An important security feature not being fully implemented due to it being a development annoyance is problematic. GrapheneOS is an aftermarket OS focused on Pixels and we wanted this feature to start being used properly and complained about it not being done on the past devices.
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Not everyone using an aftermarket OS wants to roll back the security model and disable security features. Proper verified boot is a small part of what we expect potential hardware partners to implement. It's not proper verified boot if firmware bypasses aren't fixed like this.
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You're welcome to use something other than GrapheneOS if you don't want the standard security model and hardware-based security features intact. Rollback protection is a basic security feature and has already been used for years, just not for the early SoC boot chain in practice.
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Pixels were in theory supposed to be doing this already but were not doing it in practice due to the conflict between them being secure devices and being development devices where someone might want to flash an obsolete, insecure OS version to test app compatibility with it, etc.
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Newer runs of the devices will shipped with updated firmware/OS.
We consider it a problem that it takes us a couple weeks to move to new major OS versions we intend to solve that by getting partner access eventually such as via a hardware partner so that we can port earlier.
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On our own hardware, we'll also get to decide when we move to a new major OS version. On existing hardware, when a device moves to a new major OS version, we have to move to the new major OS version to continue providing basic privacy and security updates for the firmware, etc.
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That's true regardless of whether there's anti-rollback protection for the boot chain firmware. On August 15th, Android 13 was released for Pixels. There was no August release for Android 12.1. The maximum obtainable patch level on Android 12.1 is 2022-08-01. We have to upgrade.
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Or backport the fixes, like LineageOS tries to.
(Probably difficult long-term, but likely not for the first release especially since Graphene does their own security fixes)
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LineageOS doesn't backport these fixes, and in fact they purposely mislead users about what has been shipped, set fake security patch levels and downplay the importance of the patches which are not available.
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The last stock OS release for Pixels has the 2022-07-05 patch level. The highest obtainable patch levels on 4th, 5th and 6th generation Pixels is 2022-08-01. That can be obtained by applying the monthly August 12.1 security patches. 2022-08-05 and above on Pixels requires 13.
You can't obtain the 2022-08-05 patch level without shipping the updated SoC firmware, updated secure element firmware, other firmware and other device support code updates such as kernel and userspace driver changes which were released only as part of the Android 13 release.
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LineageOS will likely choose to set the main patch level string to 2022-08-05 and then higher, but they won't have those patches, and the overall patch level string covers the device as a whole. It is not divided up the way they pretend and they do not ship the levels they claim.
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