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@GreenSloth @wonka @FullOnElectric @nwp @Edent @pluralistic basically in modern Android phones there is a public key that's flashed into the secure store on the processor that's used as a "root of trust" that basically begins the chain of checks (called verified boot) that android runs to make sure that whatever operating system you're booting hasn't been corrupted by malware or compromised or switched out on you without your consent. The idea is that only the manufacturer or the creator of the original OS you're booting has the private key they can use to sign the OS so that it will satisfy that root of trust (it also does a checksum to prevent modifications). (In the Google Pixel line, you can also flash a user-set root of trust as well if you want to boot your own operating system, so that it can verify that whatever operating system you're booting is the one that you installed and wipe the phone's storage so attackers can't get access if someone tries to switch the user-set root of trust. This basically gives you the same level of security with custom ROMs that you get from manufacturer-provided ROMs, because you can re lock the bootloader, instead if leaving your phone totally and completely open to attacks once you unlock the bootloader to install LineageOS or whatever. This is why GraphineOS only supports Pixels).

The problem is, Fairphone ships their phones with Google's example developer key still flashed as the hardware (non-user-changeable) root of trust! So anyone could grab the google developer example private key, sign their malware or modified OS version with it, install it on your phone, and you'd never notice. Various viruses and malware can do this to your phone for instance, modifying the OS. It also leaves you open to evil maid attacks.

This flaw has been known for years and is true of all their phones but they've done nothing to fix it, and sadly there's nothing you as a user can do either.

The other thing is that they just completely lie about how long their hardware is supported for. They say 5 years iirc, but you actually only get firmware updates from the manufacturer for like half that because they use old SoCs and the manufacturer stops supporting them, meaning that for most of your phone's lifetime you're actually not getting security critical firmware updates.