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Pixel Security
- Veratyr 10y agoEncryption is all well and good but I feel like Google's handling of root causes a lot of issues. There are a lot of pretty basic things (like ad blocking or monitoring battery usage) that require root, which severely impacts the security of the device. EDIT: Okay, I stand corrected on ad blocking. Access to detailed battery stats however is locked behind the BATTERY_STATS permission which isn't accessible to anything except for system apps. That aside, there are other basic things like backup that also require root.
- Klathmon 10y agoNot true for either of them. Apps can use the VPN API to do ad blocking without root, and there are tons of ways to do more battery monitoring without root, like the built in battery monitoring...
- Veratyr 10y ago> there are tons of ways to do more battery monitoring without root Sorry, I mean more than the built in monitor, which is largely useless. There is no API through which I can enumerate wakelocks, CPU usage, GPS usage, mobile radio traffic and activity, wifi radio traffic and activity or screen on/off time without system level permissions (i.e. built into the ROM). Therefore, there's no way for these things to be exposed to me as a user. There used to be a permission called BATTERY_STATS but it was removed years ago and Google has been utterly unreceptive to reinstating it: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=61975 https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=61975 And of course there's a bunch of apps on my device (Pixel) that have that permission such as Qualcomm's CNE app, Play Services (com.android.vending), another Qualcomm package (com.qualcomm.qti.auth.secureextauthservice) and a bunch of other Qualcomm packages.
- lima 10y agoI recently discovered that Firefox for Android support uBlock Origin.
- devsquid 10y agoKinda neat they link directly to some source code in a blog post.
- jwtadvice 10y agoPixel/Google does not motivate a threat model under which to evaluate or understand their design and marketing promises, but we can take a hint from "protects your data if your phone falls into someone else's hands." - Namely thefts of opportunity. Unlike other phone manufacturers, Google does not promise potential customers that your data will be protected from Google, it's partners and from law enforcement and mass surveillance programmes. Therein this product doesn't provide a stronger security posture that competitors - and furthermore it's threat model and security properties do not meet what are in my opinion minimal reasonable requirements.
- sigmar 10y ago>Unlike other phone manufacturers, Google does not promise potential customers that your data will be protected from Google, it's partners and from law enforcement and mass surveillance programmes. Are you referring to Apple? Because they don't promise that either.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jwtadvice 10y agoI used the term 'motivate' specifically because of the PR language intending for customers to evaluate the Apple product as something that could be used by those who need to use their phone for private and/or sensitive reasons. Apple of course backdoors their phones for government surveillance access. But they do motivate a threat model that includes government surveillance. I know parsing my comment in this way may seem difficult, but I used the terminology I did on purpose. There are no illusions that Apple achieved the security properties that it has motivated. Google Pixel does not even pretend to address the security concerns of journalists, politically active citizens, IT professionals, or individuals contacting attorneys.
- dehugger 10y agoPerhaps I am not following your logic correctly, but it sounds like you are saying "Apple says government threats are an issue, but then backdoors the phones for the government anyways." which, to me, paints Apple in a very poor light.
- scotchio 10y agoSorry - not post related: #2 spot on HN, 2 comments, submitted 28 minutes ago. Is this normal? Never seen that happen on HN before. Just curious
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- et-al 10y ago^ commenter shouldn't be downvoted for this.
- Retra 10y agoFor making an irrelevant, overly paranoid comment?
- et-al 10y agoYou don't find it strange at all that a post with only 2 points in the past 28 minutes shot up to the front page on a weekday afternoon? My only answer is that what's displayed doesn't necessarily match what's used for the ranking--that there may be some sort of lag. But yes, it could be possible too that somehow one can bump up their posts through other means. The original commenter even mentioned this as an aside. If another reader didn't like it, they could've collapsed it.
- Retra 10y agoI don't find it relevant. Given that the front page of HN doesn't 'directly' cater to what I want to read, it may as well just be random for all the difference it makes.
- noarchy 10y agoI don't know how many people really understand the algorithm that ranks posts, or perhaps more importantly, how much human intervention is a factor.
- RRRA 10y agomeanwhile we still have to deal with a SIM and the baseband is a whole other clusterfuck entirely... Can the users actually get the keys to their own stuff?
- mianos 10y agoI have not seen so many gotos in many many years. I guess it's the programming model in this case. I am sure this bit of code is going to be audited quite closely.
- Klathmon 10y agoI don't know if this is the case here, but I often hear that this kind of thing is the only valid use case for goto. In low level performance critical code where refactoring it to something more "traditional" would not only cause much more complexity, but would also be slower.
- palebluedot 10y agoThe use of goto in C for error and exception handling is good practice. It keeps the code easy to read, and also provides common code for error and/or exit handling. You'll see this paradigm used a lot in large open source C projects, such as the Linux kernel and QEMU. In my experience, a lot of closed source C projects ban goto outright, in (IMO) an overly dogmatic adherence to the idea that all goto use is spaghetti code and therefore bad.
- mianos 10y agoI have used them myself for error handling many times many years ago. When you don't have exceptions and longjmp scares the shit out of you, gotos for error handling are fine by me too. I agree, dogmatic banning of them precludes the useful case of error handling but it is a slippery slope that they seem to be already sliding with got_key:.
- aninhumer 10y agoI'm aware of only two reasonable use cases for goto, both of which could be avoided with extra language features. Namely, breaking out of nested loops (which could be solved with optionally named loops) and error handling (which can be solved by some form of exception flow control). Not that I think C should add these features, goto does these jobs okay, and there's enough stigma that it's unlikely to be used foolishly. But I think it's worth keeping in mind as we think about future languages.
- jc4p 10y agoJust FYI in case anyone is considering buying a Pixel: I strongly urge you not to. http://kasrarahjerdi.com/2016/11/dont-buy-anything-made-by-google/ http://kasrarahjerdi.com/2016/11/dont-buy-anything-made-by-g... They have no Google provided support, if you drop the phone and break it your only option (if you didn't buy the third-party warranty upsell) is to take it to a repair shop. I called the ones near me, none had seen or touched the device before. Don't spend $800 on a phone that you can't send back to the manufacturer to repair. Edit: I originally said "they have no warranty" and people seem to have understood that as "they don't provide free repairs" -- what I'm trying to say is that this phone is supposedly a competitor to Apple, but if you break it you can't walk to the Apple Store and ask them how much it'd be for a repair. You can't send it in the mail to them either. You have to go to an authorized third-party repair shop. That does not sound like first-class flagship $800 product support to me.
- crypto5 10y agoWhat phones have warranty against dropping included?
- vamsipk 10y ago>I can’t send my $800 phone to the manufacturer and pay some extra money to get it repaired like I could if this was a Samsung or Apple device. It's not warranty or free repairs he is asking for isn't it? He is asking for paid support.
- crypto5 10y agoAh, I didn't read article. But google also provides some options for that: https://store.google.com/magazine/device_protection https://store.google.com/magazine/device_protection https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6309809?hl=en https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6309809?hl=en
- Klathmon 10y agoIs that a common thing? Being able to send your device back to the manufacturer for user inflicted issues for repair? I can't say I've ever done that with any product ever...
- tdkl 10y agoGoogle security is so strong, they'll even lock you out of your own account when changing cities, with no chance to get it reinstated : https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/5dif8j/psa_google_can_lock_your_account_forcing_you_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/5dif8j/psa_google_...
- Klathmon 10y agoSomehow I feel we aren't getting the whole story there... Why would they ask for identification then close it after he provides correct identification?
- UnoriginalGuy 10y ago> Somehow I feel we aren't getting the whole story there... Well, yes, since Google isn't providing their part of the story. I have no reason to think the OP of that thread is misleading, I believe from their perspective it is an accurate account. You don't have to go too far to read similar accounts from others who got suspended over Google Pay/Google Checkout fraud flags. Unless Google comes out and says the OP missed out key information, I'm going to just assume OP is telling us everything they know from their perspective.
- davemel37 10y agohttp://www.slashgear.com/pixel-phone-flipping-scheme-googles-statement-on-a-ban-hammer-17464528/ http://www.slashgear.com/pixel-phone-flipping-scheme-googles... Looks like Google is reinstating accounts.
- jwtadvice 10y agoGiven recent news about mass surveillance, it's important to note that Pixel's security model does not and can not seek to protect your data for use for private messaging, conversation with attorneys, for journalists, or to organize for political reasons. If you are interested in a communications device that can be used for any of these things, Pixel's security model will not cover you and you will need to look for an alternative product.
- Klathmon 10y agoWhy are you posting a very similar comment multiple times?
- jwtadvice 10y agoThe two comments have significantly different content. For those curious here is the other comment in question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12982502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12982502
- bitmapbrother 10y agoWhich alternative product would you recommend? And I really hope you don't say the iPhone.
- mtgx 10y agoIs this meant to be a sort of generic response to this issue? (which they still don't seem to be addressing here) https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DeesTroy/posts/R7V3knn3f1s https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DeesTroy/posts/R7V3knn3f1s Or perhaps to this? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/11/google_pixel_pwned_in_60_seconds/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/11/google_pixel_pwned_i... Still waiting on Google to at least match, if not surpass, Apple's long-term support in regards to updates (which is about twice as much what Google offers right now, even though the Pixel has identical prices to the iPhones, at every level).
- amluto 10y agoI trust this as far as I can throw it. Trustzone is at best as secure as the Trustzone secure world kernel, Qualcomm supplies that code (even in the Pixel AFAIK), and the Qualcomm secure world kernel is notoriously poorly written.
- swiley 10y agoIt would be great if someone built some non-qualcomm phones.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- x0ner 10y agoWhile all devices have security issues, not too comforted by this: http://thehackernews.com/2016/11/google-pixel-phone-hacked.html http://thehackernews.com/2016/11/google-pixel-phone-hacked.h...
- pawadu 10y agoWait, so you mean security issues were found in a security conference where google pays top dollar to researchers who find security issues so Google can fix them ASAP? Why is that a bad thing?
- Sir_Cmpwn 10y agoI would really love to see Google tackle fixing the security problems presented by the radio chip. A closed source esoteric firmware full of vulnerabilities that has DMA on your primary CPU and is remotely exploitable by state and private actors? Not to mention that it's an entry point into a device that's always on your person, has all of your contacts, emails, text messages, and phone calls, and has a GPS module in it. The radio is a huge problem and dramatically outweighs any other security concerns on a phone imo.
- pawadu 10y agoI have been told that the baseband stack is so large and complicated (and of course buggy) that has to run in a virtual environment.
- wheelerwj 10y agoIsn't the pixel the phone that was just pwned inside 60 seconds by security researchers? And doesn't google have a terrible track record of releasing data to federal agencies? So, aside from purchasing a phone that is built by data-mining, internet advertising giant, google can't even begin to make the claim that they value user security.
- staticassertion 10y ago"pwned in 60 seconds" is a hugely misleading statement. Every time there's a hacking competition you see "Chrome, Firefox, IE fall in seconds" - ignoring the weeks or months that it takes to find the vulnerabilities and develop exploits for them.
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoIt's not misleading, the issue is that your actual phone could be actually compromised in 60 seconds time, not some giant period of guessing and trying or cracking a complicated crypto scheme. The research time isn't material to the severity of the threat at the time of attack.
- staticassertion 10y agoThe vast majority of exploits of that nature take less than 60 seconds. It is nothing at all interesting or special or rare that it took < 60 seconds. Just clickbait, like every year when pwn2own rolls around.
- Eridrus 10y agoLike all phones including iPhones https://www.hackread.com/hackers-get-100k-for-hacking-nexus6p-iphone6s/ https://www.hackread.com/hackers-get-100k-for-hacking-nexus6...
- beefsack 10y agoCountries with stronger consumer protection laws should have much less of an issue with warranties. My father dropped his Nexus 5 about 11 months after he bought it and Google provided a replacement really promptly.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- zx2c4 10y ago"We then modified the inline encryption block driver to pass this to the hardware. As with ext4 encryption, keys are managed by the Linux keyring. To see our implementation, take a look at the source code for the Pixel kernel." It doesn't sound like they got these changes into mainline. They link here to their source: https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/msm/+/android-msm-marlin-3.18-nougat-dr1/fs/ext4/crypto_key.c https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/msm/+/android-msm-ma... From that file: /* TODO(mhalcrow): Just for proof-of-concept */ WHOOPS!
- sundvor 10y agoAnd as a bonus, if you onsell it, we'll wipe your Google account without warning.
- dx034 10y agoNo, we'll block your account if you never wanted to own the phone, but ordered it directly to a reseller to make money. We block the account because it's a violation of the ToS you agreed to. However, we reinstate the account after a few days. [1] [1] http://www.slashgear.com/pixel-phone-flipping-scheme-googles-statement-on-a-ban-hammer-17464528/ http://www.slashgear.com/pixel-phone-flipping-scheme-googles...
- akerro 10y agoDoes android still backup WiFi passwords in plaintext?
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