4 ms·

I'm excited for this as it will allow desktops to get closer to the security of phones.

by charcircuit 1y ago

ptsneves 1y ago
So secure it locks the owners out.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  Yes, if someone sets a passcode and then forgets it, they will be locked out forever and lose all of their files. There is no way to prove physical ownership of the device, pretty mich the passcode proves who the owner is.
- bandrami 1y ago
  If I forget my LUKS passphrase no power on heaven or earth can recover my data
  - fragmede 1y ago
    St. Gabriel, sitting on his cloud, looking at his Nvidia GPU supercomputer (also a cloud) fabbed by God, could totally bruteforce your LUKS key.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
    That's sort of the point of LUKS, and it's self-inflicted and your own choice because you didn't back up the key.
wkat4242 1y ago
I don't think a mega corp having full access to my phone while me not having that is very "secure". Sure it's pretty ok against third parties but in my threat model Google and Apple are also adversaries. Microsoft too by the way. In my model my Linux pc is a lot more secure as there's no adversary having direct access and more control than me.
- gf000 1y ago
  Privacy != Security We shouldn't be happy with the state of security on Linux, while simultaneously enjoying its privacy benefits.
  - wkat4242 1y ago
    For me privacy = security. If a company has access to my data without my -completely voluntary- consent, that's a security breach.
    - gf000 1y ago
      That makes no sense. Equality is commutative and security is most certainly not privacy. There are certain areas where a decision may help in case of both (e.g. simply not storing unnecessary data will decrease the scope of a real vulnerability), but that's not even remotely the same thing.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  By this definition no operating system Google releases will be secure to you. I think it would be a more productive discussion if you could argue about security ignoring that you have to trust the person who wrote your operating system or designed your cpu.
  - bandrami 1y ago
    The point of open source is I don't have to trust the person who wrote it
    - omnifischer 1y ago
      It works well for you.. but for average person. No. As a 20 year old linux user, I do often use ChromeOS or ChromeOSflex. Just works. Beautiful UI. No more pain with webcam or wifi drivers - Yes, these have improved by still one has the pain of dropped packets (realtek wifi) etc. guaranteed 10 hour battery life. With ChromeOS I just get 4 or 5 second - update - immutable OS. Fedora Silverblue is coming up but still not there.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
potwinkle 1y ago
Security seems like a solved problem on desktop already? Secure Boot + LUKS + SELinux gives anyone a pretty airtight userspace. Microsoft/Apple have similarly secure set ups for their operating systems. Bitlocker by default (although there is a convenient backdoor for high-paying customers to protect against data loss and for law enforcement forensics) and Apple's Secure Enclave (only broken into by a certain five countries intelligence agencies and for older versions streaming pirates) should protect the average user pretty well. Is there anything special about Android phones (especially budget ones) that makes them more secure? That's not what I've seen.
- lmz 1y ago
  Per app isolation vs single user account.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    There isn't that much demand for that on Linux because the apps aren't adversarial. If you install Facebook on your phone, you want it locked in a jail where it can't suck up everything on your device and send it to Meta. If you install the Signal desktop app on Linux, it's open source and doesn't do that. And to the extent that you use the likes of Facebook it's the web version. Meanwhile per-app isolation is a pain. You download a picture in a browser, crop it in a photo editor and attach it to an email. All three apps need access to the same picture. Your backup app needs access to everything. Your password manager is filling in fields in other apps. You do want to be able to isolate something questionable, but the usual way to do this for sophisticated users is virtual machines or containers. Maybe that could use a coat of paint to make it easier for unsophisticated users to use it, but maybe unsophisticated users should just stick to the system package manager anyway.
    - pbmonster 1y ago
      > You download a picture in a browser, crop it in a photo editor and attach it to an email. All three apps need access to the same picture. Your backup app needs access to everything. On Android, each of those three apps would ask you for file system permissions on first launch. Your choices are "full access to user files", "limited access" (usually one directory and all its sub-directories), "full access, but only this time", and "no access". Both the "save file as" and the "open file" dialog only show directories the app can access, and have a button at the top that reads something like "change storage scope" or "allow more access". The system even has options where apps can request access to e.g. all photo/video/media directories - the photo editor would probably request only those to begin with. Also, apps can pretty much never access each others config/keys/etc files - which they never should. If they need to communicate with each other, they're supposed to use interfaces like the Content Provider, Intents or Bound Services. I think it's pretty well designed.

I'm excited for this as it will allow desktops to get closer to the security of phones.

ptsneves 1y ago

So secure it locks the owners out.

charcircuit 1y ago
Yes, if someone sets a passcode and then forgets it, they will be locked out forever and lose all of their files. There is no way to prove physical ownership of the device, pretty mich the passcode proves who the owner is.
bandrami 1y ago
If I forget my LUKS passphrase no power on heaven or earth can recover my data
- fragmede 1y ago
  St. Gabriel, sitting on his cloud, looking at his Nvidia GPU supercomputer (also a cloud) fabbed by God, could totally bruteforce your LUKS key.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
  That's sort of the point of LUKS, and it's self-inflicted and your own choice because you didn't back up the key.

wkat4242 1y ago

I don't think a mega corp having full access to my phone while me not having that is very "secure". Sure it's pretty ok against third parties but in my threat model Google and Apple are also adversaries. Microsoft too by the way. In my model my Linux pc is a lot more secure as there's no adversary having direct access and more control than me.

gf000 1y ago
Privacy != Security We shouldn't be happy with the state of security on Linux, while simultaneously enjoying its privacy benefits.
- wkat4242 1y ago
  For me privacy = security. If a company has access to my data without my -completely voluntary- consent, that's a security breach.
  - gf000 1y ago
    That makes no sense. Equality is commutative and security is most certainly not privacy. There are certain areas where a decision may help in case of both (e.g. simply not storing unnecessary data will decrease the scope of a real vulnerability), but that's not even remotely the same thing.
charcircuit 1y ago
By this definition no operating system Google releases will be secure to you. I think it would be a more productive discussion if you could argue about security ignoring that you have to trust the person who wrote your operating system or designed your cpu.
- bandrami 1y ago
  The point of open source is I don't have to trust the person who wrote it
  - omnifischer 1y ago
    It works well for you.. but for average person. No. As a 20 year old linux user, I do often use ChromeOS or ChromeOSflex. Just works. Beautiful UI. No more pain with webcam or wifi drivers - Yes, these have improved by still one has the pain of dropped packets (realtek wifi) etc. guaranteed 10 hour battery life. With ChromeOS I just get 4 or 5 second - update - immutable OS. Fedora Silverblue is coming up but still not there.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

potwinkle 1y ago

Security seems like a solved problem on desktop already? Secure Boot + LUKS + SELinux gives anyone a pretty airtight userspace. Microsoft/Apple have similarly secure set ups for their operating systems. Bitlocker by default (although there is a convenient backdoor for high-paying customers to protect against data loss and for law enforcement forensics) and Apple's Secure Enclave (only broken into by a certain five countries intelligence agencies and for older versions streaming pirates) should protect the average user pretty well. Is there anything special about Android phones (especially budget ones) that makes them more secure? That's not what I've seen.

lmz 1y ago
Per app isolation vs single user account.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  There isn't that much demand for that on Linux because the apps aren't adversarial. If you install Facebook on your phone, you want it locked in a jail where it can't suck up everything on your device and send it to Meta. If you install the Signal desktop app on Linux, it's open source and doesn't do that. And to the extent that you use the likes of Facebook it's the web version. Meanwhile per-app isolation is a pain. You download a picture in a browser, crop it in a photo editor and attach it to an email. All three apps need access to the same picture. Your backup app needs access to everything. Your password manager is filling in fields in other apps. You do want to be able to isolate something questionable, but the usual way to do this for sophisticated users is virtual machines or containers. Maybe that could use a coat of paint to make it easier for unsophisticated users to use it, but maybe unsophisticated users should just stick to the system package manager anyway.
  - pbmonster 1y ago
    > You download a picture in a browser, crop it in a photo editor and attach it to an email. All three apps need access to the same picture. Your backup app needs access to everything. On Android, each of those three apps would ask you for file system permissions on first launch. Your choices are "full access to user files", "limited access" (usually one directory and all its sub-directories), "full access, but only this time", and "no access". Both the "save file as" and the "open file" dialog only show directories the app can access, and have a button at the top that reads something like "change storage scope" or "allow more access". The system even has options where apps can request access to e.g. all photo/video/media directories - the photo editor would probably request only those to begin with. Also, apps can pretty much never access each others config/keys/etc files - which they never should. If they need to communicate with each other, they're supposed to use interfaces like the Content Provider, Intents or Bound Services. I think it's pretty well designed.