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OK, this is one of those times where infosec people get annoyingly close to "appealing to authority." So far 'rdl has said Android is "the worst currently-ship

OK, this is one of those times where infosec people get annoyingly close to "appealing to authority." So far 'rdl has said Android is "the worst currently-shipping security product", "[Blah blah blah], and then there's Android", "Android (until absolute latest) = lovecraftian horror" but the latest is upgraded to "exceptionally bad", and a deeply-nested subcomment about running every task on a separate machine (which I'm sure ChromeOS does... /s) But who needs to hear logical arguments? When the guy from CloudFlare speaks, the thinking is done! Alright, as something of an Android fanboy it pains me to admit, he probably has a point in this case. But it'd be nice to hear about what specifically is wrong, especially since it would seem there's a fair bit right, like SELinux, automatic encryption, ASLR. The worst thing in my view, is the permissions system, which is probably salvageable (and as I understand it, was improved in Marshmallow.) 'rdl has given more details about pretty much every imaginable system but Android -- are we supposed to just assume Android does every bad thing he mentioned, and the opposite of every good thing? Edit: I could almost let this slide since the particular counter-comment was equally vacuous. It's still annoying to see "security guy from $BIG_CO => GTFO" (who is apparently smarter than all the security people at Google who've worked on Android, but we just have to take your word for it since you didn't elaborate.)

chetanahuja 11y ago
OK, this is one of those times where infosec people get annoyingly close to "appealing to authority." This. It's not just "close to" appealing to authority, it's straight up appealing to authority. And yes, it's a common practice in the infosec community. The whole security industry is built on a reputation system. It pays to remember that the number of exploits and vulnerabilities etc. in commonly used software that are reported on practically a daily basis came out of the same reputation based system.
andreyf 11y ago
In another comment, he says "user/process/thread security in UNIX/POSIX/etc. is bullshit weak sauce, sadly." Geofft expounds some more: On Android, questionable apps have direct access to the entire kernel system call interface, as well as to other OS features. Personally, I'm not so much upset because Android is uncommonly bad (it's like any other system that gives untrusted users non-root access to Linux: you can probably get away with it, but eh), but because CrOS is uncommonly good. I'm not sure if these are related, nor how iOS avoids it. The answer is probably in here: https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf FWIW, I've heard Googlers familiar with it refer to Android as a pile of crap, as well.
- scintill76 11y ago
  > he says "user/process/thread security in UNIX/POSIX/etc. is bullshit weak sauce, sadly." Android's security indeed relies on UNIX's (filesystem permissions, separate UIDs for each app), but he praised OSX and iOS (I think) for starting from UNIX[0], so it would be inconsistent to also damn Android for it (which I don't think he necessarily did, since dissing UNIX security was in a different context.) From skimming the iOS security guide (and having no iOS dev experience) it looks like it's similar: "The majority of iOS runs as the non-privileged user “mobile,” as do all third-party apps" -- although being BSDish vs Android's Linux could mean that's quite different. > On Android, questionable apps have direct access to the entire kernel system call interface, as well as to other OS features... because CrOS is uncommonly good. So CrOS has the advantage because I guess it does not allow running untrusted native code at all, containing things entirely in interpreted/JIT'd VMs. That would be a good point... except every other OS 'rdl esteems higher than Android (Windows, OSX, iOS, Blackberry) probably also runs native code with full access to syscalls (making some assumptions here, but I think it's reasonable that to whatever extent 'geofft's statement about Android is true, it applies fairly uniformly to the rest.) So, why are they good or even just OK, but Android is horribad? I'm not sure I'm actually addressing arguments 'rdl would have made about Android -- but that's the point, he didn't really say anything that can be argued! > FWIW, I've heard Googlers familiar with it refer to Android as a pile of crap, as well. Yeah, it's probably true -- I wasn't saying "Google made it, so it must be good", but underlining the fallacy in relying on a prestigious company association as proof of merit. Android probably didn't have the best talent when it started in 2003 and is now painted into a corner of backwards-compatibility and a huge codebase that would be risky to revamp all at once. I guess my favorite aspect of Android is really just that it's open-source-ish and has enough critical mass to be useful (as opposed to Firefox OS and Ubuntu at the moment) -- so if ChromiumOS were to become the new AOSP as some are speculating, sounds good to me. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10476099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10476099
  - andreyf 11y ago
    Good points. I think bullshit weak sauce is busllshit weak sauce regardless of context. If you don't trust it on a server, why should you on your phone? The comparison between Android and iOS is especially curious, in part because it's such a competitive space, and also because rdl's opinions varied so extremely. Both OS X and iOS are based on Darwin, which also suggests vulnerabilities in kernel calls are not what rdl had in mind. When his latest startup was acquired, the blog post [1] described a part of it as: > Beyond the company’s work in VPNs, CryptoSeal applied Trusted Computing technology to commodity servers, protecting them from compromise by outsider attackers or insider subversion, and guaranteeing the integrity of server-side applications to remote end users. Perhaps something about the hardware iOS runs on is what impressed him so? 1. https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-acquires-cryptoseal/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-acquires-cryptoseal/

chetanahuja 11y ago

OK, this is one of those times where infosec people get annoyingly close to "appealing to authority." This. It's not just "close to" appealing to authority, it's straight up appealing to authority. And yes, it's a common practice in the infosec community. The whole security industry is built on a reputation system. It pays to remember that the number of exploits and vulnerabilities etc. in commonly used software that are reported on practically a daily basis came out of the same reputation based system.

andreyf 11y ago

In another comment, he says "user/process/thread security in UNIX/POSIX/etc. is bullshit weak sauce, sadly." Geofft expounds some more: On Android, questionable apps have direct access to the entire kernel system call interface, as well as to other OS features. Personally, I'm not so much upset because Android is uncommonly bad (it's like any other system that gives untrusted users non-root access to Linux: you can probably get away with it, but eh), but because CrOS is uncommonly good. I'm not sure if these are related, nor how iOS avoids it. The answer is probably in here: https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf FWIW, I've heard Googlers familiar with it refer to Android as a pile of crap, as well.

scintill76 11y ago
> he says "user/process/thread security in UNIX/POSIX/etc. is bullshit weak sauce, sadly." Android's security indeed relies on UNIX's (filesystem permissions, separate UIDs for each app), but he praised OSX and iOS (I think) for starting from UNIX[0], so it would be inconsistent to also damn Android for it (which I don't think he necessarily did, since dissing UNIX security was in a different context.) From skimming the iOS security guide (and having no iOS dev experience) it looks like it's similar: "The majority of iOS runs as the non-privileged user “mobile,” as do all third-party apps" -- although being BSDish vs Android's Linux could mean that's quite different. > On Android, questionable apps have direct access to the entire kernel system call interface, as well as to other OS features... because CrOS is uncommonly good. So CrOS has the advantage because I guess it does not allow running untrusted native code at all, containing things entirely in interpreted/JIT'd VMs. That would be a good point... except every other OS 'rdl esteems higher than Android (Windows, OSX, iOS, Blackberry) probably also runs native code with full access to syscalls (making some assumptions here, but I think it's reasonable that to whatever extent 'geofft's statement about Android is true, it applies fairly uniformly to the rest.) So, why are they good or even just OK, but Android is horribad? I'm not sure I'm actually addressing arguments 'rdl would have made about Android -- but that's the point, he didn't really say anything that can be argued! > FWIW, I've heard Googlers familiar with it refer to Android as a pile of crap, as well. Yeah, it's probably true -- I wasn't saying "Google made it, so it must be good", but underlining the fallacy in relying on a prestigious company association as proof of merit. Android probably didn't have the best talent when it started in 2003 and is now painted into a corner of backwards-compatibility and a huge codebase that would be risky to revamp all at once. I guess my favorite aspect of Android is really just that it's open-source-ish and has enough critical mass to be useful (as opposed to Firefox OS and Ubuntu at the moment) -- so if ChromiumOS were to become the new AOSP as some are speculating, sounds good to me. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10476099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10476099
- andreyf 11y ago
  Good points. I think bullshit weak sauce is busllshit weak sauce regardless of context. If you don't trust it on a server, why should you on your phone? The comparison between Android and iOS is especially curious, in part because it's such a competitive space, and also because rdl's opinions varied so extremely. Both OS X and iOS are based on Darwin, which also suggests vulnerabilities in kernel calls are not what rdl had in mind. When his latest startup was acquired, the blog post [1] described a part of it as: > Beyond the company’s work in VPNs, CryptoSeal applied Trusted Computing technology to commodity servers, protecting them from compromise by outsider attackers or insider subversion, and guaranteeing the integrity of server-side applications to remote end users. Perhaps something about the hardware iOS runs on is what impressed him so? 1. https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-acquires-cryptoseal/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-acquires-cryptoseal/