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> People seem mad that it was a configuration change and not a change in the image that is installed on the device, but I don't see the difference. Think of it
by 394549 8y ago
> People seem mad that it was a configuration change and not a change in the image that is installed on the device, but I don't see the difference.
Think of it this way: you need a backdoor to push remote config changes the way Google did.
Sure, Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. have the ability to run arbitrary code on your machine through updates, but they'd be abusing the trust placed in them to even install a backdoor, let alone use it.
- jrockway 8y agoThat's interesting. I see an update server as one that says to your phone "copy these bytes into flash and reboot" and a configuration server as "copy these bytes into flash and restart service X". Your phone is constantly communicating with servers that attempt to change the running software; a configuration change is just faster than upgrading the entire image.
- 394549 8y agoI think the big difference is that one can potentially be far more targeted than the other. Sort of the difference between publishing an update package to a software repository and SSH'ing into my computer and running commands (or having my computer periodically pinging a server asking for commands to run). Though I think there are also issues with silently using a software update to change settings that some user may have set differently in the past to a different value (assuming the value the user used wasn't removed or had its meaning changed). If the developer really things the user would be better off changing the setting, the should prompt the user to explain the reasoning and ask for consent.