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What's new in Android 4.3

developer.android.com

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Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#11

Post by Nux »

glhaynes wrote: post #4
gergles wrote: post #3

> The /system partition is now mounted nosuid for zygote-spawned processes, preventing Android applications from executing setuid programs. This reduces root attack surface and likelihood of potential security vulnerabilities. Well, that sounds great. It's almost like they're trying even harder to prevent people from having control over their device.

It's also like they're trying to reduce root attack surface and potential security vulnerabilities.

I believe current Fedora is also setuid free, possibly other distros, too.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#12

Post by untog »

brokenparser wrote: post #8
untog wrote: post #2

TL;DR: not much. It's smoother, which is a great thing. But in terms of actual features, the only one I'm looking forward to is being able to use Wi-Fi positioning while I've turned off the ability to connect to Wi-Fi. That is to say, I'm not very excited about this release.

There are lots of things in the new version, but just because your random wish isn't there it's "not much"? Give me a break. Besides, you can already do that with DroidWall or any other firewall in the play store.

but just because your random wish isn't there it's "not much"?

Er, where did I say that? My "random wish" was one of the new features they announced that I am glad they included.

There are plenty of new features in 4.3, but they're all developer-centric. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course, but it means it isn't so exciting for many people. Especially as few people can afford to target these new features right now, given that their potential market of 4.3 users is tiny.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#13

Post by runjake »

king_jester wrote: post #7
gergles wrote: post #3

> The /system partition is now mounted nosuid for zygote-spawned processes, preventing Android applications from executing setuid programs. This reduces root attack surface and likelihood of potential security vulnerabilities. Well, that sounds great. It's almost like they're trying even harder to prevent people from having control over their device.

Considering there haven't been devices yet that are unroot-able, this shouldn't be a problem. At a minimum the various Nexus devices work with fastboot to unlock the device very easily.

I'm guessing you're talking strictly about the Nexus line? Because there's several Android devices that have proven un-rootable thus far, such as most Motorola devices, several HTC devices, and so on.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#14

Post by lnanek2 »

gergles wrote: post #3

> The /system partition is now mounted nosuid for zygote-spawned processes, preventing Android applications from executing setuid programs. This reduces root attack surface and likelihood of potential security vulnerabilities. Well, that sounds great. It's almost like they're trying even harder to prevent people from having control over their device.

Bad news for all the apps on Google Play that require rooting to use (there are some with millions of downloads), but good news for custom ROMs, I guess. A lot of people just root their phone and start using the apps they rooted for like tethering, controlling GPS and other secure settings on triggered actions, etc.. Now rooting will still be trivial for complete ROMs, but tougher to root existing ones.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#15

Post by lnanek2 »

untog wrote: post #2

TL;DR: not much. It's smoother, which is a great thing. But in terms of actual features, the only one I'm looking forward to is being able to use Wi-Fi positioning while I've turned off the ability to connect to Wi-Fi. That is to say, I'm not very excited about this release.

+1

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#18

Post by jordanthoms »

gergles wrote: post #3

> The /system partition is now mounted nosuid for zygote-spawned processes, preventing Android applications from executing setuid programs. This reduces root attack surface and likelihood of potential security vulnerabilities. Well, that sounds great. It's almost like they're trying even harder to prevent people from having control over their device.

Well, there is a problem - root exploits give people control of their device, but are also, by definition, a security hole which can be exploited by malicious apps to break the sandboxing and do bad things (tm). The right solution to the issue of user control is to convince manufacturers (which many already do) to make their devices open without needing exploits, not purposefully making the OS less secure.

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#19

Post by jordanthoms »

LeeHunter wrote: post #17

Still no low latency audio? I wonder if Android will ever be a useful device for serious musicians.

This is something which is being worked on, but it's a complex problem and takes time to improve. Android 4.3 has halved the audio latency on the Nexus 7 (2012) and Nexus 4. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3kfEeMZ65c

Re: What's new in Android 4.3

#20

Post by sologoub »

There seems to be a significant push for more video/entertainment/proprietary content related stuff. Anyone familiar with this?

"Modular DRM framework

To meet the needs of the next generation of media services, Android 4.3 introduces a modular DRM framework that enables media application developers to more easily integrate DRM into their own streaming protocols, such as MPEG DASH (Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, ISO/IEC 23009-1)."

Wonder if I'll finally see Amazon Instant Video on vanilla-android... probably not.

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