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> Security is a field related to protecting device-users from malicious actors. You know - sometimes, just sometimes - it is also to do with protecting organis

> Security is a field related to protecting device-users from malicious actors. You know - sometimes, just sometimes - it is also to do with protecting organisations from careless or malicious users. The three points are related to security, even it couched in terms of parents/children

YetAnotherNick 3y ago
There are lot of much easier ways to compromise security both for careless or malicious users. This is the fundamental difference between ios and android. If you want you could ruin the security of android, however it is harder to do it in ios. Definitely not impossible, you could sideload dangerous apps easily in ios as well.
- prepend 3y ago
  > There are lot of much easier ways to compromise security both for careless or malicious users. So what? There can be multiple ways to compromise security and it’s not like we only solve the easiest ways and leave the rest. While there are easier ways today, when those get patched this will one day be the easiest.
  - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
    I think you misunderstood me. Android deliberately allows users to hack into their own phone and remove its security. It allows users to install malicious apps if they want to or even root the phone entirely. So there is nothing to solve or patch here. You could get ios if you want user to not have that power(even there it isn't very hard to install malicious accessibility app through sideloading).
    - II2II 3y ago
      I would hardly call disabling a security feature in the settings or getting an authorization key from the vendor hacking into your own phone. These are features that allow users who (think they) know what they are doing do what they want to do. It is intentional and people can figure out the consequences by doing some research. That is in start contrast to finding an undocumented hole in security.
lucideer 3y ago
> sometimes, just sometimes - it is also to do with protecting organisations from careless or malicious users. There are two cases where this is true: a user intentionally sharing internal access with external malicious actors, or a user unintentionally sharing internal access with external malicious actors (e.g. social engineering / general incompetence). Neither apply to kiosk breakouts.
- Angostura 3y ago
  You seem very sure that those are the only two security risks to an expected browser being available on an otherwise managed device. I'm pretty certain there may be other risks.
  - lucideer 3y ago
    One can absolutely make an argument for a great many risks to be classified under security concern: there are certainly more than just these two. Doing so is simply reductio ad absurdum. To expand on this, we can if we choose classify all parental controls under general access control, and within a principle of least privilege further classify the following as legitimate security risks: - access to the internet - access to a keyboard - read access to a disk There are absolutely scenarios one can contoct where these are real concerns. The settings panel of a general-purpose consumer device doesn't fit that venn diagram for me. Is it a bug: yes. Is it a security bug: no.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - blagie 3y ago
      Please take this as critical feedback, and not as a personal attack: The comments which you are making here suggest that you shouldn't develop any software which in any way touches personal data without significant upskilling on IT security. You're making false comments with complete confidence. Most security scenarios came about as a result of attackers being able to bring systems into absurd situations, and moving systems through unintended pathways. "Reductio ad absurdum" could apply to most digital exploits before they've happened. "Why would the system get into that state?" That's a key difference between physical security and digital security: - In a physical situation, I need to worry about what a typical criminal trying to break into my home or business might do. That requires reasonable measures. - In digital security, I need to worry about what the most absurdly creative attacker on the internet might do (and potentially bundle up as a script / worm / virus / etc.). I do need to worry about scenarios which might seem absurd for physical security. If you engineer classifying only "reasonable" scenarios as security risks, your system WILL eventually be compromised, and there WILL be a data leak. That shift in mind set happened around two decades ago, when the internet went from a friendly neighborhood of academics to the wild, wild west, with increasingly creative criminals attacking systems from countries many people in America have never heard of, and certainly where cross-border law enforcement is impractical. I've seen people like you design systems, and that HAS led to user harm and severe damages to the companies where they worked. At this point, this should be security 101 for anyone building software.
RobotToaster 3y ago
>it is also to do with protecting organisations from careless or malicious users. What about protecting users from careless or malicious organisations?
Mystery-Machine 3y ago
If you (in this case parent) block something (in this case browsing porn sites) on some software (in this case Android device), it most definitely _is_ a security issue if the user (in this case a child) can bypass the restriction you imposed. I don't understand what's not clear there? If your phone is locked with a pin and you pass it to your friend (Stifler) because his mom just called you, he should not in any circumstance, be able to unlock your phone without knowing the pin code. That's the first issue. The second security issue is the possibility of any website calling private internal Android functions for (potentially) setting encryption keys of your device (!!!) You don't consider this a security issue?
- nomel 3y ago
  Related, I used to root my old android phones by going to rooting websites that would do it all in browser.

YetAnotherNick 3y ago

There are lot of much easier ways to compromise security both for careless or malicious users. This is the fundamental difference between ios and android. If you want you could ruin the security of android, however it is harder to do it in ios. Definitely not impossible, you could sideload dangerous apps easily in ios as well.

prepend 3y ago
> There are lot of much easier ways to compromise security both for careless or malicious users. So what? There can be multiple ways to compromise security and it’s not like we only solve the easiest ways and leave the rest. While there are easier ways today, when those get patched this will one day be the easiest.
- YetAnotherNick 3y ago
  I think you misunderstood me. Android deliberately allows users to hack into their own phone and remove its security. It allows users to install malicious apps if they want to or even root the phone entirely. So there is nothing to solve or patch here. You could get ios if you want user to not have that power(even there it isn't very hard to install malicious accessibility app through sideloading).
  - II2II 3y ago
    I would hardly call disabling a security feature in the settings or getting an authorization key from the vendor hacking into your own phone. These are features that allow users who (think they) know what they are doing do what they want to do. It is intentional and people can figure out the consequences by doing some research. That is in start contrast to finding an undocumented hole in security.

lucideer 3y ago

> sometimes, just sometimes - it is also to do with protecting organisations from careless or malicious users. There are two cases where this is true: a user intentionally sharing internal access with external malicious actors, or a user unintentionally sharing internal access with external malicious actors (e.g. social engineering / general incompetence). Neither apply to kiosk breakouts.

Angostura 3y ago
You seem very sure that those are the only two security risks to an expected browser being available on an otherwise managed device. I'm pretty certain there may be other risks.
- lucideer 3y ago
  One can absolutely make an argument for a great many risks to be classified under security concern: there are certainly more than just these two. Doing so is simply reductio ad absurdum. To expand on this, we can if we choose classify all parental controls under general access control, and within a principle of least privilege further classify the following as legitimate security risks: - access to the internet - access to a keyboard - read access to a disk There are absolutely scenarios one can contoct where these are real concerns. The settings panel of a general-purpose consumer device doesn't fit that venn diagram for me. Is it a bug: yes. Is it a security bug: no.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - blagie 3y ago
    Please take this as critical feedback, and not as a personal attack: The comments which you are making here suggest that you shouldn't develop any software which in any way touches personal data without significant upskilling on IT security. You're making false comments with complete confidence. Most security scenarios came about as a result of attackers being able to bring systems into absurd situations, and moving systems through unintended pathways. "Reductio ad absurdum" could apply to most digital exploits before they've happened. "Why would the system get into that state?" That's a key difference between physical security and digital security: - In a physical situation, I need to worry about what a typical criminal trying to break into my home or business might do. That requires reasonable measures. - In digital security, I need to worry about what the most absurdly creative attacker on the internet might do (and potentially bundle up as a script / worm / virus / etc.). I do need to worry about scenarios which might seem absurd for physical security. If you engineer classifying only "reasonable" scenarios as security risks, your system WILL eventually be compromised, and there WILL be a data leak. That shift in mind set happened around two decades ago, when the internet went from a friendly neighborhood of academics to the wild, wild west, with increasingly creative criminals attacking systems from countries many people in America have never heard of, and certainly where cross-border law enforcement is impractical. I've seen people like you design systems, and that HAS led to user harm and severe damages to the companies where they worked. At this point, this should be security 101 for anyone building software.

RobotToaster 3y ago

>it is also to do with protecting organisations from careless or malicious users. What about protecting users from careless or malicious organisations?

Mystery-Machine 3y ago

If you (in this case parent) block something (in this case browsing porn sites) on some software (in this case Android device), it most definitely _is_ a security issue if the user (in this case a child) can bypass the restriction you imposed. I don't understand what's not clear there? If your phone is locked with a pin and you pass it to your friend (Stifler) because his mom just called you, he should not in any circumstance, be able to unlock your phone without knowing the pin code. That's the first issue. The second security issue is the possibility of any website calling private internal Android functions for (potentially) setting encryption keys of your device (!!!) You don't consider this a security issue?

nomel 3y ago
Related, I used to root my old android phones by going to rooting websites that would do it all in browser.