for yourself. (Note 3) Look at
GrapheneOS Matrix Group descriptions, and see the "stricter rules" sentence repeated again and again. Does any normal person think this reflects well on them? Or, is it simply the same thing they accuse the others of doing,
and more obvious?
Do you see similar descriptions in any other group? Maybe at F-Droid Matrix Groups? (Note 4) No.
What risen did see and experience is Micay and associates increasingly disrupting a previously relaxed and mostly friendly DivestOS XMPP Multi-User Chat public group. They particularly targeted one person, a user called risen, with increasing volume and threats of wider action and consequences for DivestOS until this user was silenced. The transcript evidence presented here shows this.
What did this user, risen, do to justify being silenced? They previously said they would not trust Daniel Micay, based on observations of CopperheadOS and GrapheneOS history, and other uncertainties or disagreements with Micay's apparent beliefs or values. They said they would not install GrapheneOS even if they could. After installing GrapheneOS anyway, they criticized some jarring cosmetic flaws (Note 2), and discussed having difficulties with backups and restores using adb, for the first time in years. They stated their opinion that GrapheneOS had too frequent updates, too frequent checks for updates, and too inconvenient actions required to stop or automatic update checks. They questioned whether GrapheneOS made it too easy for users to install proprietary, privacy-threatening, Android applications, while having an impression their privacy was protected; This was no different than how they also questioned /e/OS, iodeOS, CalyxOS or others for the same thing.
Somehow, in Micay's (strcat) view, if understood correctly, such opinions are not only incorrect, but are malicious lies, and part of a misinformation campaign, which must be stopped by any means necessary.
Among other threats, Micay (strcat) said,
Anyone considering GrapheneOS has probably heard of the Snowden Tweets, but have you read the whole thread? Even this part (archive)?
"Even with all of these precautions, I still wouldn't consider a smartphone "safe," merely "safer." The technologies underpinning our most basic systems of communication are insecure, and often insecure *by design*."Have you de-soldered your microphones and done everything else Edward recommended? Do you really think GrapheneOS would make that much difference?
Accusations of libel and similar were made by Micay (strcat). "Definition: Libel is a method of defamation expressed by print, writing, pictures, signs, effigies, or any communication embodied in physical form that is injurious to a person's reputation, exposes a person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or injures a person in his/her business or profession."
"Elements: To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject of the statement."
It is left to transcript readers to determine who is closest to being guilty of libel here, or elsewhere.
(Above excerpts are used under fair use and source terms at time of writing. Thanks to Cornell University Legal Information Institute.)
Comments: This is not part of a campaign. risen is not part of a campaign. This is a response to behavior and untrue statements such as just above by Daniel Micay (strcat), at the DivestOS XMPP Multi-User Chat. At some point risen said, "Oh come on. How many tweets etc accuse others of "attacks". I agree with paranoid behavior describing those." To my knowledge, risen never called Daniel Micay (strcat) anything except a liar, and usually carefully avoided the topic of mental health issues.
risen did say at some point, "It's possible you believe what you've written. It's false, but if you believe it, something other than lies is happening here. You have my pity. I'll try ignoring you."
No specific conclusions are suggested here, but the following may be of interest to readers, for comparisons:
There must be a better way, but this is what was done. Conversations Backup (ceb) files were obtained from sources who were in the DivestOS XMPP Multi-User Chat room where it happened. The java ceb2txt program for Conversations was used to convert ceb files to text files; however, these text files contained only limited portions of the transcripts.(Note 1)
The ceb files were copied onto another device and restored into a Conversations client. The restoration appears to be complete, for the time period it contains. Messages were tediously, individually copy/pasted into a Notepad. Dates and times (in UTC) were tediously placed into the transcripts in the approximate locations where the time stamp changed. User nicknames were tediously added, followed by a colon, on a single line where the author of messages changed.
Typographical errors were corrected when found in added dates, times or nicknames. Many typographical errors are contained in the original messages. Some of these are corrected by the original authors. Many are not. No editing of messages was done, but there is a small probability of accidental changes due to the tedious process used. You will see many nearly duplicate messages with minor changes. This is because of the way messages were re-sent after changes were made by the authors. Some typographical errors in dates or times or nicknames may still exist.
Not all messages were included. Side discussions also occurring were not included. Some messages with primarily detailed technical content were not included. The transcripts are very long. Some content unrelated to strcat and risen, and off-hand comments, was left out to make this shorter.
HTML formatting was added to transcripts where needed to make them complete web pages. Introduction contents were added to each chapter or section of discussion. A Table of Contents was added.
Note 1: A bug report should be filed for the failures of ceb2text, if one does not already exist; however, Conversations and ceb2txt use Microsoft GitHub, and no self-respecting Free Software supporter should ever use proprietary Microsoft products such as GitHub, if it can be avoided. People have their reasons for using it. The Conversations app is great; however, its development should move.
Note 2: Default GrapheneOS included Contacts and SMS messaging apps, but they did not have dark theme, even though dark theme was the system default. This was corrected sometime around the conversations recorded here, but after risen had already uninstalled GrapheneOS.
Note 3: Linking to numerous Nitter (Twitter) and other examples to demonstrate similarity was considered, but not done for several reasons including: general dislike for the platforms, not wanting to waste more time, ease of finding, likelihood more examples will appear, and edits to posts on those sites can change or break links. An exception was made for the quote from Gael Duval when adding quotes to chapters.
Note 4: F-Droid was another target of GrapheneOS Daniel Micay. It is known that in Micay's view it was vice versa; however, I've never seen Micay accept responsibility for being wrong about anything. Based on the experience documented here, and other observations, the pattern showing where the attacks, targeting, bullying and harassment usually originate is fairly clear. Which seems more likely, Micay is always the target, or Micay is often if not always the originator? You decide.
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