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These are some good points but when you say "He only wants distribution through channels that provide the same security assurances and deployment features that

These are some good points but when you say "He only wants distribution through channels that provide the same security assurances and deployment features that Google does through the Play Store." it must be noted that this isn't a guarantee of security. A quick search of 'Google Play malware' returns many results from 2016 and going back to when it was still called Android Market. This isn't hand-waving, there are many concrete and specific examples of security lapses in the Google Play store and this is a persistent problem. Plenty of bright people over there who care and are working on it I'm sure, but not solved yet. Bottom line is it's his decision to make, but the only certainty that using Google's store brings is that you must have a first-party relationship with Google to use his app. It's better than downloading APKs from some warez site but not a guarantee of security. Framing it this way misses the bigger picture.

simoncion 10y ago
> ...it must be noted that this isn't a guarantee of security. Yes, and if a nation-state is after you, you almost certainly don't have the OPSEC discipline required to keep your computing devices secure. Security isn't binary, it's a gradient. Ever more secure devices require ever higher costs, whether they be monetary costs, lost time, or procedural complications. > A quick search of 'Google Play malware' returns many results from 2016... And even a brief dig into the details of those "malware" reports reveals that -if the software was distributed and installed through the Play Store, and the Android device user did not have "Allow installation from unknown software sources" checked- all that pretty much all of that "malware" does is exactly what the permissions it requests permits it to do. [0] Protip: If the software asks for permission to read your contacts, location information, and system log data, don't be surprised if it exfiltrates that information via the pretty-much-always-on Internet connection that's built into the device it's running on. :) The fact of the matter is that Google is rather good at software security. > ...but the only certainty that using Google's store brings is that you must have a first-party relationship with Google to use his app. Not to be an ass, but you either haven't read or haven't understood either the technical aspects of what the Play Store gives you, or the target audience for Whisper Systems's software. [0] Vulnerabilities like stagefright are excepted from this list because they are vanishingly rare. I challenge you to find another actual Android sandbox escape. :)
- tombrossman 10y ago
  It is your assumption that the perceived threat is a 'nation-state', not mine. Personally I'm not to worried about them and I'm more concerned with advertisers and data brokers. Let's take that brief dig into those 'malware' reports, shall we? Here's one from the Wall Street Journal[0] from last year. Some choice quotes: "Security-software maker Avast called out a trio of malicious Android apps that were, until recently, available in the Google Play app store. The apps would go into sinister mode after 30 days on a device, and begin spamming users with advertisements, Avast said in a company blog post. Google told the Journal that, as of now, the infected apps have been pulled from Google Play." "For those who had the apps installed on their phones for more than 30 days, a threatening ad would pop up each time they unlocked their phone, saying the device was out of memory, experiencing a security hole or some other false claim, Avast said. The pop-ups would then route people to websites where more malware could be installed on devices, said the security company. Anyone with either of the known apps installed should delete them immediately." Do we blame the users since the apps informed them about permissions? I've read and understood the same things you have, and reached a diametrically opposite conclusion. Maybe this is because I am also taking into account Android's severe updates problem, which is typically left to the carriers and handset makers to implement. Carriers and handset makers want to sell new phones, not patch old ones, who didn't see that one coming? Good on Google for patching Android security holes, too bad they don't reach the majority of users. I'm sticking to my original view and I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. [0]http://blogs.wsj.com/personal-technology/2015/02/04/android-malware-removed-from-google-play-store-after-millions-of-downloads/ http://blogs.wsj.com/personal-technology/2015/02/04/android-...
  - simoncion 10y ago
    > It is your assumption that the perceived threat is a 'nation-state'... ... That was the opening sentence of my paragraph that demonstrated that there is no such thing as "guaranteed security". If you think that there is such a thing, then you're going to be confused about many things when you think about security matters. To the rest of your comment: You need to keep things in perspective. [0] * On Windows, Mac, and Linux malware can read and write to anything that the user who installed it has access to. It can read what other programs have stuffed in to RAM... including your password manager's temporarily decrypted passwords. It can often record and exfiltrate the contents of one's screen and the output of one's microphone. It can often install keyloggers that capture banking, email, and other credentials. It can often encrypt personal data, lock the computer, send the computer user a friendly ransom note, and then decrypt that data once payment is received. Unless the malware is ransomware, it can do all this without ever notifying the computer user. * On Android and iOS, malware can do exactly what the pre-installation permissions list says it can. Malware cannot read or write to data for which it does not have permission to read or modify. For instance, malware cannot be a keylogger unless it requests the replace system keyboard equivalent permission. For Android malware to read what other programs have stuffed into RAM, it -effectively- has to be authored and signed by Google and baked into the system image. * Are you old enough to remember popup web advertising? Because (other than the platform) that's exactly what the section you quoted from that article is talking about. In the PC world, popups are called "annoying" rather than "malware". Is the permissions system good? No. However, it's dramatically better than what you get in the PC world. Remember that Signal is software that is intended for rather secure communications. Signal's threat model [1] requires that other programs running on the system be unable to tamper with the data that Signal puts into RAM and on to disk. You can get those properties with a PC, but so many non-technical users' PCs have been hit with real malware ages ago that that's kind of a lost cause. Actual "take over your computer" malware doesn't exist in either the Play Store or the App Store. This is really good for the average computer [2] user. > Maybe this is because I am also taking into account Android's severe updates problem... Wot? Other than the ~3 year update window problem, this hasn't been a wide-spread problem [3] since Google put critical system stuff in the Google Play Services package (rather than baked into the system image) ages ago. > I've read and understood the same things you have... Read? Maybe. Understood? Clearly not. I hope that you'll take the presence of strong differing opinions backed up by sound reasoning and hard facts as a signal that some of your fundamental assumptions about the topic are incorrect. [0] Indeed, maintaining perspective is a significant part of talking about security issues. [1] Learn what that means if you don't already know. [2] Mobile or otherwise. [3] Yes, you can point to abandoned phones. I can point to people with missing limbs, but that neither means that the majority of people are missing limbs nor does it mean that there's a severe missing limb problem in the human population. :)

simoncion 10y ago

> ...it must be noted that this isn't a guarantee of security. Yes, and if a nation-state is after you, you almost certainly don't have the OPSEC discipline required to keep your computing devices secure. Security isn't binary, it's a gradient. Ever more secure devices require ever higher costs, whether they be monetary costs, lost time, or procedural complications. > A quick search of 'Google Play malware' returns many results from 2016... And even a brief dig into the details of those "malware" reports reveals that -if the software was distributed and installed through the Play Store, and the Android device user did not have "Allow installation from unknown software sources" checked- all that pretty much all of that "malware" does is exactly what the permissions it requests permits it to do. [0] Protip: If the software asks for permission to read your contacts, location information, and system log data, don't be surprised if it exfiltrates that information via the pretty-much-always-on Internet connection that's built into the device it's running on. :) The fact of the matter is that Google is rather good at software security. > ...but the only certainty that using Google's store brings is that you must have a first-party relationship with Google to use his app. Not to be an ass, but you either haven't read or haven't understood either the technical aspects of what the Play Store gives you, or the target audience for Whisper Systems's software. [0] Vulnerabilities like stagefright are excepted from this list because they are vanishingly rare. I challenge you to find another actual Android sandbox escape. :)

tombrossman 10y ago
It is your assumption that the perceived threat is a 'nation-state', not mine. Personally I'm not to worried about them and I'm more concerned with advertisers and data brokers. Let's take that brief dig into those 'malware' reports, shall we? Here's one from the Wall Street Journal[0] from last year. Some choice quotes: "Security-software maker Avast called out a trio of malicious Android apps that were, until recently, available in the Google Play app store. The apps would go into sinister mode after 30 days on a device, and begin spamming users with advertisements, Avast said in a company blog post. Google told the Journal that, as of now, the infected apps have been pulled from Google Play." "For those who had the apps installed on their phones for more than 30 days, a threatening ad would pop up each time they unlocked their phone, saying the device was out of memory, experiencing a security hole or some other false claim, Avast said. The pop-ups would then route people to websites where more malware could be installed on devices, said the security company. Anyone with either of the known apps installed should delete them immediately." Do we blame the users since the apps informed them about permissions? I've read and understood the same things you have, and reached a diametrically opposite conclusion. Maybe this is because I am also taking into account Android's severe updates problem, which is typically left to the carriers and handset makers to implement. Carriers and handset makers want to sell new phones, not patch old ones, who didn't see that one coming? Good on Google for patching Android security holes, too bad they don't reach the majority of users. I'm sticking to my original view and I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. [0]http://blogs.wsj.com/personal-technology/2015/02/04/android-malware-removed-from-google-play-store-after-millions-of-downloads/ http://blogs.wsj.com/personal-technology/2015/02/04/android-...
- simoncion 10y ago
  > It is your assumption that the perceived threat is a 'nation-state'... ... That was the opening sentence of my paragraph that demonstrated that there is no such thing as "guaranteed security". If you think that there is such a thing, then you're going to be confused about many things when you think about security matters. To the rest of your comment: You need to keep things in perspective. [0] * On Windows, Mac, and Linux malware can read and write to anything that the user who installed it has access to. It can read what other programs have stuffed in to RAM... including your password manager's temporarily decrypted passwords. It can often record and exfiltrate the contents of one's screen and the output of one's microphone. It can often install keyloggers that capture banking, email, and other credentials. It can often encrypt personal data, lock the computer, send the computer user a friendly ransom note, and then decrypt that data once payment is received. Unless the malware is ransomware, it can do all this without ever notifying the computer user. * On Android and iOS, malware can do exactly what the pre-installation permissions list says it can. Malware cannot read or write to data for which it does not have permission to read or modify. For instance, malware cannot be a keylogger unless it requests the replace system keyboard equivalent permission. For Android malware to read what other programs have stuffed into RAM, it -effectively- has to be authored and signed by Google and baked into the system image. * Are you old enough to remember popup web advertising? Because (other than the platform) that's exactly what the section you quoted from that article is talking about. In the PC world, popups are called "annoying" rather than "malware". Is the permissions system good? No. However, it's dramatically better than what you get in the PC world. Remember that Signal is software that is intended for rather secure communications. Signal's threat model [1] requires that other programs running on the system be unable to tamper with the data that Signal puts into RAM and on to disk. You can get those properties with a PC, but so many non-technical users' PCs have been hit with real malware ages ago that that's kind of a lost cause. Actual "take over your computer" malware doesn't exist in either the Play Store or the App Store. This is really good for the average computer [2] user. > Maybe this is because I am also taking into account Android's severe updates problem... Wot? Other than the ~3 year update window problem, this hasn't been a wide-spread problem [3] since Google put critical system stuff in the Google Play Services package (rather than baked into the system image) ages ago. > I've read and understood the same things you have... Read? Maybe. Understood? Clearly not. I hope that you'll take the presence of strong differing opinions backed up by sound reasoning and hard facts as a signal that some of your fundamental assumptions about the topic are incorrect. [0] Indeed, maintaining perspective is a significant part of talking about security issues. [1] Learn what that means if you don't already know. [2] Mobile or otherwise. [3] Yes, you can point to abandoned phones. I can point to people with missing limbs, but that neither means that the majority of people are missing limbs nor does it mean that there's a severe missing limb problem in the human population. :)