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Well, this was an awkward way to realise my phone hasn't been receiving security updates for years. Apparently Google quietly dropped support for it? The phone
by jeffparsons 4y ago
Well, this was an awkward way to realise my phone hasn't been receiving security updates for years. Apparently Google quietly dropped support for it? The phone is otherwise in excellent condition. Any recommendations for a good third party OS that still supports Pixel 2?
- arsome 4y agoPixel 2 is not impacted by this vulnerability as it doesn't have a Samsung modem.
- MBCook 4y agoNo but if their Pixel 2 is no longer receiving security updates then figuring out a replacement plan (even if you don’t plan to do it yet) seems like a good idea.
- arsome 4y agoHonestly, unless it's a remote, worm-grade exploit or you're a high value target, you can probably just stop caring about software updates. Your threat model might be different but I don't get out of bed for anything but RCE personally, let alone spend a penny.
- mikepurvis 4y agoI guess, but it sure is nice that on Apple hardware you generally don’t need to worry about doing this calculus because they deliver updates in a timely manner to even five year old devices. It bums me out that them doing this hasn’t been effective in shaming everyone else into following suit.
- ryukafalz 4y agoThe iPod Touch Gen 7 lasted just under 3 years from release. They may be better than many others but I just got bit by that one.
- mikepurvis 4y agoThat is unfortunate. Certainly the trend has been for them to lengthen the support window over time— see this article for a decent summary: https://www.macworld.com/article/675021/how-long-does-apple-support-iphones.html https://www.macworld.com/article/675021/how-long-does-apple-... I wonder if Apple views the "iPod" branding as being more associated with gaming and consumption and therefore less important from a security standpoint. I don't think I necessarily would agree with such a stance when the exact same hardware can carry sensitive stuff like a password manager, banking and medical apps, and so-on. But I imagine their telemetry showed that that overwhelmingly wasn't the case, so it was easy not to prioritize it.
- saagarjha 4y agoNo, it's more that Apple has always released iPod with older chips, and in this case it also decided to discontinue that product line, which meant that they dropped software support for it relatively soon.
- GeekyBear 4y agoEvery flagship iPhone since 2011 has gotten at least five years of both OS updates and security updates, with some newer devices (including the $399 iPhone SE) getting as many as seven years. Even after official support completely ends, Apple tends to go back and issue patches for active exploits. The nine year old iPhone 5s just got another security update a couple of months ago.
- gcanyon 4y agoThis may be a special case: "With the release [of iOS 16], Apple dropped support for iPhone and iPod Touch models with A9 and A10 Fusion chips (the iPhone 6S/6S Plus, the 1st gen iPhone SE, the iPhone 7/7 Plus and the 7th gen iPod Touch) due to hardware limitations and Chinese government's border stringent in response of COVID-19 pandemic." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#iOS_16_/_iPadOS_16 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_version_history#iOS_16_/_i...
- mlyle 4y ago> The iPod Touch Gen 7 lasted just under 3 years from release. It was released May 2019, and it just received its latest security update (15.7.3) January 23, 2023. Presumably that is not the last security update for iOS 15.
- barbazoo 4y agoAccording to Wikipedia the Pixel 2 received security updates for less than 3 years. None of their devices got more than 3 years 3 months of updates. That should be illegal honestly, couldn't be more clear that they don't care about sustainability. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Pixel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Pixel
- jay_kyburz 4y agoIf you could demonstrate harm from a vulnerability, you could probably ask a court for some compensation. Just like if your lawnmower exploded with a known flaw, you would sue the lawnmower manufacturer.
- jvolkman 4y agoQualcomm's lack of support for older chipsets has been blamed for the short lifecycles of these phones. Pixel 6 and 7, which don't use Qualcomm SoCs, both get at least 5 years of security updates.
- mikepurvis 4y agoGoogle is ten times the size of Qualcomm— there's no way they wouldn't be able to extract those commitments upfront.
- jvolkman 4y agoGoogle is, but most of Google isn't (wasn't) purchasing SoCs from Qualcomm. Its hardware division is tiny.
- pjmlp 4y agoI still remember when phones did not receive any updates, and the few lucky models required developer tools to manually upload the firmware updates, which most of those few selected models only got one in their lifetime.
- mikepurvis 4y ago
- jeffparsons 4y agoWell, I use a web browser on the phone. Chrome et al. are still receiving updates for my phone, but I'm guessing they use some system components that are not receiving updates? So my main worry is something like an ad network loading an exploit. You don't need to be a high value target to get caught in an extremely wide net like that. (Yes, I know: get a better ad blocker, etc. — I'd rather have fewer weak links, though, and a lack of basic OS updates is a pretty big weak link.)
- arsome 4y agoNot really - Android has for many versions now been updating the embedded webview component via play services.
- jeffparsons 4y agoHuh, that's somewhat comforting, I guess. And all image codecs etc. are statically linked?
- saagarjha 4y agoMany are. However, you'd still be vulnerable via API calls to other things, like Binder exploits.
- prophesi 4y agoWith a cursory search I found CVE-2021-0316. This one's just for bluetooth, but it's an RCE with no user interaction discovered in 2021. Pixel 2 had its last security patch in November 2020.
- arsome 4y agoYes, it exists, but is it actively exploitable? A cursory search turns up no working exploit code. Given modern exploit mitigations many theoretical vulnerabilities turn out to be nothing-burgers, as far as I can see there's certainly no worm running around popping phones with it. For sure, if you're paranoid or a high-value target, update, buy a new phone. But normal users don't need to care unless there's actually something on the line.
- prophesi 4y agoAndroid's security advisory page shows what vulnerabilities have been found in the wild. Security researcher Maddie Stone from Google's Project Zero: https://twitter.com/maddiestone/status/1395004346996248586 https://twitter.com/maddiestone/status/1395004346996248586 Not sure what to say about encouraging users to throw caution to the wind. We got to this point of such good exploit mitigation because it's good for everyone for these devices to be secured.
- arsome 4y agoA bit silly to link a page about malware that Play Protect prevents, largely local privescs that are being detected by the OS or Google Play beforehand. An average user installing apps from Play Store has nothing to worry about for those. That's kind of the point. It's great for these devices to be patched - I'd love it if Google would take more control over the ecosystem to be able to patch this sort of thing, but it's much worse for users to just throw out otherwise working devices with limited-to-no real-world security issues.
- prophesi 4y agoUm, no? Most of the RCE's I'm seeing are at the OS level and would require upgrading to a newer Android OS version that older devices won't have support for.
- caconym_ 4y agoA phone (or any kind of internet-connected computer) that's been completely unsupported for years will presumably be low-hanging fruit for even the cheapest and crustiest of exploit kits.
- arsome 4y agoMost code that interacts with the internet is updated via other mechanisms. For example, web browsers are kept up to date via Play Store: Firefox for Android, Chrome and even the embedded WebView are all updated there.
- caconym_ 4y agohttps://www.cvedetails.com/version-list/1224/19997/1/Google-Android.html https://www.cvedetails.com/version-list/1224/19997/1/Google-...
- userbinator 4y agoThat is, to put nicely, forced-obsolescence FUD. They want to scare you away with words like "unsupported" so they can keep you on their leash. With the state of software development today, I'd be more worried about how many other holes they've added in the process of fixing something or introducing unwanted new "features"[1]. Here's some interesting statistics to look at and compare... https://www.cvedetails.com/product/462/Microsoft-Windows-98se.html?vendor_id=26 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/462/Microsoft-Windows-98s... - 30 RCEs in 7 years https://www.cvedetails.com/product/739/Microsoft-Windows-Xp.html?vendor_id=26 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/739/Microsoft-Windows-Xp.... - 276 RCEs in 20 years https://www.cvedetails.com/product/32238/Microsoft-Windows-10.html?vendor_id=26 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/32238/Microsoft-Windows-1... - 664 RCEs in 8 years https://www.cvedetails.com/product/102217/Microsoft-Windows-11.html?vendor_id=26 https://www.cvedetails.com/product/102217/Microsoft-Windows-... - 157 RCEs in 2 years More relevantly: https://www.cvedetails.com/version-list/1224/19997/1/Google-Android.html https://www.cvedetails.com/version-list/1224/19997/1/Google-... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28449607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28449607
- 4y ago
- parker_mountain 4y agoI hate to say it, but get an iPhone SE. 5 years of updates /from when the device was last sold in stores/. If you sideload any Android apps, you'll have to wait in a cold until the latest pixels are patched, and then get one of the a-models.
- cidergal 4y agoThat wasn't what they asked though.
- parker_mountain 4y agoMaybe, but they were looking for a phone that'll last a long time, and I hope my answer makes them reconsider. The Android OS-updates situation is seriously dire, and it seems very difficult for Google to fix.
- ydnaclementine 4y agoThey hated Jesus because he told them the truth
- serf 4y ago>and I hope my answer makes them reconsider. but.. their old phone is still operating fine, it isn't even affected by the Samsung modem exploit, and best-of-all the pixel 2 is well supported by many third-party Android roms. Parent literally has one of the best supported older phones available for third party OS installation (which, incidentally, is what parent was asking about..) so, in the interest of e-waste/recycling/keeping old things going I hope they reconsider the value of their already-owned hardware and how it may still continue to serve them.
- parker_mountain 4y agofwiw, third-party android roms are only part of the story. And, in an article about the baseband being compromised, I would hope people would take that into consideration. >so, in the interest of e-waste/recycling/keeping old things going I hope they reconsider the value of their already-owned hardware and how it may still continue to serve them. In the interest of security, both theirs and the people they communicate with, I hope they consider upgrading their device to something that has a very long lifespan of active security updates.
- josh64 4y agoLineage OS https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/walleye/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/walleye/ looks promising.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y agoUsing LineageOS on a Pixel 3. Zero complaints.
- est31 4y agoI've been a (happy) Lineage OS user since 2013, and Pixel 2 is still supported by them, so you can check them out. But note that the security updates provided by Lineage OS only pertain to the Android part, not the modem part. This isn't something that a third party OS vendor can fix, as the modem/firmware updates are supplied by the device vendor. And even those are reliant on their suppliers, so ultimately unless they have the negotion power of a multi trillion dollar company (not every vendor has that), they don't have the power to support devices for a long time either (see Fairphone's struggles with qualcomm for example). For Lineage OS, they maintain the kernels released by the vendors and backport patches to them. But this often means that the backports only address the publicized CVEs and might gloss over a lot of changes between kernel versions that might not have had famous bugfixes. A lot of patches don't end up in a kernel, and often while the version number reads of that of a modern kernel, only a small percentage of the patches in that kernel release was applied compared to the upstream kernel. For this it's important to note that the kernel doesn't have a clean separation between "bugfix" and "CVE fix" for patches, this is already a problem that their officially maintained LTS versions have. From the security point of view you are definitely better off than staying on something that's unpatched, but I have to mirror what parker_mountain is saying. It's way _way_ better to just get an iPhone as that also gives you modem security updates for half a decade. I am really unhappy about the lack of freedom these devices give me, but I have switched to an SE one year ago. It's just such an incredibly good TCO for really good security.
- jeffparsons 4y agoThanks for that extensive write-up. This is some serious food for thought. Also, I thought I recognised your username. I use at least one of your crates. Thanks for those, too! :)
- est31 4y agoGlad that you liked my writeup (and my crates)!
- hulitu 4y ago> It's just such an incredibly good TCO for really good security Good security when you cannot turn WiFi and mobile data off because it has to talk to mothership ?
- pomian 4y agoYou could try to put Graphene on your phone. There is a version for your phone, but they are not updating it anymore. However I think that it is a good option for a more secure, private, operating system. https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support
- Grazester 4y agoHow was this quiet? This is usually published by Google and other web sites when security updates have needed on the Pixel Phones. Given you're a HN user I assume you are fairly tech savvy and knew when you bought your phone it was only going to get security and system updates for 3 years.
- josephcsible 4y agoI think it's "quiet" in the sense that they don't send a push notification to affected phones when they're about to go EOL, so you don't know it happens unless you go out of your way to check.
- jeffparsons 4y agoOr put the EOL in the final OS update for that phone, with a permanent status icon / notification warning that the device is EOL. It's not like they decide at their morning stand-up, "hey, Pixel 2 has been out for a while; anyone object to killing it off today?" There's plenty of time to roll that sort of thing out, however it works under the hood.
- jeffparsons 4y agoI guess I haven't had any time to actively care about this stuff for the last 2.5 years (new parent). So when my phone tells me "Your device is up to date" with the reality in small text further down the page, apparently I am able to miss this. Sure, I have to take some responsibility for poor digital hygiene or whatever, but I don't think that negates Google's awful management of this. I shouldn't _have_ to be vigilant/proactive to stay safe in something as basic as this. Aside: Google spams me with all kinds of noise in notifications these days; couldn't they at very least put something in there saying "by the way, your device is now EOL; buy a new one"? Ockham's razor suggests to me that a _lot_ of people are running unsupported devices still, and Google doesn't want the collective backlash of putting that uncomfortable reality in people's faces.
- aesh2Xa1 4y agoYou could try using DivestOS. Your device is supported on the latest builds, and that OS targets security. However, DivestOS might be very different from the stock OS from Google. You might consider using LineageOS with Google Apps (MindTheGapps) if so. * https://divestos.org/pages/devices#device-walleye https://divestos.org/pages/devices#device-walleye * https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/walleye/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/walleye/ * https://mindthegapps.com/ https://mindthegapps.com/
- nazgulsenpai 4y agoI have a Pixel 2 XL and LineageOS with MicroG on Android 13. If you're not interested in degoogling LineageOS plus gapps also works.