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CopperheadOS: A hardened open-source operating system based on Android

copperhead.co

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Re: CopperheadOS: A hardened open-source operating system based on Android

#11

Post by Natanael_L »

entee wrote: post #5
dublinben wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame the OEMs for that. The driver situation on ARM devices is quite dire.

Is this a side-effect of mobile devices having extremely tight requirement for power usage and packaging? I could see how that, and a huge number of functions being packaged into a single SOC would make each board design far less generalizable from either one generation to the next or one form factor to the next. On the other hand, that doesn't preclude drivers for the relevant chipsets being more easily available. D…

It is because ARM has never really been standardized in embedded devices.

Re: CopperheadOS: A hardened open-source operating system based on Android

#15

Post by rinon »

mmanfrin wrote: post #13

"Protection from zero-days" -- how can you make a claim like this?

I'm not affiliated with Copperhead at all, but I am familiar with the sorts of techniques they are using. Exploit mitigations, such as Address Space Layout Randomization, Control-Flow Integrity, Fine-grained Randomization, etc. provide a layer of hardening to make exploitation of a source code vulnerability harder, or even not possible on the protected device. The bug (zero-day) still exists, it's just not as exploitable to do bad stuff.

Re: CopperheadOS: A hardened open-source operating system based on Android

#16

Post by ocdtrekkie »

ninjin wrote: post #4
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #2

"It will not support devices outside of the Nexus and Pixel lines." This is really sad to me. :/ As far as we've come, everything mobile is still irritatingly device-specific.

"Devices will be supported until Google drops support from the Android Open Source Project. Google guarantees major version updates for at least two years after launch. Security updates are guaranteed for three years after launch along with 1.5 years after the last device is sold." As someone that is still using a phone from 2012, this is problematic since I have no intention of getting a new phone that often. Is the…

No, there isn't. Microsoft supports Windows Phone/Mobile for three years, which is I think the longest of anyone, but obviously it's not open.

Re: CopperheadOS: A hardened open-source operating system based on Android

#19

Post by zanny »

entee wrote: post #5
dublinben wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blame the OEMs for that. The driver situation on ARM devices is quite dire.

Is this a side-effect of mobile devices having extremely tight requirement for power usage and packaging? I could see how that, and a huge number of functions being packaged into a single SOC would make each board design far less generalizable from either one generation to the next or one form factor to the next. On the other hand, that doesn't preclude drivers for the relevant chipsets being more easily available. D…

Not at all. Vendors just fork the kernel at the fixed releases Android versions ship (ex, 3.4, 3.10, 3.18, etc) and then merge in all their proprietary bullshit violating the GPL nonsense into that tree, ship (and publish) that kernel source tree, but never merge back into Linus' tree.

As a result, the device is supported only by the kernel they provide, rather than by generic Linux. And their kernel never gets updates.

Re: CopperheadOS: A hardened open-source operating system based on Android

#20

Post by vox_mollis »

rinon wrote: post #15
mmanfrin wrote: post #13

"Protection from zero-days" -- how can you make a claim like this?

I'm not affiliated with Copperhead at all, but I am familiar with the sorts of techniques they are using. Exploit mitigations, such as Address Space Layout Randomization, Control-Flow Integrity, Fine-grained Randomization, etc. provide a layer of hardening to make exploitation of a source code vulnerability harder, or even not possible on the protected device. The bug (zero-day) still exists, it's just not as exploit…

ASLR is already a part of pretty much every current operating system ( save FreeBSD-RELEASE )
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