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There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

danluu.com

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Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#311

Post by porfirium »

kuschku wrote: post #296
khedoros1 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they pull the stuff Nvidia does: write an interface kernel module, then have the driver itself in a library that the module loads. Since the actual driver is never part of the kernel tree...

It's much simpler. The OEM never releases the source. And courts have decided that it's not enough if you have some contributions to the kernel yourself or are a user to force them to release it, you have to have made significant contributions to force them to release it via the courts. And Torvalds and the major kernel maintainers all refuse to enforce the GPL, and actively campaign against doing so.

Are kernel drivers subject to the GPL just because they use the Linux ABI?

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#312

Post by nowherecat »

amelius wrote: post #284
WillReplyfFood wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better have a bricked phone but secured phone? That is basically your argument? Security is used to euthanize perfectly working systems and harass users for money. Security has become dangerous for the user in that aspect.

That's one reason I'm still hoping for a Linux/Firefox phone.

How about Purism's Librem 5? https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

Librem 5, the phone that focuses on security by design and privacy protection by default. Running Free/Libre and Open Source software and a GNU+Linux Operating System designed to create an open development utopia, rather than the walled gardens from all other phone providers.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#313

Post by [deleted] »

shadowtree wrote: post #92

Love the HN crowd here explaining that staying still on old tech full of security holes is a-ok. :) Both Android and iOS have made awesome progress on all fronts, from security to stuff like AR and ML. You can now have a supercomputer in your pocket - just using it for phone/texts is such a waste.

[deleted]

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#314

Post by karllager »

userbinator wrote: post #48

With current and older devices working perfectly well, and new devices being even less serviceable and more user-hostile with greater efforts towards planned obolescence, is it any wonder that people just aren't "upgrading" any more? I don't consider this a problem, but a sign of an ecosystem that is gaining stability. In fact I'd say it's even better, from an e-waste perspective, that the amount of churn has decreas…

> replacement parts for models several years old are still plentiful.

Data point:

Just replaced a battery in a six years old Samsung smartphone in 20 seconds. It did not even cost me $10. Incredible value compared to the hassle to do this on todays phones, if it is possible at all.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#315

Post by jamespo »

mindslight wrote: post #202
Analemma_ wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all might be true, but as a reason to not install patches, it still makes no sense. If you don’t trust the baseband or the OS, why did you buy the phone to begin with? You trust iOS n, but not iOS n+1?

One is forced to buy a phone, as an expectation/requirement of modern society. This does not imply they wish to spend even more money in support of the broken ecosystem every year/six months/etc.

You're not forced, particularly not to get a smartphone.

You're trading off convenience.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#316

Post by ionised »

shadowtree wrote: post #92

Love the HN crowd here explaining that staying still on old tech full of security holes is a-ok. :) Both Android and iOS have made awesome progress on all fronts, from security to stuff like AR and ML. You can now have a supercomputer in your pocket - just using it for phone/texts is such a waste.

> just using it for phone/texts is such a waste.

What else would you suggest I use it for? It's worse at pretty much everything except GPS than my desktop or laptop.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#317

Post by kuschku »

porfirium wrote: post #311
kuschku wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much simpler. The OEM never releases the source. And courts have decided that it's not enough if you have some contributions to the kernel yourself or are a user to force them to release it, you have to have made significant contributions to force them to release it via the courts. And Torvalds and the major kernel maintainers all refuse to enforce the GPL, and actively campaign against doing so.

Are kernel drivers subject to the GPL just because they use the Linux ABI?

It'd be a long legal discussion to properly answer your question, but luckily OEMs make it easy for us:

On most phones, there are zero external kernel modules loaded. The SoC vendor bakes it all into the ketnel, and the OEM gets the kernel as a blob. Which means all of it is subject to the GPL.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#318

Post by ionised »

enraged_camel wrote: post #163
junkscience2017 wrote: post #3

For most users, the phone works and they don't care. For everyone in my family, iOS updates are just an annoyance.

People in your family don't care about security?

Have you spoken to the average user of phones and tablets?

They don't even understand what security means in context of their uses of these devices a lot of the time.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#319

Post by koffiezet »

gsich wrote: post #281
Nuance wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you so certain obsolescence is planned?

No updates for Android devices pretty much confirms this.

That's quite the opposite. It's hw companies not used to having to support their stuff after it leaves the door. To keep supporting this, they should plan/calculate this in from the get-go. They don't plan anything, so now you have devices that don't get updates.

Supporting/updating devices requires active planning, but then you get cries over companies that actually do perform updates and get the whole 'planned obsolescence' conspiracies.

Re: There are over a billion outdated Android devices in use

#320

Post by glenneroo »

paganel wrote: post #272
patcheudor wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Android devices of that age and even newer had flaws resulting in the failure to properly validate HTTPS connections as they would accept invalid certificates. As a result, every time I fire up an off the shelf WiFi Pineapple in public and run SSLSplit (not to be confused with Moxies SSLStrip), I get credential after credential, typically starting with e-mail accounts. This is obviously bad because if someone is…

> This is obviously bad because if someone is using an e-mail account on their phone for banking, an attacker could gain access to account recovery. I'm still using a iPhone4 with iOS 5.something on it, it's obviously un-patched or anything like that, the secret is that I don't have any baking applications installed on it nor is my email attached to any recurring payments scheme. The even deeper secret is that I don'…

The difference is that you are a well-read HackerNews enthusiast who comments on threads relating to OS security i.e. one of the 0.001%, whereas > 99% of the people affected have no idea what dangers await an out-of-date device.
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