> 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,

> 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