So, we all know how, for better or worse, our cell phones are key to the functioning of lives in this damned year of 2018. We rely on them completely. So it's pretty bad that phones tend to be obsolete about 10 seconds after first boot. (If that.)

It's pretty bad when your phone stops being updated and secure because the manufacturer stopped caring. It's pretty bad when all the software stops working right because the big devs expect something newer

And it's pretty bad that the solution you're supposed to take is to just buy a new phone. Because that's a privilege.

So maybe you can imagine how important LineageOS is for me. Because I can (and did) install it on my phone so it could keep being updated and running properly. It's given me many more years from my phone that I deserve, but that the companies didn't want me to have. I guess I'm fairly dependent on them.

Ok, have a seat.

Last night, a software update for my phone was released. That's not unusual. Software updates for my phone, on LineageOS are released frequently. I appreciate that. I nearly botched the update because I forgot I started it and tried to use my flashlight in the dark, but the updater prevented that at least.

Anyway, after it updated, I sleepily grabbed my phone, and noticed there was a mysterious message on it. In pirate lingo. Now hold on.

So imagine this. It's April 2, the middle of the night. April Fools Day is over almost everywhere in the world. You grab your phone. And you see this message FROM THE SYSTEM ITSELF:

"Ahoy there matey. Shiver me timbers! Yer phone's booty be hornswaggled, matey!"

Doesn't that sound threatening? My initial assumption was that the LineageOS people put fake ransomware in the update as a joke. Which is very not funny. But this isn't the end.

And actually, what the FUCK does "Yer phone's booty be hornswaggled" EVEN MEAN?

So you know, sending people vaguely-threatening messages on their phones and with such bad timing (or even with better timing) is very not funny. But what I expected was to swipe the notification away, they'd be like "HAHA APRIL FOOLS!" and I'd forget about it and go to sleep.

Do I expect too much from people? DO I?

So then this message box takes over my phone:

"Yer device is a landlubber - it aint't got its sea legs.
She'll be weighing anchor and mining LOSCoins t' protect yer from th' scallywags!"

And the only options, the only things I can click on, are 3 buttons with the following labels:

"AYE"

"BELAY THAT"

"PEER INTO THE DEPTHS"

Can anyone even understand what the hell any of that means?

So they're talking like the world's least comprehensible pirate and now it sounds like they pretended to put a bitcoin miner on my phone as a joke. Which you know, is extremely unfunny, because whatevercoin-mining Android malware is very much a thing.

Do you think that's it? OH, TO STILL POSSESS YOUR IDEALISM.

Also I can't imagine how bad this "joke" would be for accessibility. Would I even be able to even do anything on my phone in this state if I did not possess the sense of sight?

So I think I pressed the depths option. Not much of a choice, especially in such distress. I guess, aye sounded too agreeing, and I don't even know what the hell belay means. They probably all do the same thing anyway.

So anyway, I'm returned to my home screen (phew) and I'm greeted with a new message:

"Ye be on the way to Davy Jones' Locker, me hearties"

Which you know sounds extremely threatening. In my mind that's what a pirate says when they're about to kill someone.

Yeah, that's totally it. If you're in Davy Jones' Locker, that means YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD.

Getting a message from your phone in the middle of the night that basically says you're about to die is NOT A FUNNY JOKE. THAT'S SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN HORROR MOVIES.

OK, so. I click the notification to try and make it go away. My browser is opened to this blog post of theirs. https://lineageos.org/Changelog-17/

So that's what they're doing? Trying to force people to read their changelog? Uhh, no, I'm not sure that's the case. Shady either way.

But the message about Davy Jones didn't go away. Apparently it won't until next update. Which won't be out for another week. So, they apparently thought people would be cool with a week-long april fools prank. What.

There's apparently a toggle that can be disabled to turn this garbage off... buuuut you can only access it through terminal. So it requires a rooted phone. My phone's NOT rooted, actually! So fuck that.

Eventually I was able to make it go away by blocking notifications from the system settings app. But, neither rooting nor blocking system notifications are something anyone should ever have to do.

So, back to that blog post. Scrolling through what looks like a normal changelog (they really wanted me to see THIS?) I come across this header:

"Introducing LOSCoins: our new revolutionary disruptive game-changer"

Oh no.

"we also know everyone loves BLOCKCHAIN."

PLEASE NO.

"LOSCoins is the new game-changer currency for LineageOS and beyond"

STOP

"We use Git as version control software for managing the LineageOS sources, and Git has a lot in common with the BLOCKCHAIN. An awful lot."

what

"We’ve been using this disruptive innovation internally for a few weeks and we can tell you it’s awesome, some of our most talented marinators developers managed to buy a yacht. Yes, a yacht: inside the LOSCoin app you will also find a convenient store so you can spend the hard earned LOSCoins of yours."

What I really hate about this post is I can't actually tell if it IS a joke. Sure, it's completely ridiculous, but the world of "blockchain" is so terrible these days, we've seen even less believable attempts that turned out to be completely genuine. (Often completely genuine scams, but all the same they weren't done to make someone laugh.)

Forgot to add: nowhere have the developers come out and said it's a joke.

@onf It's so terrible. Thanks for making me aware. I recommend LOS to so many people, even non-techy ones - it sucks that the devs are apparently a bunch of dudebros who would find this shit funny.

@natanji Same here. (More on that note once I have the energy to continue the thread.)

And I have literally no idea what to do now. But your assessment is right, I no longer trust the LineageOS developers.

@onf My best bet is to make an angry thread on their subreddit where the developers read it, and hope it gets upvoted.

@natanji People have and this is literally the response. https://www.reddit.com/r/LineageOS/comments/88xywy/victim_to_software_counterfeit/

@onf @natanji WTF!