8 ms·

making it nearly impossible for regular users to uninstall it without root access, which voids warranties and poses security risks Stop parroting the corporate

making it nearly impossible for regular users to uninstall it without root access, which voids warranties and poses security risks Stop parroting the corporate propaganda that put us into this stupid situation in the first place. Having root access on devices you own should be a fundamental right, as otherwise it's not ownership.

perching_aix 1y ago
Didn't we backslide hard enough at this point that it is now architecturally ensured that there is a security downside to rooting? Prevents verified boot for example, since the attestation is tied to said corporations, and not you.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  AFAIK that's true for many vendors but for example Pixels (and IIRC also OnePlus at least a few years ago) you can relock the bootloader with other keys. The crazy thing is that on all the devices I've had AVB is implemented on top of secureboot. Being able to set your own secureboot keys is bog standard on corporate laptops. The entire situation makes absolutely no sense. Also for the record I think it's a silly attack vector for the average person to worry about. A normal person does not have secret agents attempting to flash malicious images to his phone while he's in the shower.
  - perching_aix 1y ago
    > AFAIK that's true for many vendors but for example [on] Pixels you can relock the bootloader with other keys Oh that's pretty cool, wasn't aware. > The crazy thing is that on all the devices I've had AVB is implemented on top of secureboot. Being able to set your own secureboot keys is bog standard on corporate laptops. The entire situation makes absolutely no sense. Hold on, could you elaborate a bit on this? I thought it was an either/or type deal cause they do the same thing.
    - fc417fc802 1y ago
      Many devices if you load up fastboot mode (is that the right name?) it will give you chipset and other information and it will have secureboot info there. It's permanently locked to chain into the AVB image. AVB is a much more complicated beast that specifies the existence of multiple partitions including (IIRC) one for storing authorized keys, one for the recovery, and a bunch of other stuff. It's possible this has changed or was never widespread in the first place. I have a very limited (and historic) sample size.
  - acdha 1y ago
    > A normal person does not have secret agents attempting to flash malicious images to his phone while he's in the shower. No, but millions of women have controlling partners or friends who betray their trust and, for example, many people going through U.S. Customs are being asked to surrender control of their devices so they can be used without their knowledge. There’s a well-funded malware industry with a lot of customers now.
- franga2000 1y ago
  Not having verified boot is not a security downside for most people. Unless your threat model includes the evil maid attack, which it doesn't for thr vaaaaaast majority of people, verified boot is just another DRM anti-feature.
  - ignoramous 1y ago
    Verified Boot isn't merely to thwart Evil Maids, but by and large provide what's known as "Trusted Computing Base". And yes, given the proliferation of smartphones and the nature of sensitive applications built on top, most people, even if they don't realise it, need it.
    - userbinator 1y ago
      but by and large provide what's known as "Trusted Computing Base". In other words, DRM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing#Criticism (I knew from the beginning that this was known as the Palladium project, and until recently, a search for "Palladium TCG" would find plenty of information about that history, yet now references to that group and its origins in DRM have seemingly disappeared from Google. Make of that what you will...)
      - cam_l 1y ago
        Are you saying that someone is using yugiyoh trading cards to cover up incriminating historical details of Microsoft's long term plan to purge general purpose computing from the world? https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/593140/yugioh-quarter-century-bonanza-palladium-oracle-mahad-platinum-secret-rare https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/593140/yugioh-quarter-cent... Bizarre, I did find it on bing though.. https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/archive/rja14/tcpa-faq-1.0.html https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/archive/rja14/tcpa-faq-1.0.html
      - perching_aix 1y ago
        This should not be a surprise. Mechanistically enforced trust (like in trusted computing), and even better, mechanistically assured trust (like in verifiable computing), will be relied upon by anyone seeking trust. This means both consumers and producers, and anyone else in-between. If I want my device to be secure, I want this trust. If I want to sell a copy of my virtual asset to only be used in ways I approve of, I want this trust. You can't have only one of these at the same time, either your device can provide this trust or it cannot. That's not the battle in my view. The battle is to implement this appropriately, such that e.g. if we're representing access control, identity, and ownership, then that representation should match reality. So if I'm said to own a device, the device can and will attest so, and behave accordingly. It's just that instead of that, I'm always somehow just being loaned these things, only have some specified amount of control over these things, and am just a temporary user somehow. That's the issue. And that these systems are not reimplementable, and as such entitlements do not carry around.
- torginus 1y ago
  I don't follow the reasoning behind this - even in a verified boot scenario you can just choose to not load the offending kernel module without compromising security.
charcircuit 1y ago
Root access is an outdated security concept from the previous century. Trying to mandate such a concept is parroting UNIX propaganda. Users can be given control of devices without them having a "root" account.
- mrusme 1y ago
  How?
  - burnt-resistor 1y ago
    By having a "maintenance mode" that can be entered and left.
    - peterbraden 1y ago
      Maintenance mode == root
      - burnt-resistor 1y ago
        You're projecting your meaning of it, not mine. Not if it can't be undone in a way other than reinstalling everything. A mode that allows changing things with a temporary reduction of security system-wide and restoring them later, but putting all of the upgrade and support liability on the user without sacrificing functionality. Think VMware ESXi. If tech support wants to not support it, that's fine, but payments and such should still work.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    By following the principle of least privilege. Like with apps the user should only have privileges for what they are allowed to control and nothing more. So if the user should have privilege to disable apps, then the settings app could expose a way for the user to do so. Yes, this is kind of approach of coming up with a design to security instead of going with the easy route of everything being allowed is harder to do and takes more time, but it leads to better security.
abtinf 1y ago
[flagged]
- userbinator 1y ago
  There's something called "education", and by that I do not mean the propaganda that passes as such these days. Clearly you've drunk the Goog-Aid.
- akdev1l 1y ago
  > Seriously, you never had to provide tech support to a parent, relative, or friend whose computer got totally fucked because they had root? Literally 0 here, have you really? Like I literally do not know anyone who is even using Linux to begin with but also people do have “root” in their Windows and MacOS systems. I do not see anyone destroying their computers at random. Also to steal someone’s information you don’t need root access or any administrative access - if you already tricked the user into running your code then you can steal their passwords or whatever, all of that is user-level data.
  - microtherion 1y ago
    I can only speak to the Mac situation, but most people there would not have "root" in the traditional sense: * Pedantically speaking, you can not even log in as root, any root level access would have to go through sudo (which is indeed enabled for most users). * But additionally, even as root, Macs by default have System Integrity Protection enabled, which makes most system files non-modifiable. Users still have full control in that they CAN disable System Integrity Protection, but that involves a reboot and some (documented) command line commands, so most users don't bother doing that.
- StanislavPetrov 1y ago
  >You people don’t know or have forgotten what a god damn wasteland computers were 20 years ago. Computers were utopia 20 years ago as compared to today - especially when it comes to privacy, security and user-control.
  - 1y ago
bongodongobob 1y ago
[flagged]
- potamic 1y ago
  You can default to a hardened, secure setup but provide an option to override to those who want to. I don't think anyone is against secure defaults, but many people have a problem with designs that say you must not even have an option to override.
  - bongodongobob 1y ago
    Yeah, that's rooting your phone. It should be a little difficult. You can do it. And it's good that most people don't.
    - gyello 1y ago
      The problem is not that rooting is difficult, it's that in most cases now it permanently renders parts of the phone inoperable or makes it impossible to use contactless payments or any banking apps or content streaming apps etc. These additional restrictions are not there for security despite what we are told.
      - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
        > it's that in most cases now it permanently renders parts of the phone inoperable or makes it impossible to use contactless payments or any banking apps or content streaming apps etc. I've had to cloak the rooted state from an app or two or they'd choose to withhold functionality. That was a couple of phones ago. I've not had trouble with banking, payments, etc since.
      - miki123211 1y ago
        They're for the bank's (and other customers') security, not yours. I think they're supposed to prevent people from reverse-engineering banking app APIs and writing bots that perform millions of requests per second, trying to brute force their way into peoples' accounts. As an extra protection, SafetyNet also makes it harder to distribute apps that repackage your genuine banking app, but with an extra trojan added.
jrflowers 1y ago
This is a good point. While there is nothing factually incorrect in the statement “rooting your phone can void your warranty and pose a security risk”, if you imagine factual statements are the same thing as value judgments it becomes very problematic. Similarly it is pretty messed up when people say stuff like “fire can burn you if you aren’t careful” because so many people rely on fire for food and warmth.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  Having your vehicle serviced by someone other than the dealer could void your warranty and poses a safety risk. Cooking animal products at home poses a health risk. You should be sure to only ever consume animal products prepared by a duly licensed establishment. The chauffeur's union would like to take this opportunity to remind you that amateurs operating their own motor vehicles risk serious injury and even death. The FSD alliance would like to point out that hiring a licensed chauffeur also poses a non-negligible risk. Should you choose to make use of a personal vehicle it is strongly recommended that you select one certified by the FSD alliance. Failure to do so could potentially impact your health insurance premium.
  - jrflowers 1y ago
    You make an interesting point here. While “rooting your phone can void your warranty and pose a security risk“ may be a factually true statement, we must also consider some entirely unrelated and possibly untrue statements that could be theoretically uttered in another reality. We can get so bogged down with “things that are real” and “exist in this universe” that we completely fail to focus on the vital stuff like “Bigfoot is circumcised” and “Who did it?” and “Why?”
    - fc417fc802 1y ago
      On the contrary. My statements bear equivalent accuracy to yours in our current reality. My statements are also very obviously FUD. So is yours. Or do you dispute that you could be hospitalized for salmonella if you botch cooking poultry at home? Or perhaps you feel that there is no straightforward way to inadvertently endanger your life by servicing your vehicle incorrectly?
throwaway290 1y ago
Stop parroting orthodox agenda without thinking of what it means. If everyone had root access it would be heaven for ransomware/spyware/malware operators. Having root access is not in the interest OR benefit of most regular users. Rooting your phone is a footgun for 99% of people who install random apps and will get hacked and have their life savings transferred or ransomed. For them the article does the right thing. For everyone else, like you or me, we will not care what this article says anyway. That's why what Samsung does is double bad. Noot rooting phone is good hygiene if your phone respects you. But if it comes with malware then thats a stab in the back.
- callc 1y ago
  > Having root access is not in the interest OR benefit of most regular users. What about desktop OSes for the last 40/50 years? Sure they aren’t the foam-padded locked down phone OSes, but isn’t this fear a case of leaving said padded room?
  - throwaway290 1y ago
    Computer usage and consequently threat landscape went through a crazy change from 40/50 years ago. Desktops are a minority of devices. If you take personal devices even more so. Most people in the world with a computer have just a pocket one. Especially in WANA countries discussed If you talk to regular non IT savvy people many of them don't bother and correctly assume that at some point it will "get a virus" or something. And it is fine for them because almost no one uses desktop for critical stuff like payment or finance. But majority do use phones for that. They jumped from cash straight to phones and now it's a lucrative attack vector. Edit to reply because throttled by downvotes: yea I'm in your boat, we live in a bubble. It's hard to believe. But now I'm using a payment system that literally has "get app" on its site and no other way to manage money or even sign up. And apps like that can be the only way for many people to get some sort of plastic card to pay cashless And I see how it happened. Many people have no personal desktop computers. Many payment vendors don't trust desktop computers because an ordinary person's windows machine is a malware breeder. So many people in the world depend on mobile security (especially underprivileged people). Anyone who wants them all to get fucked for own libertarian ideal of "hardware ownership" is basically a psychopath to me. Especially considering that he is literally free to root his device and not make it a problem for others.
ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
We need regulation which defines that any hardware device capable of running software developed by a third party different from the hardware manufacturer qualifies as a general purpose computing device, and that any such device is disallowed to put cryptographic or other restrictions on what software the user wants to execute. This pertains to all programmable components on the device, including low-level hardware controllers. These restrictions extend outside the particular device. It must also be illegal as a commercial entity to enforce security schemes which involve remote attestation of the software stack on the client device such that service providers can refuse to service clients based on failing attestation. Service providers have other means of protecting themselves, taking away users control of their own devices is a heavy handed and unnecessarily draconian approach which ultimately only benefits the ad company that happens to make the software stack since they also benefit from restricting what software users can run. Hypothetically, they might be interested in making it impossible to modify video players to skip ads.
- akoboldfrying 1y ago
  > any such device is disallowed to put cryptographic or other restrictions on what software the user wants to execute Won't this also forbid virus scanners that quarantine files? > This pertains to all programmable components on the device, including low-level hardware controllers. I don't think it's reasonable to expect any manufacturer to uphold a warranty if making unlimited changes to the system is permitted.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    It wouldn't forbid shipping the device with a virus scanner. It would only forbid refusing the user control over what software does and does not run. There might be a couple messy edge cases if applied at the software level but I think it would work well. Applied at the hardware level it would be very clear cut. It would simply outlaw technical measures taken to prevent the user from installing an arbitrary OS on the device. Regarding warranties, what's so difficult about flashing a stock image to a device being serviced? At least in the US wasn't this already settled long ago by Magnuson-Moss? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...
Incipient 1y ago
I'm pretty sure the recent switch 2 "license to use the hardware" has entirely killed any notion that you actually own the hardware and are free to do anything with it. Especially in Africa, where privacy and consumer rights are probably less relevant than the US/EU.
- hilbert42 1y ago
  ""license to use the hardware"…." Well, then it's high time the laws of ownership in just about evey country in the world were updated. As it stands, if I buy something then I own it.
  - makeitdouble 1y ago
    > if I buy something then I own it. That's the point: you can't buy it, only license.
    - hilbert42 1y ago
      I've never had to license hardware I've bought, only software. There's no way I do so.
      - makeitdouble 1y ago
        I'm not saying it's a good thing. But we shouldn't hide from the fact that door has been opened and I see no practical reason we won't see more of it. The minute Apple sees a clear path to get away with it, iPhone will essentially become licensed devices. Then other phone makers will jump through the opening, at some point it becomes the standard, and we'll laugh at the "voting with your wallet" joke again. > software We're already full in licensing books, as truly the most pragmatic choice. Amazon opened the door, and many other ebook stores have jumped on the bandwagon.
        hilbert42 1y ago
        This can end in several ways, users and third-party repairers will reverse-engineer phones encryption notwithstanding—simply remove the 'offending' chips and replace tbem with open tech. To say it's unlawful is moot. Apple may have jurisdiction in the US but not across the globe, there are plenty of places I can think of to send an iPhone to have it fixed the way I want (and I'd do so the moment that market is established). There's no way Apple can police what people do with their hardware once it's in their hands, it's fanciful to think otherwise. Open hardware is on the move, eventually considerably cheaper open products will become popular just on price alone. Competition will then be fierce, Apple will have to change its policies if changes to laws don't beat them to it. Remember also the US isn't the whole world, so those changes are likely to be enacted first outside the US. If Apple wants to sell there then it'll have to comply with those laws just as it did with USB-C in Europe. Also keep in mind Apple, Google, Microsoft etc. have become the richest and fastest growing corporations in human history—they even beat out the previous contenders the Dutch and British East India Companies of the 17th and 18th Centuries. These corporations became so rich so quickly because of a confluence of circumstances—the new tech paradigm of the personal computer, the wow factor that took the world by storm and a compete lack of regulations worldwide. Without regulations to keep these corporations in check they simply ran amuck. That's now over. Yes, it will be some while before they're brought to heel but they'll never get such a straight run again. Apple is on top now but let's see where it'll be in 20 years.
menzoic 1y ago
How is the security risk propaganda?
- ahoka 1y ago
  It's the hardware vendor's "think of the children".
- msgodel 1y ago
  If your security model means me having access to my own hardware is a security risk you're malicious and your security model is bad.
- flotzam 1y ago
  It's not (only) propaganda. Rooting disables or bypasses verified boot, allowing exploits to persist across a reboot.
  - franga2000 1y ago
    Malware van persist across reboots regardless of verified boot. What it can't do is persist through a factory reset. But if you really want a thorough reset, simply re-lock the bootloader and flash stock firmware from there. Nothing can persist through that without an exploit in the verification chain and if you have that kind of exploit, you don't need the bootloader to be unlocked in the first place. Also, there are devices out there that let you enroll your own keys, like the Google Pixel series.
    - flotzam 1y ago
      > Malware [c]an persist across reboots regardless of verified boot. Some can, some can't. Even when it can persist, escalating to root after every reboot may be unreliable or noisy (e.g. 70% chance of success, 30% crash) compared to straight persistence as root without verified boot. > Also, there are devices out there that let you enroll your own keys, like the Google Pixel series. This still applies to those devices. It's the main reason GrapheneOS (which exclusively runs on Pixels, with the bootloader relocked to a GrapheneOS key) is opposed to building in root access: Verified boot would be "enabled", but effectively bypassed. https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/1730435135714050560 https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/1730435135714050560
ozim 1y ago
My grandma should not have root on her phone and a lot of younger people as well. Making it easy to root phone makes it easy for scammers to ask people to unlock it. It should not void warranty if you unlock the phone. But security concerns are real. Mobile banking apps refuse to run on rooted phones.
- const_cast 1y ago
  > My grandma should not have root on her phone and a lot of younger people as well. I would agree. > Making it easy to root phone makes it easy for scammers to ask people to unlock it. I would also agree, so then: don't make it easy. > Mobile banking apps refuse to run on rooted phones. ... but they do run on my web browser. On a computer using open-source software without even secure boot enabled. So, it seems to me this is a cop-out by said banks. They shouldn't require client-side absolute trust to run, and evidently they actually, practically, today, do not require that. It's simply a choice they made, presumably out of laziness or greed.
- poisonborz 1y ago
  The same people can be scammed to give passwords, click links, perform any human action, so what's the difference besides giving up yet another freedom?
npteljes 1y ago
The current legal reality might be corporate propaganda, but not exclusively corporate propaganda, it's the current legal reality as well. "root access voids warranties" is a fact in many jurisdictions, regardless of how it came to be. Hence, it's not as much parroting propaganda, as in furthering a cause, but just stating it how it is.
smokel 1y ago
Even though you seem to have a lot of support on Hacker News, I don't think making root access a fundamental right is preferable. Historically, computers have not granted you access to everything. Most home computers used to have ROM cartridges, which could not be modified, at least not by an average user. Also, when using unrestricted operating systems, such as as MS-DOS, a simple virus could wipe all your hard work. In our current time, devices are connected to other machines, and the problem of security and privacy has increased dramatically. Unfortunately, we still don't have operating systems that are secure enough to be used by untrained persons. It makes perfect sense to lock down these devices. I basically see only two ways out: 1. Allow developers exclusive access to development systems, similar to how console development works. 2. Implement a secure operating system. It will take an extreme amount of effort to do the latter, and it might even be impossible to gradually absorb the mess of interfaces that people and companies expect to work. So that probably leaves us with the first option. Personally, I would love devices to be locked down more, so that the crazy threats from hackers will be less severe. But I would also love to keep developing software. Having to jump through some hoops is probably unavoidable. The situation could be compared to requiring a driver's license in order to safely drive on the shared infrastructure. As much as I agree with your sentiment to have freedom, it still seems somewhat overly optimistic to expect this to work in our complex society.
- poisonborz 1y ago
  Why? What is the reason root would be dangerous, if it's not the default? People can be scammed to activate it, but those same people can be scammed to click links and give passwords and personal data. Any action requiring root would need a warning and raise suspicion, or put behind an activation mechanism that's complex enough. Anything else and you lose freedom, and the whole ethos that enabled the advanced IT landscape of today.
  - smokel 1y ago
    Having root access implies that you can do all sorts of things: change files, install new software, new kernel modules, etc. Locking this down makes the attack surface for malicious parties much smaller. Many exploits start in user-space and then obtain root access to install rootkits. Of course you lose freedom, but that is exactly what is needed, because some people just cannot help themselves from exploiting that freedom. Unless someone figures out a way where we can safely share computing power and connections to real-life services (e.g. banking, having an identity, communication in general), I think there is no real alternative. Perhaps having separate internets for various purposes would be an option. Ond where we can socialize anonymously, but not trust each other, and one where it's pretty boring, but where you can safely buy goods using your paycheck.

perching_aix 1y ago

Didn't we backslide hard enough at this point that it is now architecturally ensured that there is a security downside to rooting? Prevents verified boot for example, since the attestation is tied to said corporations, and not you.

fc417fc802 1y ago
AFAIK that's true for many vendors but for example Pixels (and IIRC also OnePlus at least a few years ago) you can relock the bootloader with other keys. The crazy thing is that on all the devices I've had AVB is implemented on top of secureboot. Being able to set your own secureboot keys is bog standard on corporate laptops. The entire situation makes absolutely no sense. Also for the record I think it's a silly attack vector for the average person to worry about. A normal person does not have secret agents attempting to flash malicious images to his phone while he's in the shower.
- perching_aix 1y ago
  > AFAIK that's true for many vendors but for example [on] Pixels you can relock the bootloader with other keys Oh that's pretty cool, wasn't aware. > The crazy thing is that on all the devices I've had AVB is implemented on top of secureboot. Being able to set your own secureboot keys is bog standard on corporate laptops. The entire situation makes absolutely no sense. Hold on, could you elaborate a bit on this? I thought it was an either/or type deal cause they do the same thing.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    Many devices if you load up fastboot mode (is that the right name?) it will give you chipset and other information and it will have secureboot info there. It's permanently locked to chain into the AVB image. AVB is a much more complicated beast that specifies the existence of multiple partitions including (IIRC) one for storing authorized keys, one for the recovery, and a bunch of other stuff. It's possible this has changed or was never widespread in the first place. I have a very limited (and historic) sample size.
- acdha 1y ago
  > A normal person does not have secret agents attempting to flash malicious images to his phone while he's in the shower. No, but millions of women have controlling partners or friends who betray their trust and, for example, many people going through U.S. Customs are being asked to surrender control of their devices so they can be used without their knowledge. There’s a well-funded malware industry with a lot of customers now.
franga2000 1y ago
Not having verified boot is not a security downside for most people. Unless your threat model includes the evil maid attack, which it doesn't for thr vaaaaaast majority of people, verified boot is just another DRM anti-feature.
- ignoramous 1y ago
  Verified Boot isn't merely to thwart Evil Maids, but by and large provide what's known as "Trusted Computing Base". And yes, given the proliferation of smartphones and the nature of sensitive applications built on top, most people, even if they don't realise it, need it.
  - userbinator 1y ago
    but by and large provide what's known as "Trusted Computing Base". In other words, DRM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing#Criticism (I knew from the beginning that this was known as the Palladium project, and until recently, a search for "Palladium TCG" would find plenty of information about that history, yet now references to that group and its origins in DRM have seemingly disappeared from Google. Make of that what you will...)
    - cam_l 1y ago
      Are you saying that someone is using yugiyoh trading cards to cover up incriminating historical details of Microsoft's long term plan to purge general purpose computing from the world? https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/593140/yugioh-quarter-century-bonanza-palladium-oracle-mahad-platinum-secret-rare https://www.tcgplayer.com/product/593140/yugioh-quarter-cent... Bizarre, I did find it on bing though.. https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/archive/rja14/tcpa-faq-1.0.html https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/archive/rja14/tcpa-faq-1.0.html
    - perching_aix 1y ago
      This should not be a surprise. Mechanistically enforced trust (like in trusted computing), and even better, mechanistically assured trust (like in verifiable computing), will be relied upon by anyone seeking trust. This means both consumers and producers, and anyone else in-between. If I want my device to be secure, I want this trust. If I want to sell a copy of my virtual asset to only be used in ways I approve of, I want this trust. You can't have only one of these at the same time, either your device can provide this trust or it cannot. That's not the battle in my view. The battle is to implement this appropriately, such that e.g. if we're representing access control, identity, and ownership, then that representation should match reality. So if I'm said to own a device, the device can and will attest so, and behave accordingly. It's just that instead of that, I'm always somehow just being loaned these things, only have some specified amount of control over these things, and am just a temporary user somehow. That's the issue. And that these systems are not reimplementable, and as such entitlements do not carry around.
torginus 1y ago
I don't follow the reasoning behind this - even in a verified boot scenario you can just choose to not load the offending kernel module without compromising security.

charcircuit 1y ago

Root access is an outdated security concept from the previous century. Trying to mandate such a concept is parroting UNIX propaganda. Users can be given control of devices without them having a "root" account.

mrusme 1y ago
How?
- burnt-resistor 1y ago
  By having a "maintenance mode" that can be entered and left.
  - peterbraden 1y ago
    Maintenance mode == root
    - burnt-resistor 1y ago
      You're projecting your meaning of it, not mine. Not if it can't be undone in a way other than reinstalling everything. A mode that allows changing things with a temporary reduction of security system-wide and restoring them later, but putting all of the upgrade and support liability on the user without sacrificing functionality. Think VMware ESXi. If tech support wants to not support it, that's fine, but payments and such should still work.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  By following the principle of least privilege. Like with apps the user should only have privileges for what they are allowed to control and nothing more. So if the user should have privilege to disable apps, then the settings app could expose a way for the user to do so. Yes, this is kind of approach of coming up with a design to security instead of going with the easy route of everything being allowed is harder to do and takes more time, but it leads to better security.

abtinf 1y ago

[flagged]

userbinator 1y ago
There's something called "education", and by that I do not mean the propaganda that passes as such these days. Clearly you've drunk the Goog-Aid.
akdev1l 1y ago
> Seriously, you never had to provide tech support to a parent, relative, or friend whose computer got totally fucked because they had root? Literally 0 here, have you really? Like I literally do not know anyone who is even using Linux to begin with but also people do have “root” in their Windows and MacOS systems. I do not see anyone destroying their computers at random. Also to steal someone’s information you don’t need root access or any administrative access - if you already tricked the user into running your code then you can steal their passwords or whatever, all of that is user-level data.
- microtherion 1y ago
  I can only speak to the Mac situation, but most people there would not have "root" in the traditional sense: * Pedantically speaking, you can not even log in as root, any root level access would have to go through sudo (which is indeed enabled for most users). * But additionally, even as root, Macs by default have System Integrity Protection enabled, which makes most system files non-modifiable. Users still have full control in that they CAN disable System Integrity Protection, but that involves a reboot and some (documented) command line commands, so most users don't bother doing that.
StanislavPetrov 1y ago
>You people don’t know or have forgotten what a god damn wasteland computers were 20 years ago. Computers were utopia 20 years ago as compared to today - especially when it comes to privacy, security and user-control.
- 1y ago

bongodongobob 1y ago

[flagged]

potamic 1y ago
You can default to a hardened, secure setup but provide an option to override to those who want to. I don't think anyone is against secure defaults, but many people have a problem with designs that say you must not even have an option to override.
- bongodongobob 1y ago
  Yeah, that's rooting your phone. It should be a little difficult. You can do it. And it's good that most people don't.
  - gyello 1y ago
    The problem is not that rooting is difficult, it's that in most cases now it permanently renders parts of the phone inoperable or makes it impossible to use contactless payments or any banking apps or content streaming apps etc. These additional restrictions are not there for security despite what we are told.
    - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
      > it's that in most cases now it permanently renders parts of the phone inoperable or makes it impossible to use contactless payments or any banking apps or content streaming apps etc. I've had to cloak the rooted state from an app or two or they'd choose to withhold functionality. That was a couple of phones ago. I've not had trouble with banking, payments, etc since.
    - miki123211 1y ago
      They're for the bank's (and other customers') security, not yours. I think they're supposed to prevent people from reverse-engineering banking app APIs and writing bots that perform millions of requests per second, trying to brute force their way into peoples' accounts. As an extra protection, SafetyNet also makes it harder to distribute apps that repackage your genuine banking app, but with an extra trojan added.

jrflowers 1y ago

This is a good point. While there is nothing factually incorrect in the statement “rooting your phone can void your warranty and pose a security risk”, if you imagine factual statements are the same thing as value judgments it becomes very problematic. Similarly it is pretty messed up when people say stuff like “fire can burn you if you aren’t careful” because so many people rely on fire for food and warmth.

fc417fc802 1y ago
Having your vehicle serviced by someone other than the dealer could void your warranty and poses a safety risk. Cooking animal products at home poses a health risk. You should be sure to only ever consume animal products prepared by a duly licensed establishment. The chauffeur's union would like to take this opportunity to remind you that amateurs operating their own motor vehicles risk serious injury and even death. The FSD alliance would like to point out that hiring a licensed chauffeur also poses a non-negligible risk. Should you choose to make use of a personal vehicle it is strongly recommended that you select one certified by the FSD alliance. Failure to do so could potentially impact your health insurance premium.
- jrflowers 1y ago
  You make an interesting point here. While “rooting your phone can void your warranty and pose a security risk“ may be a factually true statement, we must also consider some entirely unrelated and possibly untrue statements that could be theoretically uttered in another reality. We can get so bogged down with “things that are real” and “exist in this universe” that we completely fail to focus on the vital stuff like “Bigfoot is circumcised” and “Who did it?” and “Why?”
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    On the contrary. My statements bear equivalent accuracy to yours in our current reality. My statements are also very obviously FUD. So is yours. Or do you dispute that you could be hospitalized for salmonella if you botch cooking poultry at home? Or perhaps you feel that there is no straightforward way to inadvertently endanger your life by servicing your vehicle incorrectly?

throwaway290 1y ago

Stop parroting orthodox agenda without thinking of what it means. If everyone had root access it would be heaven for ransomware/spyware/malware operators. Having root access is not in the interest OR benefit of most regular users. Rooting your phone is a footgun for 99% of people who install random apps and will get hacked and have their life savings transferred or ransomed. For them the article does the right thing. For everyone else, like you or me, we will not care what this article says anyway. That's why what Samsung does is double bad. Noot rooting phone is good hygiene if your phone respects you. But if it comes with malware then thats a stab in the back.

callc 1y ago
> Having root access is not in the interest OR benefit of most regular users. What about desktop OSes for the last 40/50 years? Sure they aren’t the foam-padded locked down phone OSes, but isn’t this fear a case of leaving said padded room?
- throwaway290 1y ago
  Computer usage and consequently threat landscape went through a crazy change from 40/50 years ago. Desktops are a minority of devices. If you take personal devices even more so. Most people in the world with a computer have just a pocket one. Especially in WANA countries discussed If you talk to regular non IT savvy people many of them don't bother and correctly assume that at some point it will "get a virus" or something. And it is fine for them because almost no one uses desktop for critical stuff like payment or finance. But majority do use phones for that. They jumped from cash straight to phones and now it's a lucrative attack vector. Edit to reply because throttled by downvotes: yea I'm in your boat, we live in a bubble. It's hard to believe. But now I'm using a payment system that literally has "get app" on its site and no other way to manage money or even sign up. And apps like that can be the only way for many people to get some sort of plastic card to pay cashless And I see how it happened. Many people have no personal desktop computers. Many payment vendors don't trust desktop computers because an ordinary person's windows machine is a malware breeder. So many people in the world depend on mobile security (especially underprivileged people). Anyone who wants them all to get fucked for own libertarian ideal of "hardware ownership" is basically a psychopath to me. Especially considering that he is literally free to root his device and not make it a problem for others.

ulrikrasmussen 1y ago

We need regulation which defines that any hardware device capable of running software developed by a third party different from the hardware manufacturer qualifies as a general purpose computing device, and that any such device is disallowed to put cryptographic or other restrictions on what software the user wants to execute. This pertains to all programmable components on the device, including low-level hardware controllers. These restrictions extend outside the particular device. It must also be illegal as a commercial entity to enforce security schemes which involve remote attestation of the software stack on the client device such that service providers can refuse to service clients based on failing attestation. Service providers have other means of protecting themselves, taking away users control of their own devices is a heavy handed and unnecessarily draconian approach which ultimately only benefits the ad company that happens to make the software stack since they also benefit from restricting what software users can run. Hypothetically, they might be interested in making it impossible to modify video players to skip ads.

akoboldfrying 1y ago
> any such device is disallowed to put cryptographic or other restrictions on what software the user wants to execute Won't this also forbid virus scanners that quarantine files? > This pertains to all programmable components on the device, including low-level hardware controllers. I don't think it's reasonable to expect any manufacturer to uphold a warranty if making unlimited changes to the system is permitted.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  It wouldn't forbid shipping the device with a virus scanner. It would only forbid refusing the user control over what software does and does not run. There might be a couple messy edge cases if applied at the software level but I think it would work well. Applied at the hardware level it would be very clear cut. It would simply outlaw technical measures taken to prevent the user from installing an arbitrary OS on the device. Regarding warranties, what's so difficult about flashing a stock image to a device being serviced? At least in the US wasn't this already settled long ago by Magnuson-Moss? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...

Incipient 1y ago

I'm pretty sure the recent switch 2 "license to use the hardware" has entirely killed any notion that you actually own the hardware and are free to do anything with it. Especially in Africa, where privacy and consumer rights are probably less relevant than the US/EU.

hilbert42 1y ago
""license to use the hardware"…." Well, then it's high time the laws of ownership in just about evey country in the world were updated. As it stands, if I buy something then I own it.
- makeitdouble 1y ago
  > if I buy something then I own it. That's the point: you can't buy it, only license.
  - hilbert42 1y ago
    I've never had to license hardware I've bought, only software. There's no way I do so.
    - makeitdouble 1y ago
      I'm not saying it's a good thing. But we shouldn't hide from the fact that door has been opened and I see no practical reason we won't see more of it. The minute Apple sees a clear path to get away with it, iPhone will essentially become licensed devices. Then other phone makers will jump through the opening, at some point it becomes the standard, and we'll laugh at the "voting with your wallet" joke again. > software We're already full in licensing books, as truly the most pragmatic choice. Amazon opened the door, and many other ebook stores have jumped on the bandwagon.
      - hilbert42 1y ago
        This can end in several ways, users and third-party repairers will reverse-engineer phones encryption notwithstanding—simply remove the 'offending' chips and replace tbem with open tech. To say it's unlawful is moot. Apple may have jurisdiction in the US but not across the globe, there are plenty of places I can think of to send an iPhone to have it fixed the way I want (and I'd do so the moment that market is established). There's no way Apple can police what people do with their hardware once it's in their hands, it's fanciful to think otherwise. Open hardware is on the move, eventually considerably cheaper open products will become popular just on price alone. Competition will then be fierce, Apple will have to change its policies if changes to laws don't beat them to it. Remember also the US isn't the whole world, so those changes are likely to be enacted first outside the US. If Apple wants to sell there then it'll have to comply with those laws just as it did with USB-C in Europe. Also keep in mind Apple, Google, Microsoft etc. have become the richest and fastest growing corporations in human history—they even beat out the previous contenders the Dutch and British East India Companies of the 17th and 18th Centuries. These corporations became so rich so quickly because of a confluence of circumstances—the new tech paradigm of the personal computer, the wow factor that took the world by storm and a compete lack of regulations worldwide. Without regulations to keep these corporations in check they simply ran amuck. That's now over. Yes, it will be some while before they're brought to heel but they'll never get such a straight run again. Apple is on top now but let's see where it'll be in 20 years.

menzoic 1y ago

How is the security risk propaganda?

ahoka 1y ago
It's the hardware vendor's "think of the children".
msgodel 1y ago
If your security model means me having access to my own hardware is a security risk you're malicious and your security model is bad.
flotzam 1y ago
It's not (only) propaganda. Rooting disables or bypasses verified boot, allowing exploits to persist across a reboot.
- franga2000 1y ago
  Malware van persist across reboots regardless of verified boot. What it can't do is persist through a factory reset. But if you really want a thorough reset, simply re-lock the bootloader and flash stock firmware from there. Nothing can persist through that without an exploit in the verification chain and if you have that kind of exploit, you don't need the bootloader to be unlocked in the first place. Also, there are devices out there that let you enroll your own keys, like the Google Pixel series.
  - flotzam 1y ago
    > Malware [c]an persist across reboots regardless of verified boot. Some can, some can't. Even when it can persist, escalating to root after every reboot may be unreliable or noisy (e.g. 70% chance of success, 30% crash) compared to straight persistence as root without verified boot. > Also, there are devices out there that let you enroll your own keys, like the Google Pixel series. This still applies to those devices. It's the main reason GrapheneOS (which exclusively runs on Pixels, with the bootloader relocked to a GrapheneOS key) is opposed to building in root access: Verified boot would be "enabled", but effectively bypassed. https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/1730435135714050560 https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/1730435135714050560

ozim 1y ago

My grandma should not have root on her phone and a lot of younger people as well. Making it easy to root phone makes it easy for scammers to ask people to unlock it. It should not void warranty if you unlock the phone. But security concerns are real. Mobile banking apps refuse to run on rooted phones.

const_cast 1y ago
> My grandma should not have root on her phone and a lot of younger people as well. I would agree. > Making it easy to root phone makes it easy for scammers to ask people to unlock it. I would also agree, so then: don't make it easy. > Mobile banking apps refuse to run on rooted phones. ... but they do run on my web browser. On a computer using open-source software without even secure boot enabled. So, it seems to me this is a cop-out by said banks. They shouldn't require client-side absolute trust to run, and evidently they actually, practically, today, do not require that. It's simply a choice they made, presumably out of laziness or greed.
poisonborz 1y ago
The same people can be scammed to give passwords, click links, perform any human action, so what's the difference besides giving up yet another freedom?

npteljes 1y ago

The current legal reality might be corporate propaganda, but not exclusively corporate propaganda, it's the current legal reality as well. "root access voids warranties" is a fact in many jurisdictions, regardless of how it came to be. Hence, it's not as much parroting propaganda, as in furthering a cause, but just stating it how it is.

smokel 1y ago

Even though you seem to have a lot of support on Hacker News, I don't think making root access a fundamental right is preferable. Historically, computers have not granted you access to everything. Most home computers used to have ROM cartridges, which could not be modified, at least not by an average user. Also, when using unrestricted operating systems, such as as MS-DOS, a simple virus could wipe all your hard work. In our current time, devices are connected to other machines, and the problem of security and privacy has increased dramatically. Unfortunately, we still don't have operating systems that are secure enough to be used by untrained persons. It makes perfect sense to lock down these devices. I basically see only two ways out: 1. Allow developers exclusive access to development systems, similar to how console development works. 2. Implement a secure operating system. It will take an extreme amount of effort to do the latter, and it might even be impossible to gradually absorb the mess of interfaces that people and companies expect to work. So that probably leaves us with the first option. Personally, I would love devices to be locked down more, so that the crazy threats from hackers will be less severe. But I would also love to keep developing software. Having to jump through some hoops is probably unavoidable. The situation could be compared to requiring a driver's license in order to safely drive on the shared infrastructure. As much as I agree with your sentiment to have freedom, it still seems somewhat overly optimistic to expect this to work in our complex society.

poisonborz 1y ago
Why? What is the reason root would be dangerous, if it's not the default? People can be scammed to activate it, but those same people can be scammed to click links and give passwords and personal data. Any action requiring root would need a warning and raise suspicion, or put behind an activation mechanism that's complex enough. Anything else and you lose freedom, and the whole ethos that enabled the advanced IT landscape of today.
- smokel 1y ago
  Having root access implies that you can do all sorts of things: change files, install new software, new kernel modules, etc. Locking this down makes the attack surface for malicious parties much smaller. Many exploits start in user-space and then obtain root access to install rootkits. Of course you lose freedom, but that is exactly what is needed, because some people just cannot help themselves from exploiting that freedom. Unless someone figures out a way where we can safely share computing power and connections to real-life services (e.g. banking, having an identity, communication in general), I think there is no real alternative. Perhaps having separate internets for various purposes would be an option. Ond where we can socialize anonymously, but not trust each other, and one where it's pretty boring, but where you can safely buy goods using your paycheck.