James was only ever interested in using the project and myself to line his pockets with money through whatever means possible. Copperhead was run in a highly unethical and irregular way. He pursued and signed deals with criminal organizations and tried to sell out to governments.
Conversation
Near the end of Copperhead's involvement, James was pursuing a deal with a US military contractor. He told me he needed to provide access to infrastructure and signing keys so they could "audit" them. It was a ridiculous request that I obviously refused.
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James and one of his associates were scheming to trick the police into seizing my personal hardware by claiming it was stolen company property in an attempt to get the signing keys, which wouldn't have worked anyway. I was leaked this information by someone involved with them.
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It was impossible to push further updates for the original OS due to the infrastructure takeover. It was also going to take a long time to revive the project. Over a year later, it's still not fully revived and on track. I made the decision to wipe the keys to prevent compromise.
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Nothing was lost from wiping the keys because it wasn't going to be possible to push a non-compromised update. I also needed fresh, untainted keys not associated with that incarnation of the project due to the threats to weaponize the police / legal system with a false narrative.
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I'm currently still hard at work reviving the project. An enormous amount of damage was done to the project through theft of the donations, revenue, the primary means of communication with the community (email list, IRC channel, Matrix room, Twitter account, subreddit) and more.
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I've had a very difficult time over the past year and a half. I founded this project and developed / maintained all of it over the years. I co-founded a company that was supposed to sponsor it, but it took far more than it provided even before it was hijacked and turned on me.
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A year and a half later, James Donaldson is still doing whatever he can to harm the project and myself. He's using the project's legacy donations, revenue, mailing list, Twitter account, etc. as weapons to damage it, and is still attempting to scam people/companies out of money.
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If it wasn't for malicious people aiming to destroy it, GrapheneOS would be much further along. It would have a substantial development team and hardware partners producing experimental generations of hardened smartphones. I don't think people realize how much James burned down.
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Also, if you're wondering based on that quote, is aware of what happened with the previous incarnation of the OS. People say lots of nasty things about him but he was there providing support after what happened and GrapheneOS would not still be around today without that.
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So sure, he's not a developer and isn't a highly technical privacy/security expert but he's trying to do good and he's one of the few people providing support to projects aiming to make things better. I see far more silly stuff in feeds of security engineers / researchers anyway.
