Comment by palata
6 days ago
> We really need to get past the 90s-minded paradigm of everything having access to everything else all the time
I do agree with that, and I strongly believe that the iOS and Android security model is way ahead of Desktop Linux. But what I observe is that nobody seems to care about the security model. A recurrent complaint I see against anything AOSP-based (including Android) is that people "want to be root".
It comes from a history of using mostly trusted application sources like Debian/Ubuntu package archives with manual review being the norm. And few supply chain attacks.
But both Flatpak and Snap offer this new model from the two biggest desktop players in the Linux world: Red Hat and Canonical.
As the sibling comment said though, being an administrator for your own computer (including a phone) does not mean that you will be running untrusted applications as one: on the contrary, if you assume an administrator role and run an untrusted application, naturally, all bets are off. But even as a power user, I'd love to be able to safely run programs I do not necessarily trust, feeding it only data it needs and no more.
Again, Snap/Flatpak provide this model, but we need to see more application authors take them up to ship their software.
It comes from a history of using mostly trusted application sources like Debian/Ubuntu package archives with manual review being the norm. And few supply chain attacks.
What most of these people do not seem to get is that proper sandboxing does not only protect against attacks from the inside (rogue developer, supply chain attack), but also from the outside. Most desktop apps probably have a good number of security vulnerabilities that can be exploited when they parse untrusted data. On the Linux desktop, most apps still use decades-old C libraries for parsing XML, images, JSON, etc.
Sandboxing also protects against external attacks.
Again, Snap/Flatpak provide this model, but we need to see more application authors take them up to ship their software.
Agreed, though for a lot of technical and social reasons, most apps still need privileges that allow trivial sandbox escapes on Flatpak (I don't know or care about Snap). Strengthening app sandboxing should be a top-priority for the Linux desktop, but only a few people seem to care. The same for fully verified boot, etc. Even things like UKIs only go so far, yet almost no distribution has adopted them.
The general security mindset of the Linux desktop community seems to be stuck in the 90ies, levitating between hahah, they cannot get root (as if that matters on desktop Linux) and secure boot and sandboxing is here to take my rights (on open source desktop Linux, seriously?).
I think you are mistaken. Just like neither Windows nor MacOS have really solved the desktop app sandboxing story, so neither has Linux.
Because, as I said in a sibling comment and cosmic_cheese notes further below, this requires rethinking the usage model altogether: files and folders, and even file types, don't work anymore.
If an app needs to access any related files, it basically needs access to my entire $HOME, and once that is granted, well, any sandboxing is out the window.
I think Linux community is well aware of that, and basically what we get from sandboxing of desktop apps is all the nuisance with no benefit.
Android model is also broken from a usage perspective: having files "owned" by an app is just as wrong, and precludes there being multiple apps operating on the same file. Example of VLC with subtitles is a common one, but if you've never used multiple apps on the same file, this is the challenge that is unsolved by any sandboxing approach today, because it is more of a UX problem, than a sandboxing technical problem.
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> What most of these people do not seem to get is that proper sandboxing does not only protect against attacks from the inside (rogue developer, supply chain attack), but also from the outside.
The problem is that strict file system sandboxing in particular also breaks a substantial number of workflows that can't be modelled as 'only ever open the exact file the user explicitly' picked. (Any multi-file file formats are particularly affected, as well as any UI workflows that don't integrate well with strictly having to use the OS file picker.)
So you need some escape hatch for optionally allowing access to larger swathes of the file system, or even really everything as before, but that in turn then risks being abused again by malicious actors. And then…?
Plus things like Android's implementation initially using an API completely incompatible with classical file APIs, as well as causing some noticeable performance overhead even today if you need more than simply accessing the occasional single file here and there.
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Agreed. I want to "own my device" as in "being able to install the system I want on it". Not as in "I want it to behave exactly like Desktop Linux", or whatever it is that people complain about AOSP.
On my Desktop I love Linux. But on my smartphone, I want AOSP.
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Allowing the owner of the device root access doesn't necessarily break the security model. It just means that the user can grant additional privileges to specific apps the owner has decided to trust. Every other app still has to abide by the restrictions.
The fact that Android complains and tells any app that asks whether the owner actually, you know, owns the device they paid for is an implementation detail.
A Linux distribution that adopts an Android style security model could easily still provide the owner root access while locking down less trusted apps in such a way that the apps can't know or care whether the device is rooted.
IMHO, I should be able install the OS I want on the hardware I paid for. What should be illegal is to technically prevent me from installing a different OS, because I paid for that hardware and I should own it.
But that does not mean that all OSes should be open source. I think it's fine for iOS to be proprietary, but there should be enough information for someone to write an entire alternative OS that runs on iPhone. I think it should be illegal to prevent that (is it called tivoisation?).
All that to say, I don't believe that having root on my Android system is a right. But being able to install a system that gives me root should be one. If that system exists, that is.
> A recurrent complaint I see against anything AOSP-based (including Android) is that people "want to be root".
I want to be able to do what I want with my PC or phone. I don't want every app on my PC or phone to be able to do whatever they want, without me agreeing first.
I want to be able to install what I want on the hardware I own. And I should be able to leverage the hardware to its full capacity. Preventing me from adding custom keys and relocking the bootloader should be forbidden, because I own that hardware.
But that does not mean that I should be able to do whatever I want with any OS I install. If I am not happy with Android, I can install LineageOS and modify it the way I want.
I am obviously not a big fan of Google, but I do believe that AOSP is actually a good deal (a lot better than iOS which is proprietary). Google is doing a lot of work on AOSP. That I cannot unlock/relock the bootloader on some devices is not Google's fault.
It's important to keep separate the parts of the security model mobile did well from the parts it got wrong. Declaring that app developers can decline end user access to app files is unacceptable. I get final say on my device. I get to run as root. Hell, I get to run as ring 0 if that's what I want to do.
IMO, the developers choose what software they want to write. If Microsoft Word decided to remove the "export to PDF" feature, that would be their right. And it would be your right to stop using Microsoft Word. If you want to be root on your system, you are free to install a system that gives you root access.
And that's the part that I believe should be a right: if you buy a smartphone, you own that piece of hardware, and you should be able to install the system you want. But if you are not the one developing that system, you don't get to decide what this system does. Just like you don't get to decide whether Microsoft Word can export to PDF or not.
You're saying that the Android security model shouldn't be illegal. I agree.
I'm saying that despite all they get right, the Android and Apple security models, when foisted on the mass market, are socially and ethically flawed. I'm saying that the end user has a fundamental right to tamper with the software on his own system. Those designing an OS that intentionally thwarts the user's will are in the wrong.
Just because something is legal that doesn't mean doing it is a good thing.
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