C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Pixel telephones are apparently the cellphone of selection for criminals, drug sellers, and gang members in Spain’s Catalonia.
- Police say each time they spot somebody with a Pixel, they assume they have to be a drug vendor.
- The recognition of Pixels among the many unsuitable crowd has little to do with Google telephones and the whole lot to do with Android’s open nature.
Police in Spain, particularly within the autonomous area of Catalonia, are very alert after they spot somebody utilizing a Google Pixel cellphone. As bizarre because it sounds, Pixels are extremely most well-liked by these concerned in organized crime, in line with the Catalan police.
“Each time we see a Google Pixel, we suspect it would belong to a drug vendor,” mentioned a police official main the anti-drug operation in Catalonia, as per Xataka Android (machine translated).
However why are Pixels standard amongst criminals in that area? It actually has little to do with how Google makes its telephones and the whole lot to do with the open nature of Android, which lets customers use various working techniques.
Particularly, organized crime members in Catalonia use GrapheneOS, a privateness and security-focused working system that retains your information out of Google’s attain. Criminals and gang members in Spain choose utilizing GrapheneOS on Pixel telephones, and there’s a very good purpose for it. GrapheneOS implements full disk and metadata encryption, a safety function exploited by miscreants. However it works greatest on Pixels.
Regardless that GrapheneOS may be put in on any unlocked Android cellphone, the firm’s FAQ part strongly recommends utilizing a Pixel cellphone “as a consequence of higher safety and an extended minimal assist assure from launch for full safety updates and different enhancements.”
The web page particularly mentions the Pixel 8 and Pixel 9 sequence, “for the extremely highly effective {hardware} reminiscence tagging safety function as a part of transferring to new ARM V9 CPU cores.”
Moreover, like most Android telephones, Pixel units are on Google’s Discover My Gadget community, which permits customers to remotely lock or wipe their telephones, a function that’s sarcastically valued by criminals. The truth is, one of many Pixel’s standout options — its cameras — is one thing these criminals don’t even use and infrequently have bodily eliminated, together with the GPS and microphone.
In Catalonia, a Pixel sighting now raises extra than simply tech curiosity, it raises crimson flags.
The police’s answer to counter these intelligent tips is to contaminate Pixels with malware to achieve full entry to apps, media, paperwork, and extra. Even GrapheneOS is just not proof against malware assaults.
So whereas Google absolutely didn’t intend for Pixels to turn into the cellphone of selection for criminals, their safety {hardware}, mod-friendly nature, and assist for GrapheneOS have made them unexpectedly enticing to the unsuitable crowd. In Catalonia, a Pixel sighting now raises extra than simply tech curiosity, it raises crimson flags.
