Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates • Hacker News Board

Re: Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates

#61

Post by michaelmrose » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 5:49 AM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #45

michaelmrose wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you make something that isn't trivially turned to oppression without allowing users a trivial escape from the devices protection model? Isn't installing your own OS on your general purpose computer a trivial out? Shall we likewise disable that ability on all general purpose computers?

Sometimes oppression could come from a central authority, and sometimes it can come from a rampant criminal element taking advantage of exploitable human behavior. We have to balance defending against both. > Shall we likewise disable that ability Not on all computers, no. But I should have the option of buying my grandmother one which is very, very hard for someone to convince her to give them admin rights.

This use case is well served by a non admin user as opposed to a machine where Dell is the root user. Furthermore what you desire for your grandmother is liable to be imposed on the rest of us if we want the privilege of banking or Netflix and in many cases grossly abused especially in less free countries including ours should we in the US fall into fascism.

You would build chains for millions of people so that granny will have to give scammers her money some less convenient way.

I'd rather not.

Re: Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates

#62

Post by 3np » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 6:45 AM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #44

amalcon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Easily, but there's a big scary warning that the person asking you to do this might be trying to hack you" is still "easily". That obviously seems more consumer friendly than either extreme.

Those warnings only go so far against a talented social engineer.

At some point, you can not protect people from themselves.

Re: Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates

#63

Post by paulmd » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 6:52 AM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #23

shadowgovt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in the category "the user owns the device" is tricky. For a lot of users, "It's really hard to break" is a value-add. Every capacity the user has to modify permissions is an opportunity for an attacker to compromise a device. You can see an example of this in web browsers these days, where sites have to `log` a big scary "Don't paste anything someone tells you to paste into here" message into the built-in…

How do you make something that isn't trivially turned to oppression without allowing users a trivial escape from the devices protection model? Isn't installing your own OS on your general purpose computer a trivial out? Shall we likewise disable that ability on all general purpose computers?

Apple honestly did a pretty good job. You can sideload your own code with a free developer account, but you have to jump through some minor hoops to get “developer” mode set on your account (I went through this to get the tvOS 17 beta). And the app signing expires in 7 days, so it’s really painful for a normal user who isn’t actually developing and testing an app to use like that for a long term thing.

If you want more than that, you can pay $99 for a real developer account and that will let you sign apps for up to a year. And that’s a sufficient barrier that Facebook can’t be like “you have to sign up for a dev account if you want to use Facebook!” and expect the average user to just blindly comply.

Cause that’s the problem with the EU approach, it works ok when it’s only the EU, but Facebook really wants to bypass those permissions (they’ve already bribed users to install dev credential builds that have full permissions, so they could datamine more effectively), and the moment they can lever open the app-review process with “third party app stores” is the moment the “doesn’t work on iOS, please sideload the native app” banner goes up on Facebook.com.

It doesn’t have to be financial but the only alternatives would be some kind of credential verification thing like looking at your LinkedIn or a college transcript or a GitHub account to validate that you’re actually a bona fide developer and not just grandma who got an iTunes gift card to install the spyware build (real example from Facebook).

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/apple-bans-facebook-vpn/am...

Re: Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates

#64

Post by WeylandYutani » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 8:34 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #40

kelnos wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just" is doing a lot of work there. Getting root isn't always possible or easy, depending on your device manufacturer. And if you do manage to get root, your phone will likely stop passing SafetyNet, and you'll lose access to a bunch of apps that you may care about. SafetyNet can be spoofed in some situations, but not all, and even when spoofing does work, it all seems very brittle to me. Yes, of course, you can do…

Yeah. Android has become as hostile as Apple devices due to hardware remote attestation. Might as well buy an iPhone at this point. Only reason I didn't is I discovered the existence of Termux which turned into something of an Android killer app for me. Who knows what Google's gonna kill next though? Termux is already incompatible with the official store due to system call restrictions. Maybe it'll be straight up imp…

It's true that Google is unpredictable but as it stands Android still allows me to install apps outside of the approved store.

Re: Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates

#65

Post by JimDabell » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 8:49 AM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #63

michaelmrose wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you make something that isn't trivially turned to oppression without allowing users a trivial escape from the devices protection model? Isn't installing your own OS on your general purpose computer a trivial out? Shall we likewise disable that ability on all general purpose computers?

Apple honestly did a pretty good job. You can sideload your own code with a free developer account, but you have to jump through some minor hoops to get “developer” mode set on your account (I went through this to get the tvOS 17 beta). And the app signing expires in 7 days, so it’s really painful for a normal user who isn’t actually developing and testing an app to use like that for a long term thing. If you want mo…

> Apple honestly did a pretty good job.

They did. Over here, there are regular news articles and warnings from the government as yet more Android users get conned into installing fake banking app APKs that let attackers steal all their money. It’s always the same news article and the same warning – only Android users affected.

Elsewhere in this thread, people are saying that you can’t protect people from themselves… but Apple seem to be doing a good job of it. When was the last time a side-loaded IPA stole bank credentials from iPhone users?

I personally think that Apple should be a little more open. Having some sort of developer mode with plenty of warnings would be better. But the idea that Apple’s approach doesn’t improve security in meaningful ways to the average user is wishful thinking based more in ideology than what actually happens in the real world.

Re: Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates

#66

Post by curiousgal » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 8:49 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #50

mintplant wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magisk [0] + safetynet-fix [1] can work around that. [0] https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk [1] https://github.com/Displax/safetynet-fix

It's quite doubtful it will keep working.

Well people keep saying this for years now. When it stops working we'll make statements like "root breaks access to Netflix and Banking apps". But since it doesn't at the moment, everything is good.

Re: Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates

#67

Post by Novosell » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 8:50 AM UTC

mintplant wrote: post #27

downWidOutaFite wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After wiping all data and losing access to a bunch of features and apps.

Magisk [0] + safetynet-fix [1] can work around that. [0] https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk [1] https://github.com/Displax/safetynet-fix

As far as I've understood, the safetynet fix makes use of a feature which only exists for comparability reasons, so that old devices don't get locked out entirely. When there aren't enough old devices around anymore, it will likely stop working.

Re: Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates

#68

Post by selfhoster11 » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 9:55 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #40

kelnos wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just" is doing a lot of work there. Getting root isn't always possible or easy, depending on your device manufacturer. And if you do manage to get root, your phone will likely stop passing SafetyNet, and you'll lose access to a bunch of apps that you may care about. SafetyNet can be spoofed in some situations, but not all, and even when spoofing does work, it all seems very brittle to me. Yes, of course, you can do…

Yeah. Android has become as hostile as Apple devices due to hardware remote attestation. Might as well buy an iPhone at this point. Only reason I didn't is I discovered the existence of Termux which turned into something of an Android killer app for me. Who knows what Google's gonna kill next though? Termux is already incompatible with the official store due to system call restrictions. Maybe it'll be straight up imp…

I bought an iPhone a year ago for this exact reason. Both are user-hostile platforms now, so I might as well pick one that respects my attention more and treats me more acceptably. In addition, it looks like a near-future version of iOS will allow sideloading, which would make iOS an overall better mobile OS than Android.

Sent from my iPhone (after 13 years of using Android)

Re: Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates

#69

Post by TheHappyOddish » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 11:17 AM UTC

a_t48 wrote: post #56

_silicon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I didn’t like doing it” doesn’t make this any better. It’s just hammering another nail in the coffin of device ownership.

Please, our mediocre AA gatcha game did nothing to you nor the overall jailbreaking ecosystem. Don’t you think that’s being a bit dramatic?

They definitely overdramatised the wording, but their point is valid - the 'normalisation by a thousand cuts' is a real phenomenom, and a bad one.

Re: Yes, Android 14 still allows modification of system certificates

#70

Post by shadowgovt » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 1:05 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #61

shadowgovt wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes oppression could come from a central authority, and sometimes it can come from a rampant criminal element taking advantage of exploitable human behavior. We have to balance defending against both. > Shall we likewise disable that ability Not on all computers, no. But I should have the option of buying my grandmother one which is very, very hard for someone to convince her to give them admin rights.

This use case is well served by a non admin user as opposed to a machine where Dell is the root user. Furthermore what you desire for your grandmother is liable to be imposed on the rest of us if we want the privilege of banking or Netflix and in many cases grossly abused especially in less free countries including ours should we in the US fall into fascism. You would build chains for millions of people so that grann…

I think that really overstates the risk scenario. If we're going to descend into hyperbole, let's turn it around... If a free and open device is so important, won't some smart hacker always come along to build one? I'd rather my grandmother have an easy life and trust that Neo will be around to save the technorati eventually than make life easier on people who already know how to hack things they want to behave differently at the cost of my grandmother's sense of ease and well-being.