I understand your point, however I don’t know if the anonymous people “verifying” code are good actors either.

For people who can’t verify for themselves (like me) - Apple is the best available option, whereas they appear to be legit in attempting to protect user data and they have the resources to fight legally.

I love the idea of Graphene and I have it installed on a Pixel 5 so I can use Samurai wallet. My primary point is I am trusting that the folks who tell me Graphene is safe are legitimate as well.

You could be a CIA agent attempting to persuade people to use Graphene because you were able to merge a back door into it. I don’t know.

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Ah, yeah, I see your point. I totally agree, if you don't become a software expert and read every line of code (an impossible task), then you'll always be trusting someone at some level.

You're completely right. The thing I might point out though, is that with Apple you have one org which has total control over the entire ecosystem (hardware, firmware, OS, apps, app store, etc) and no hope of any audit. There is an immense opportunity for corruption and malicious design.

UnGoogled Android (i.e. Graphene) on the other hand has many many many contributors that touch only small pieces of the ecosystem. If any of them are CIA agents (or even several of them), it would still be a monumental effort for them to orchestrate any sort of systemic malicious design across the entire ecosystem. AND they'd have to pull it off without the honest software devs noticing. Maybe certain components or libraries could be compromised, but that is much better than the monolithic power that Apple has over its ecosystem.

At least with UnGoogled Android, you have the option to choose how much you want verify yourself and how much you want to trust other people to verify. Apple you have no choice. I'm not naive enough to think I can attain perfect security or privacy. I just want to minimize the amount of trust I have to give to any one person, and not make it overtly easy to control my digital life.