7 ms·

I have a HTC 10, a flagship device that's barely a year old the fact that I now have to wait a couple a months for a patch to what is clearly a critical vulnera

I have a HTC 10, a flagship device that's barely a year old the fact that I now have to wait a couple a months for a patch to what is clearly a critical vulnerability is just ridiculous. The fact that anyone without a flagship device should now throw that phone away because it will probably never be patched is despicable. I totally agree with your hope that this will kick both the manufacturers and Google in the butt enough to get something done about this. I don't like our chances though!

Perseids 9y ago
To underline your point, even my Nexus 5 (_from Google_), which is a little less than 3 years old, will never receive security updates. And one of the main reasons I chose the Nexus was to be sure to get updates on time. Except for the security vulnerabilities, everything of the device is totally fine. It's such a waste of resources… (In this case I at least have an alternative in the form of Lineage OS, which will only cost me time and nerves for the migration.)
- Fnoord 9y ago
  You'd expect better from the horse's mouth, but most other companies are worse. I got a Fairphone 2 and my partner a Wileyfox Swift 2X. Both have very good software support thus far. Near monthly updates. Wileyfox phone is a bit new, but they got a good track record. Nokia (HMD) also seems to be back, this time with good software support (thus far). Compare that to Motorola. Hopefully Android Orea 8 with Project Treble will stop this ridiculous trend for the rest of us. Together with the smartphone market being saturated (budget phones of 200 EUR are very decent these days), we may end up with long term support on older yet still decent devices.
- endorphone 9y ago
  The Nexus 5 was released 4 years ago. At the same time the iPhone 5C was released. The 5C also won't receive a patch for this. There is a problem with handset abandonment, but this is true across all vendors, and it does not underline sequence7's claim that this is solely an Android problem.
  - macawfish 9y ago
    A lot of phone companies are locking their devices from receiving new kernels. Its dumb and I hate it.
  - pfg 9y ago
    To be fair, these two examples are both on the extreme end: The Nexus 5 being one of the longest supported Android phones on the market, and the 5C having a rather short support period, compared to other iPhones like the 5S, which was released along with the 5C and got iOS 11. Security updates for the Nexus 5 also stopped shipping about a year earlier. There's still room for improvement for Apple (5 years of security updates seems reasonable), but there's still a large gap.
    - DougWebb 9y ago
      The problem is that these aren't phones anymore; they're small computers. They should have support lifetimes that are comparable to desktop computers.
      - pixl97 9y ago
        > they're small computers. And they are more expensive than many computers you can buy on the market. 2 years support on a device that can cost $500+ isn't acceptable.
        maxerickson 9y ago
        And yet people buy them. We are 4-5 years into the period where people have had sub $300 choices, so there is an alternative to spending $500+ on a device that comes with 2 years of support. Maybe not a fantastic alternative, but the $300-$500 extra that people choose to spend says something about what they care about.
    - gsnedders 9y ago
      Has anyone ever taken a vendor to court on the basis of consumer rights and not providing security updates and the product therefore not being fit for purpose? For example, under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in the UK the product must last for as long as a reasonable person would expect it to, and Apple's interpretation of that is five/six years (see https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/ https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/).
- prophesi 9y ago
  On the bright side, Nexus 5 has a lot of community support. So, as you've stated, there are decent ROM alternatives like LineageOS that are actively maintained to implement these patches.
- silotis 9y ago
  Last I checked, LineageOS for the Nexus 5 is still vulnerable to CVE-2017-9417 (Broadpwn). LineageOS might work for keeping the userspace up-to-date, but their kernels are still largely dependent on the upstream vendors. If the problem is in a firmware blob, as is the case with Broadpwn, you are pretty much guaranteed to be SOL without vendor support.
kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
LineageOS has got your back: https://download.lineageos.org/pme https://download.lineageos.org/pme
ajr0 9y ago
this is why I am rooting for initiatives like PostmarketOS [0] and similar initiatives in the hopes ot break this mentality that every year we need to buy new hardware in order to stay secure. [0] https://www.postmarketos.org/ https://www.postmarketos.org/
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tripzilch 9y ago
Fortunately the term "flagship" doesn't promise anything about support, patches or security. It's just a word that means you paid more for having all the bells and whistles that the OEM could offer at the time, instead of going for the next-best model or such. Fortunately, whether you can afford the best of the best with all the optional extras or a cheaper second-tier model doesn't affect the security of the device. And it shouldn't, because if you can't afford a "flagship" device, doesn't mean you can afford to get hacked either. Unfortunately, while the security-update frequency ought to be comparable, it turns out that it's mainly comparably bad :-/

Perseids 9y ago

To underline your point, even my Nexus 5 (_from Google_), which is a little less than 3 years old, will never receive security updates. And one of the main reasons I chose the Nexus was to be sure to get updates on time. Except for the security vulnerabilities, everything of the device is totally fine. It's such a waste of resources… (In this case I at least have an alternative in the form of Lineage OS, which will only cost me time and nerves for the migration.)

Fnoord 9y ago
You'd expect better from the horse's mouth, but most other companies are worse. I got a Fairphone 2 and my partner a Wileyfox Swift 2X. Both have very good software support thus far. Near monthly updates. Wileyfox phone is a bit new, but they got a good track record. Nokia (HMD) also seems to be back, this time with good software support (thus far). Compare that to Motorola. Hopefully Android Orea 8 with Project Treble will stop this ridiculous trend for the rest of us. Together with the smartphone market being saturated (budget phones of 200 EUR are very decent these days), we may end up with long term support on older yet still decent devices.
endorphone 9y ago
The Nexus 5 was released 4 years ago. At the same time the iPhone 5C was released. The 5C also won't receive a patch for this. There is a problem with handset abandonment, but this is true across all vendors, and it does not underline sequence7's claim that this is solely an Android problem.
- macawfish 9y ago
  A lot of phone companies are locking their devices from receiving new kernels. Its dumb and I hate it.
- pfg 9y ago
  To be fair, these two examples are both on the extreme end: The Nexus 5 being one of the longest supported Android phones on the market, and the 5C having a rather short support period, compared to other iPhones like the 5S, which was released along with the 5C and got iOS 11. Security updates for the Nexus 5 also stopped shipping about a year earlier. There's still room for improvement for Apple (5 years of security updates seems reasonable), but there's still a large gap.
  - DougWebb 9y ago
    The problem is that these aren't phones anymore; they're small computers. They should have support lifetimes that are comparable to desktop computers.
    - pixl97 9y ago
      > they're small computers. And they are more expensive than many computers you can buy on the market. 2 years support on a device that can cost $500+ isn't acceptable.
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        And yet people buy them. We are 4-5 years into the period where people have had sub $300 choices, so there is an alternative to spending $500+ on a device that comes with 2 years of support. Maybe not a fantastic alternative, but the $300-$500 extra that people choose to spend says something about what they care about.
  - gsnedders 9y ago
    Has anyone ever taken a vendor to court on the basis of consumer rights and not providing security updates and the product therefore not being fit for purpose? For example, under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in the UK the product must last for as long as a reasonable person would expect it to, and Apple's interpretation of that is five/six years (see https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/ https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/).
prophesi 9y ago
On the bright side, Nexus 5 has a lot of community support. So, as you've stated, there are decent ROM alternatives like LineageOS that are actively maintained to implement these patches.
silotis 9y ago
Last I checked, LineageOS for the Nexus 5 is still vulnerable to CVE-2017-9417 (Broadpwn). LineageOS might work for keeping the userspace up-to-date, but their kernels are still largely dependent on the upstream vendors. If the problem is in a firmware blob, as is the case with Broadpwn, you are pretty much guaranteed to be SOL without vendor support.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago

LineageOS has got your back: https://download.lineageos.org/pme https://download.lineageos.org/pme

ajr0 9y ago

this is why I am rooting for initiatives like PostmarketOS [0] and similar initiatives in the hopes ot break this mentality that every year we need to buy new hardware in order to stay secure. [0] https://www.postmarketos.org/ https://www.postmarketos.org/

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tripzilch 9y ago

Fortunately the term "flagship" doesn't promise anything about support, patches or security. It's just a word that means you paid more for having all the bells and whistles that the OEM could offer at the time, instead of going for the next-best model or such. Fortunately, whether you can afford the best of the best with all the optional extras or a cheaper second-tier model doesn't affect the security of the device. And it shouldn't, because if you can't afford a "flagship" device, doesn't mean you can afford to get hacked either. Unfortunately, while the security-update frequency ought to be comparable, it turns out that it's mainly comparably bad :-/