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Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

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Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#131

Post by bitmapbrother »

_wmd wrote: post #32
problems wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> perhaps now is the time for us to begin holding Google to the same standard we applied to Microsoft a decade ago. The triggering factor for this was the worms though. No such similar thing exists in the Android space.

Stagefright is trivially weaponizable as an MMS worm, in fact it may already have happened

>Stagefright is trivially weaponizable as an MMS worm, in fact it may already have happened

No it's not. Where are all of the Stagefright exploits? This was supposed to be Android's security armageddon according to the scaremongering bloggers. And yet nothing happened. According to Google's telemetry of over 1.4 billion phones there has not been 1 case of a Stagefright exploit in the wild. So your assumption that Stagefright is "trivially weaponizable" is inconsistent with your knowledge of Android security and mitigations.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#132

Post by tjoff »

technofiend wrote: post #95
pjmlp wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they cared one second about it, they would have changed the terms of access to the Google services. The sad part is that the 2016 security report just came out and they brag how the whole security improved, without mentioning the elephant in the room. Google IO is around the corner and I bet they will keep talking as if everyone could upgrade right away to Android O, with N now having barely 2%.

And that even google-sourced devices have a very short lifecycle for OS and security updates. Google seem to be running under the assumption any phone over 12 months old is reaching the end of its usable life.

Well, if you use your phone a lot you kind of have to buy a new phone regardless. Non-replaceable batteries should be illegal.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#133

Post by _0w8t »

technofiend wrote: post #95
pjmlp wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they cared one second about it, they would have changed the terms of access to the Google services. The sad part is that the 2016 security report just came out and they brag how the whole security improved, without mentioning the elephant in the room. Google IO is around the corner and I bet they will keep talking as if everyone could upgrade right away to Android O, with N now having barely 2%.

And that even google-sourced devices have a very short lifecycle for OS and security updates. Google seem to be running under the assumption any phone over 12 months old is reaching the end of its usable life.

An ARM Chromebook that I bought more than 4 years ago still receives updates.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#134

Post by tjoff »

cbhl wrote: post #105
alnitak wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask a (potentially) very stupid question here: What prevents doing the same on phones? What would make a phone hardware able to install anything that compiles to its CPU architecture the same way a PC can?

Paraphrase the question in the reverse and you get your answer: What makes this possible on Windows desktops? Stable binary driver ABI. Hardware monoculture. Expensive driver certification program. Letting hardware vendors release binary drivers without releasing the corresponding sources. An opt-out automatic update mechanism. (Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not on the Android team.)

Windows runs on many CPU architectures. Android phones are packed with binary blobs.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#135

Post by cobookman »

pjmlp wrote: post #69
_wmd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that our problem or Google's? You can point fingers at 50 different companies in the ecosystem, or you can collectively point the finger at the root cause. By the topic of this article, they're no longer the underdog when it comes to dictating terms to device vendors, they're the biggest shop in town and there's no reason the vulns-frozen-for-life-of-device model should continue to be adhered to.

If they cared one second about it, they would have changed the terms of access to the Google services. The sad part is that the 2016 security report just came out and they brag how the whole security improved, without mentioning the elephant in the room. Google IO is around the corner and I bet they will keep talking as if everyone could upgrade right away to Android O, with N now having barely 2%.

Google has broken out GMS from android core so that they can do OTA updates w/o updating the OS itself. I do agree this needs to be better, however its also a non-trivial problem to solve.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#136

Post by bitmapbrother »

_wmd wrote: post #53
problems wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... where is it? There clearly hasn't been any major deployment of this - especially at the scale of Blaster or Conficker. It's "trivial" perhaps for a single device but every device is different and it'd require its own exploit code, exploit mitigation features cause it to be difficult to actually exploit too - making it quite problematic to deploy in practice.

Are we really so moronic that we need to wait for something to explode before we're ready to acknowledge the fire hazard that caused the explosion in the first place?

You just stated that Stagefright was "trivially weaponizable". So why don't you answer their question and provide proof? Surely a "trivially weaponizable" exploit on over 1.4 billion devices would be a very attractive target to nefarious organizations and hackers.

It's been about 2 years since Stagefright was disclosed. Are we still waiting for it to explode? And if so, can you give a timeline for when this explosion will occur?

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#137

Post by DannyBee »

_wmd wrote: post #48
JoshTriplett wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference being that you can install or upgrade Windows on a system without buying a new laptop or requiring support from the vendor; the vendor doesn't lock down laptops to prevent upgrades and force people to buy a new device instead.

Is that our problem or Google's? You can point fingers at 50 different companies in the ecosystem, or you can collectively point the finger at the root cause. By the topic of this article, they're no longer the underdog when it comes to dictating terms to device vendors, they're the biggest shop in town and there's no reason the vulns-frozen-for-life-of-device model should continue to be adhered to.

This represents such a fundamental misunderstanding of the power structures i almost don't know where to begin.

Suffice to say, if it was as easy as waving the magic wand you think it is, it would have happened already.

Instead, if you tried to wave it, handset makers would have walked and just done something else. Heck, some did!

Besides, why stop at Google? Why not blame the carriers for devices like this be on their networks?

By your logic, if Verizon told Samsung tomorrow said "you must update your phone monthly with security updates in order to stay connected to our network" it would have just happened!

Maybe instead of assuming a vast lack of caring or outright maliciousnss, you should consider that maybe it's not the trivial thing you are making it out to be, and that's the real reason it hasn't happened yet.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#138

Post by ryukafalz »

cbhl wrote: post #105
alnitak wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask a (potentially) very stupid question here: What prevents doing the same on phones? What would make a phone hardware able to install anything that compiles to its CPU architecture the same way a PC can?

Paraphrase the question in the reverse and you get your answer: What makes this possible on Windows desktops? Stable binary driver ABI. Hardware monoculture. Expensive driver certification program. Letting hardware vendors release binary drivers without releasing the corresponding sources. An opt-out automatic update mechanism. (Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not on the Android team.)

I think you're overstating the value of most of those things, because it's also possible on Linux desktops too. You can take a typical off-the-shelf x86 laptop, pop a disk in, and install Linux on it.

IMO the key point out of the things you mentioned is the hardware monoculture, because that definitely does help people get Linux running (and keep it running) on new hardware. I'm skeptical about most of the others.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#139

Post by wutbrodo »

enzanki_ars wrote: post #89
dublinben wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone (who buys Google phones) can upgrade right away. It's not Google's fault that the other manufacturers refuse to update their products in a timely manner. The responsibility for these devices lies solely with the manufacturer.

It kind of is Google's fault. Most people associate any version of Android with Google. Manufactures that don't update their phones causes harm to both the manufacture's image and Google image. Personally, I place all the blame on Google for not making the upgrades possible from their side. It should be easy to upgrade the core operating system as easy as updating Windows, OSX, and Linux.

> It kind of is Google's fault. Most people associate any version of Android with Google. Manufactures that don't update their phones causes harm to both the manufacture's image and Google image.

This makes no sense. "People associate X with Y" is not the same as "Y is responsible for X". If I associate Android with Linux, is Linus now culpable for Android's security problems?

> Personally, I place all the blame on Google for not making the upgrades possible from their side. It should be easy to upgrade the core operating system as easy as updating Windows, OSX, and Linux.

If we were living in a fantasy land where you could wave a wand and things would happen instantly, this would be the case, but mobile devices are not desktops and the challenges they face are entirely different. Google has already been moving logic as much as possible into apps like Google Play Services (updateable without OS changes_, and the fact that they haven't moved everything should make all but the most technically illiterate think "There may be technical challenges involved", instead of your "They're not making this easy" approach.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#140

Post by Const-me »

drvdevd wrote: post #100
alnitak wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask a (potentially) very stupid question here: What prevents doing the same on phones? What would make a phone hardware able to install anything that compiles to its CPU architecture the same way a PC can?

The short answer is that phone hardware is all over the place .. x86/64 has actually made generic kernels (including Windows) possible by having a slew of very similar machines. You can't expect the same thing from ARM systems yet - each system has to be specially targeted.

There are Windows versions that work on ARM: phone/mobile, and Win10 IoT.

They update just fine, sometimes even on the major versions. E.g. my phone initially had windows phone 8.1 and now it’s windows mobile 10. And despite the phone is 3 years old, I'm still regularly getting OS updates.

That’s why I don’t believe ARM hardware is responsible.

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