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GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

grapheneos.social

191–200 of 228 posts

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#191
post #173

Hope somebody using Graphene OS could answer: 1. Is it very challenging to install Graphene OS? Need special cables and to know a lot about jailbreaking Android devices, or will I be fine just following instructions? 2. Is it very inconvenient to use as a daily driver? How often phone just crashes and requires a few days of debugging? Will my bank app work on it?

It's very easy. The only issue is that GrapheneOS doesn't provide a built-in way to have root privileges and if you want root on your phone securely you will have to implement that yourself or use some third-party solution (e.g. building a userdebug build, using https://github.com/chriswoope/resign-android-image , using Magisk, etc.).

We simply have far bigger priorities than dedicated the enormous resources to having a whole separate set of releases with userdebug features and an on-device root terminal which requires a special boot mode and isn't persistent. It's theoretically possible to do it in a way that doesn't throw away a lot of security, but isn't being done by anyone right now. Resigning the OS doesn't avoid the major security loss from having it integrated in the way these projects are doing. It gives the false perception of having the verified boot and other OS isolation security intact despite totally ruining verified boot by trusting persistent state and hurting OS security a lot beyond that. It is possible to do it without those problems by having it limited to the user using it, but that means preventing apps hijacking it in any way such as accessibility services.

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#192

Hope somebody using Graphene OS could answer: 1. Is it very challenging to install Graphene OS? Need special cables and to know a lot about jailbreaking Android devices, or will I be fine just following instructions? 2. Is it very inconvenient to use as a daily driver? How often phone just crashes and requires a few days of debugging? Will my bank app work on it?

Regarding 2, a couple of things to watch out for: - There's no Google cloud backup, it uses Seedvault instead. It was a bit of a pain setting up some apps from scratch again (those that didn't have other backup mechanisms), but if I ever reinstall or switch to another phone running GrapheneOS I can copy over the backups and presumably restore them. It also supports some remote storage providers, but I haven't bothere…

You can backup more via the OS backup system using the device-to-device toggle. This should really be the default and perhaps the only way to do it. We have a new backup app planned with initial research work into that started.

> and set up custom storage scopes

There's also Contact Scopes now. We've started work on adding App Communication Scopes for controlling that within profiles and we'd like to do similar features for Camera, Microphone and Location (the standard mock location feature is not great).

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even need to download anything - if you're using a supported browser you can just use the web installer (you can even use another Android phone!): https://grapheneos.org/install/web

Web installer requires Chrome :(.

Any Chromium-based browser works including Edge included with Windows, Brave or our own Vanadium browser. Firefox may be gradually changing their mind about WebUSB. They added similar features they said they wouldn't such as MIDI. We would make some minor changes and test each revision in Firefox if we could, but they don't provide a way to do it.

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#194
post #181
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting and useful discussion. I do wonder what I am seeing on Lineage with an older device, where the OS security is current, but the vendor security is long out of date.

They can have up-to-date AOSP but a significant portion of the OS consists of the driver, HALs, non-GKI kernel tree, etc. Android security patch level is meant to cover all of that. They're using it in a way that's not permitted for Android OEMs by redefining it to mean AOSP patch level for the parts of AOSP they build. Some things get built from AOSP for vendor executables and that are built into vendor executables.…

Once again, thank you for this perspective.

I had no idea that a library was presented by the bootloader (AVB).

Interesting reading.

https://android.googlesource.com/platform/external/avb/

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#195

Hope somebody using Graphene OS could answer: 1. Is it very challenging to install Graphene OS? Need special cables and to know a lot about jailbreaking Android devices, or will I be fine just following instructions? 2. Is it very inconvenient to use as a daily driver? How often phone just crashes and requires a few days of debugging? Will my bank app work on it?

This is such a softball question, it's like you're marketing it

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very easy and solid as a daily driver. I have a Pixel 6a that I've been running it on from when I got it (≈1.5 years), I've never needed to debug anything. My banking apps have worked without issue. The only issue I've encountered is one dual factor authentication app not working on it.

And Netflix can't be installed (at least through the Play store) because of restrictions from Netflix' side (I suppose). But that's okay, I can just stop my subscription through the web interface.

You can use Netflix on GrapheneOS. They incorrectly configured their Play Store listing for the app as needing a Google certified OS but in reality the app doesn't currently check the Play Integrity API. You can install it another way such as Aurora Store and will will work. We do recommend using the sandboxed Play Store as the main way to install apps because it's the most secure (verifies Play Store signing metadata and doesn't trust every WebPKI CA) but unfortunately in this case Netflix did something silly. Do not know why they did it and do not know why they haven't simply stopped marking that way. They use Widevine, not Play Integrity API. Perhaps they intend to use it and did this prematurely, but it would be silly to block non-Google-certified operating systems using it. It doesn't achieve anything.

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#197

Hope somebody using Graphene OS could answer: 1. Is it very challenging to install Graphene OS? Need special cables and to know a lot about jailbreaking Android devices, or will I be fine just following instructions? 2. Is it very inconvenient to use as a daily driver? How often phone just crashes and requires a few days of debugging? Will my bank app work on it?

Inconveniences are predicated on whether you use sandboxed Google Play or something else. With sandboxed Google Play it is an identical experience. Everything works.

If not and you use something called the Aurora Store, prepare for nightmares. Or at least that has been my experience as far as inconveniences are concerned with the Aurora Store.

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#198
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think their accusation that the decision was made to save 3% memory usage is too presumptive. They also claim that no other OS is shipping with MTE enabled right now. The decision to enable is likely more nuanced.

It's based on communication with them. We've had it directly communicated to us. There are also multiple Google security engineers/researchers who liked/retweeted our posts. Google has stated the Pixel 8 is the first platform with MTE available in production devices, so it's not a large jump to the hardened alternate OS available for it being the first to deploy it in production. We have ~250k users on Pixels, and th…

I feel like you're complaining, but it seems like Google has made historic advancements simply by pushing this technology to the point it's available and fixed most of not all crashes it finds. Stopping short of the goal by not enabling it on prod is likely a well reasoned choice. Google is highly committed to the underlying technology. It doesn't seem like the door to having it enabled in prod is forever closed and perhaps one day it'll happen. You don't have access to all of the information, so you're naturally going to jump to conclusions that might not actually be the best choice.

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#199
post #183
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t mean to misrepresent your views, was only remembering an old comment of you that said that iphones are quite good for the security-minded. Of course I could not have known how the state of security, or your opinion of it has changed in the meanwhile.

You're correct that it was my position at one point, but it was around 4 years ago and a lot has changed. We did used to say iPhones were more secure from 2014-2019 but it started shifting in 2020 and then especially in 2021-2022 as AOSP, Pixels and GrapheneOS got to the point where we were confident what we provide is better overall for security. It's the same for privacy now overall, but there are areas where iOS d…

Thanks for the comprehensive response.

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#200
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand your argument here. Google has been working on fixing the their own crashes with the data they have right now. Why would they turn it on for everyone else while they do that?

They have already fixed nearly all the crashes in the base OS. The issues we face are almost entirely regressions in new versions. They fix them consistently but they aren't stopping the regressions getting into releases because they don't use MTE in production.

Regressions from whom?
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