Tell HN: PayPal Blocks GrapheneOS

206

lleumon about 4 hours ago 125 comments

It seems like the PayPal app now refuses to run on GrapheneOS. I don't know if it's only because I have enabled the PayPal card for contacless NFC payments, but when opening the app it crashes with the following exception: com.paypal.oslo.app.rasp.RootDetectionSecurityException: Security policy violation: s=root

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Discussion (125 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

axegon_•about 2 hours ago

This is arguably the most irritating thing with just about every largecorp developer: "os that hasn't been updated in 6 years? Sure boss!". Os that is built specifically around security and privacy with daily updates: "No, you can't do that". Annoying - yes. Safe way to make sure I will stop being your customer - also YES!

fluidcruft•about 1 hour ago

Generally I think the issue is that there's a tension between your security vs Paypal's security (deliberate, motivated bad actors).

Maybe an analogy could be about using metal detectors as a layer to reduce bank robberies. A gun in a good guy's hands is a good thing to prevent robberies. Guns in a bad guy's hands are a bad thing to prevent robberies. Paypal knows you have a gun but they don't know if you're a good guy or a bad guy so it's easier to just ban guns.

brightball•35 minutes ago

Yea, years ago I was in the security space and got to talk to some paypal security folks at a symposium in San Diego. The level of stuff that they have to deal with is so extreme.

It's similar to how people don't like sites blocking entire countries or access from Tor, etc. You might be doing it for privacy...but all the people trying to commit fraud are also using those same channels to hide their identity. The blockades are one piece of a holistic security picture that frustrate the well intentioned users.

axegon_•9 minutes ago

Yet another weak point. My question stands: A user with an OS from 2019 is "secure" and dozens of unpatched CVEs but a literally-last-night-patch OS is not? That's the "stuff they have to deal with"? I was lucky and did not make the mistake of joining a payment provider in 2020 or 2021 (I can't remember). The reality is that European laws are much harsher when it comes to payments and personal data protection and the security team I was being interviewed for was catastrophic(big part of the reason I did the "I accepted another offer already, sorry" card).

As for geo fencing or blocking Tor... HAH! As if that's ever stopped anyone with the will. That is the last concern of anyone with a malicious intent. Sure, it stops irritating kids but no one beyond that.

The simple fact is that cybersecurity was in an abysmal state before the slopification began and it's infinitely worse now. Paypal is no different given that much of their support has been outsourced to slop machines. Punishing the users that know what they are doing while rewarding the ones that don't is the most counter-productive and detrimental crap anyone could come up with.

axegon_•about 1 hour ago

That's your argument? Mate, you can make explosives out of stuff you can buy in literally any supermarket and no one bats an eyelash. You don't have to legally be adult to buy any of the things you'd need and I say that as someone who only struggled with chemistry in school, that's now low the bar is. What's the solution then? Ban sea salt? If someone is using Graphene, the chances of them getting hacked are astronomically lower than any Chinese spyware-infested phone.

dmichulke•19 minutes ago

To stay with your analogy, there is no technical obstacle to treating the customer of 15 years differently compared to the newly onboarded one.

They have all the data they need, and they choose not to use it.

fluidcruft•11 minutes ago

The analogy was not about new vs old customers being allowed to have guns.

I think that's a limitation of the analogy because there is no correspondence with trusted computing. I guess it would be some sort of a magical gun that some other company is endorsing as of limited use during bank robberies? Maybe like some sort of RFID thing that disables the gun when inside a bank?

Anyway it really stretches the analogy to get tied up in technical details (risks missing the forest for the trees type error).

encom•about 1 hour ago

How does a rooted phone enable bank fraud? This smells like pointless policy checkboxing.

biosboiii•about 1 hour ago

If you run a rooted phone and download malware, that malware can gain root and do payments on your behalf. Then PayPal has to deal with you revoking payments etc., they don't want to so they forbid you from using PayPal on a rooted phone.

iamnothere•39 minutes ago

Graphene OS does not support root. This is a false positive based on some check they are doing.

tonyhart7•about 1 hour ago

"Safe way to make sure I will stop being your customer - also YES!"

I don't think they care at all about the size of graphene os market share

if its jeopardize entire userbase then its not worth it

axegon_•about 1 hour ago

Fine by me. My example illustrates their incompetence if they are willing to let a user with an OS that hasn't received any updates in half a decade, then clearly, they don't give a single crap about security.

tonyhart7•about 1 hour ago

Noo, it’s the other way around lmao.

A financial security audit is one of the most thorough security audits you can ask for in software.

GrapheneOS gets blocked because it doesn’t follow the secure system requirements (root).

dylan604•about 1 hour ago

I'm sure their automatic bans have happened to more people than the number of grapheneOS users

goonersallofyou•3 minutes ago

I remember when I had to boot up an old windows machine because TurboTax refused to run on a Linux (might have been something related to flash as well... been too long to recall), then I just ran Windows in a VM, then extensions allowed me to do User-Agent spoofing (honestly should have thought of this sooner), and now they don't seem to care at all. I did my taxes on OpenBSD last year.

zerof1l•about 3 hours ago

I see this happen from time to time. Lately, almost all of the apps work fine on GrapheneOS. The best strategy is to keep writing the business once every two or so weeks that you can’t log in to and use the app. Don’t go too technical at first, because most of the time, the moment they hear things like “rooted” or “unofficial,” they just say your phone is the issue. To date, I was able to convince, or at least contribute to, making three apps work on GOS.

dvoros•about 1 hour ago

I had the same experience. Asked in an email why an important government app won't work on GrapheneOS, first without any technical details. Got the response that it's "because security". I sent some technical details and argued that they're denying service to their most security-conscious users. 3 months later the app started to work!

basilikum•about 1 hour ago

Great job, man. We have to make ourselves get heard. It's a social problem after all. Technical workarounds are great and sometimes the only practical short term option, but we have to fix the social issue at the root.

Kwpolska•about 2 hours ago

Why would anyone still use PayPal after so many cases of accounts being banned and funds being frozen for no reason, and all the other terrible stuff they've done?

dewey•about 1 hour ago

Easy to say when you are in a country where you have a lot of options.

There's some countries with very bad financial sector where your option is PayPal or Western Union as the local banks don't know how to do international transfers, Remitly doesn't support all countries and Wise also doesn't work. PayPal works, even if they charge fees.

cloudie78•40 minutes ago

Which countries have local banks that don’t know how to do international transfers?

dewey•23 minutes ago

We were having a lot of problems with that in Honduras, staff in the branch did not know how to do that, fees are extremely high and sometimes the bank system is just offline and you get sent home. There's a reason all these alternatives like Western Union etc. exist for this remittance use case.

It was a big reality check for me usually living in Germany and having access to a lot of banks and modern neo-banks.

kalleboo•26 minutes ago

My local banks know how to international transfers but I have to go into a bank office and fill out a paper form.

DemetriousJones•about 2 hours ago

I simply use it as an intermediary between my bank and any website I don't fully trust

fg137•about 1 hour ago

I use "virtual card" for those needs. For me, it doesn't justify bringing out PayPal

dylan604•about 1 hour ago

I've had to use it when my bank's purchase limits did not allow for card (virtual or real), but the same purchase was allowed when going through PayPal. It was annoying AF, but was much faster than contacting my bank and getting permission to spend my money.

rciorba•about 2 hours ago

Critical mass? I had to start using it after moving to Germany, because everyone else expects you to use it.

One of the ladies at daycare is leaving? Here's a paypal link to chip in for a good-bye present.

Split a take-out order with a German friend, but he paid? Here's his paypal to send him your share.

It's just assumed that everyone has paypal over here...

cloudie78•37 minutes ago

Time to start heralding change you want to see. Offer Wero instead. It’s really simple.

iammrpayments•about 2 hours ago

Thought they use Sepa

mr_mitm•26 minutes ago

I wish. The small inconvenience of putting in an IBAN and a matching name instead of just an email address is already enough for many people to default to paypal. Just happened to me again yesterday, the guy preferred to bring cash next time we see each other instead of just receiving my info via text.

rciorba•34 minutes ago

Sepa is how my kid's daycare debits me each month, or how I transfer money to other accounts (most bills are direct-debit, but sometimes I get a one-off invoice and I have to transfer the money myself).

But for the small person-to-person type thing, paypal is the defacto here (sadly).

netsharc•about 2 hours ago

SEPA uses your IBAN (account number), and one can also enter this account number for payment, implicitly allowing the store to withdraw money from it...

vlyan•about 2 hours ago

because global-ish exchange of goods and services for money is a deliberately convoluted experience that only a handful of well-connected entities are allowed to facilitate, which enables each and every one of them to put "we reserve the right to fuck you in the ass for any or no reason" in their ToS.

StrLght•about 1 hour ago

Still works for me.

I had to update exploit protection after their latest update — I think it was enabling dynamic code loading via both memory and storage that did the trick.

Edit: checked now, I have also disabled secure app spawning.

Retr0id•about 1 hour ago

Interesting, just inferring from that it sounds like GrapheneOS's actual-security features might have been tripping up PayPal's root-detection "security" features.

(Rather than something fundamentally incompatible, like them using Play Integrity)

StrLght•about 1 hour ago

There are valid RASP techniques that involve dynamic code loading, so it actually makes a lot of sense. Source: I worked on RASP a long time ago :)

IMO headline is very misleading, and OP should have tried disabling all exploit protection options before jumping to any conclusions. PayPal isn't actively trying to block GrapheneOS as of now.

skinfaxi•41 minutes ago

So to use paypal you actually have to reduce the security of the phone?

onion2k•about 2 hours ago

Has PayPal blocked GrapheneOS, or have they blocked every OS they're unable to verify and done a poor job of implementing their checks?

Hanlon's Razor is a useful tool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

folkrav•about 1 hour ago

The very fact they've managed to convince anyone that checking what OS I decide to run on the devices I own to check my own banking is any of their concern is a problem in and of itself.

y-curious•about 1 hour ago

Ironically, I had to apply Hanlon’s Razor to the impolite tone of your post

onion2k•about 1 hour ago

"Ironic" means saying the opposite of what you mean in order to be funny or sarcastic. So that would mean you think I was both polite and not an idiot.

Jokes on you though, I'm neither of those things.

redleader55•about 1 hour ago

You're a banking app. Why do you need to check my phone or my os? The security is not in what phone I use, but in how sane your 2-factor auth is and if even exists.

onion2k•44 minutes ago

You're a banking app.

I've been called worse.

4chandaily•about 1 hour ago

It is a useful tool, but is largely irrelevant to this issue. To the end user, this isn't really much of a difference. Whether the cause is malice or simply not choosing to use the smallest effective brush, they are still taking an action that is preventing legitimate users from accessing the service.

skinfaxi•42 minutes ago

Hanlon's razor is for people. Organizations do not operate like people and do not deserve the same deference.

basilikum•about 1 hour ago

> have they blocked every OS they're unable to verify

This is evil in itself.

bossyTeacher•about 1 hour ago

They have blocked rooted phones based on the error provided. Nothing to do with verification. They treat rooted phones to a level they don't with phones without critical security updates. That's the tension. Non-rooted phones aren't necessarily unsafer.

fylo•about 1 hour ago

Graphene isn't rooted....

ThomasGlanzmann•about 2 hours ago

I'm on Debian Testing sometimes on amd64 and sometimes on m1. Paypal also doesn't like me. Than I have two options: I use a Windows VM to do the payment or I use another payment method. Most of the time I use the other payment method.

gnoll_of_gozag•about 2 hours ago

Can it still run in browser like it would on a regular pc?

leumon•about 3 hours ago

Update: it seems to work when disabling "secure app spawning" (for now)

paperscissors•about 1 hour ago

Great to know, thanks!

zvmaz•about 2 hours ago

So it's not PayPal blocking GrapheneOS?

ttouch•about 1 hour ago

thank you!

Helmut10001•19 minutes ago

Why do you need PayPal APP? I have grapheneos and just tested logging in to PayPal web. Works.

jordand•32 minutes ago

I've disabled auto-update for PayPal in the Play Store and also Disabled the app locally (so I can re-enable when rarely needed). They'll force people to update soon enough given how banking apps are.

jadar•about 1 hour ago

Does this really have anything to do with GOS and more to do with apps not wanting to run on rooted phones? A rooted phone is more likely to be tampered with and have its sandbox rules relaxed. There's a big business of security companies selling tools to harden mobile apps and the bare minimum is not running on rooted phones.

daveoc64•21 minutes ago

GrapheneOS doesn't give you root access.

The OS is designed to offer privacy and security guarantees, which root access breaks, so they don't offer it.

aabdelhafez•about 3 hours ago

Switched to Wero and haven't looked back.

https://wero-wallet.eu

sunaookami•about 1 hour ago

Wero is not a PayPal alternative. It doesn't even have buyer's protection and every bank must manually implement it which immediately makes it a failure. Some banks also connect it to your phone number so you can't link Wero to two different bank accounts with the same number when you have 2 bank accounts. Very messy.

master-lincoln•about 1 hour ago

> Some banks also connect it to your phone number

What do you mean "some banks"? I thought the whole value proposition of Wero was instant bank transfers with SEPA but using phone numbers?

unpopularopp•about 2 hours ago

Unfortunately peasants like us who don't live in the 5 countries where it's available still can't look back

Carbon1603•42 minutes ago

I live where it's available and still can't use it to pay stuff, only to transfer money to friends.

muvlon•about 2 hours ago

You need to use your bank's app for Wero, and many EU banks' apps refuse to run on GrapheneOS for the same reasons as PayPal. This is sadly not a clear win for Wero.

Carbon1603•40 minutes ago

Sadly, not even close. I would even dare to say that Klarna is closer to what PayPal is, than Wero.

therealmarv•about 2 hours ago

wait for it... I can see a future were every wallet, payment etc. app will block devices which are on custom ROMs and do not pass strong hardware integrity with blessing from Google.

I've read once that there are paid app testing labs which test if an app has root and custom ROM detection and when they don't have that it's a minus point on the report.

oniony•about 2 hours ago

The website is pages and pages of blankness for me on Firefox mobile.

savwolf•about 1 hour ago

Does this work in the UK?

doublerabbit•about 1 hour ago

No. We left the EU, so we don't get such fun.

schnittbrot•about 1 hour ago

I've been using it in the browser with GOS no problem. Any reason why one would need the app besides a little more convenience?

aframemodular•about 1 hour ago

They require the app for certain things like managing which PayPal debit card category gets 5% cash back

sdcfgy•about 2 hours ago

I'm starting to see these restrictions as a deterrent for using the products in question. My GOS handset is slowly fizzling away into a dumbphone with Firefox, organic maps and k9. And you know what, I am starting like it.

bit1993•about 2 hours ago

I was always suspicious of GrapheneOS, thought it was too good to be true. But this makes me reconsider and want to install GrapheneOS.

nicman23•about 2 hours ago

it is great and you know that because cops are pissy about it

kissiel•about 2 hours ago

I think if paypal not working on GOS makes you not use it, then GOS is definitely not for you...

WCSTombs•about 2 hours ago

They're saying the opposite, no?

pirates•about 1 hour ago

They didn’t read it that closely, they just wanted to put someone down and move along.

bdzr•about 1 hour ago

I also ran into the eBay application being blocked just recently. Other than that I've had no issues, but I imagine this is going to become more and more common as time goes on.

StrLght•43 minutes ago

eBay has been enforcing Play Integrity for over a year now. Luckily you don't lose much by using it in a browser.

I also get why they'd be desperate to fight bots. It's a weak excuse for not doing it better, but at least it makes some sense.

dingdong2026•18 minutes ago

Why would you use PayPal anyway? It's a t#rd.

anonymousiam•about 1 hour ago

Hopefully these stupid companies that are refusing to allow their apps to run on GrapheneOS will have a change of heart when Motorola begins launching their new phones:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/08/motorolas-grapheneos...

master-lincoln•about 1 hour ago

if there is enough money to be made they will consider it...

prartichoke•about 1 hour ago

Confirmed on my phone too. I left a 1-star review on the play store saying it crashes on every launch, uninstalled and will use the website from now on. (Luckily, I dont use contactless payments, ai just send and receive money from friends from time to time)

https443•21 minutes ago

Similarly, Cash App does not work on Graphene

savwolf•about 1 hour ago

This is what really makes me question if I want to continue to use GOS, already some UK banks apps (which are app only) don't want to run. I'm considering switching back to stock as I can't be bothered to try to find hacks and workarounds for daily necessities.

depressedpanda•43 minutes ago

I would never use a bank that is app only. Sounds like a horrible experience.

dennemark•about 1 hour ago

Looking at the description, the title should be changed to "Contactless PayPal card does not run on GrapheneOS"

I use latest Aurora Store PayPal version and it still works. I just dont use contactless payment.

hashworks•about 1 hour ago

I'm not using the contactless payment feature and get the same crash and error.

zache6•about 1 hour ago

It works for me after enabling exploit protection compatibility mode. Pixel 9a on latest versions of GOS and PayPal.

taegee•about 1 hour ago

Still works fine for me. PayPal and GrapheneOS are both on the current release.

Grisu_FTP•about 2 hours ago

I still remember when my bank wanted me to run Android 9 instead of my Android 15 rom (without root) on my Samsung S8 because "muh security!!"

Funnily enough, the only way to hide those detections was to Root my phone... And i still remember when i had an appointment there, they wanted to see something in my Bank app, i opened it (and i assume it had an update since i then last used it) and a big "THIS DEVICE IS NOT SUPPORTED. ROOT IS NOT SUPPORTED" poped up

But was as simple as readding the bank app to my root hiders.

but still, i hate this security theater

varispeed•19 minutes ago

This should be illegal, but it won't. Corrupt politicians want people to be only on the approved operating systems so they can be surveilled.

tombardier•about 2 hours ago

Still works on my up to date pixel 9 xl. I haven't enabled NFC payments though

freakynit•about 4 hours ago

"RootDetectionSecurityException" .. there's your answer ... it doesnt't want to run on "rooted" devices.

leumon•about 4 hours ago

Well I haven't rooted my device. It's just normal grapheneos

therealmarv•about 2 hours ago

These days, root is mostly flagged via indirect indicators rather than detecting the root binary itself. For instance, detecting custom ROMs is a common clue. Does anyone remember the suhide days? ;)

tensegrist•about 2 hours ago

iirc grapheneos can't be rooted unless you do your own build

futune•about 1 hour ago

That's the bizarre thing about this hn discussion... A lot of people referencing rooted phones, but to the best of my knowledge GrapheneOS is almost never rooted?

Sophira•about 1 hour ago

It can be rooted just fine without doing your own build. It's just that if you do, the GrapheneOS community will claim that it is no longer GrapheneOS and that it's separate.

windowliker•about 2 hours ago

Isn't it more likely to be saying that the app is running with root privileges?

7r33•about 1 hour ago

P10F, 2026081301, Aurora Store, secondary profile, flawless. Try harder.

doublerabbit•about 1 hour ago

When threat comes knocking, the door gets bolted-shut.

hd4•about 2 hours ago

did you re-lock the bootloader?

gib444•about 3 hours ago

With or without Google Play Services running?

leumon•about 3 hours ago

With. But disabling "Secure app spawning" seems to fix it for now.

nunobrito•about 2 hours ago

Paypal doesn't work on LineageOS since a long time, even though the connections of that dubious Graphene distro with the US government are always in the horizon it is just natural that paypal doesn't work there now.

Otherwise it would just continue to raise suspicious that Graphene is favored by governments and big tech.

imska•about 1 hour ago

It does work for me on lineages for microg with an Xperia 5 II. Haven't tried to activate contactless though.