Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

grapheneos.social

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 228 posts

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#21

Post by freedomben »

> Android has ported a lot of the Bluetooth code to Rust. This is a demonstration of why they need to put more resources into porting the rest of the code into Rust.

I like how they snuck that in there :-D

As someone who spent years writing C and C++, but no experience with Rust, with this porting from C to Rust, how much refactoring is required? That might should be two different questions:

1. How closely does C translate directly over to Rust? Does Rust require some reorganization/refactoring?

2. How is Google approaching this? Are they trying to closely "translate" it as much as possible, or is this an opportunity for major rewrite/refactor?

Also very curious if anyone knows, will the Android Bluetooth stack ever be usable on a standard Linux distro desktop system?

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#22

Post by moose44 »

jstanley wrote: post #17
wafflemaker wrote: post #12

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?

1. No, it was very easy. I used a normal USB cable and adb on the Linux command line, but the recommended method involves using Web USB in Chromium which is meant to be easier for non-technical people but I couldn't get it to work. 2. No, it is very convenient. It has a sandbox for Google Play Services, which IMO is the best of both worlds as it means you can install all the proprietary crapware apps that make modern…

Second this.

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#23

Post by gclawes »

wafflemaker wrote: post #12

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?

The only major inconvenience I've heard of is that Google Pay won't let you enroll contactless payments via NFC, apparently because GrapheneOS isn't approved/certified by Google Play SafetyNet.

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#24

Post by wwwigham »

Stock Pixel may not ship with it on by default for end users, but anyone can enable developer options and enable Memory Tagging Extensions - either until toggled off, or for a single session if you're trying to test a specific app - if you do want the feature on.

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#25

Post by [deleted] »

freedomben wrote: post #21

> Android has ported a lot of the Bluetooth code to Rust. This is a demonstration of why they need to put more resources into porting the rest of the code into Rust. I like how they snuck that in there :-D As someone who spent years writing C and C++, but no experience with Rust, with this porting from C to Rust, how much refactoring is required? That might should be two different questions: 1. How closely does C tra…

[deleted]

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#26

Post by Tijdreiziger »

dtx1 wrote: post #2

GrapheneOS is so far ahead in terms of security than anything else that it makes chosing anything but pixel hardware really questionable. But I REALLY want replaceable batteries. Why does everything have to suck nowadays?

They seem to have long-standing problems with emergency services, though. https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/search/?q=emergency

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#27

Post by nelblu »

dtx1 wrote: post #2

GrapheneOS is so far ahead in terms of security than anything else that it makes chosing anything but pixel hardware really questionable. But I REALLY want replaceable batteries. Why does everything have to suck nowadays?

Not exaxtly grapheneOS but close enough CalyxOs has started supporting Fairphone 5 and it has replaceable batteries AFAIK: https://calyxos.org/news/2024/03/05/fp5/

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#28

Post by wafflemaker »

dtx1 wrote: post #9
wafflemaker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't ripping out the backplate make the battery replacable?* Never heard of Google making installation of non genuine components hard the way Apple does. *If your hands are too clumsy to reconnect battery wires when swapping batteries, get a swiss knife.

In newer pixel models, everything is glued together. The Backplate is glued to the front, the battery is glued in so hard you can barely remove it and on top of it there's a graphene pad glued ontop of it for cooling reasons. Look at this: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Google+Pixel+8+Battery+Replacem... That's not "swiss knife" replacement.

Wow. I genuinely thought that the replacement process was maybe a little more complicated than on the Samsung Note from 8 years ago that I did myself. That if you just ripped out the backplate you could have an ugly phone (not water resistant either) with a replacable battery. This complicated, time consuming and requiring specialized equipment process is not what I expected. Especially the part where you have to replace the screen you've just broken.

Now I concur with the original poster in his lament on lack of new and fancy, yet fully owned by the user, phones that can cooperate with Graphene OS

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#29

Post by myself248 »

wafflemaker wrote: post #12

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?

Super easy. It's been my daily driver and just works. Never used banking apps so I can't tell you there.

Re: GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE

#30

Post by freedomben »

wafflemaker wrote: post #12

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 pretty easy to install using the web installer. Even the "manual" command-line install is really not bad. If you've never used adb before there might be some snags, but there's tons of places online to get help.

As a daily driver, it's very mature and stable. The only downside for me is just a discovery of how much of the Google apps I use and how much they improve the stock experience. The biggest example for me was the keyboard (including speech to text). Thankfully (and something I give credit to Google for as they could make this hard or impossible), you can install most or all of those apps, including the Pixel Camera app, so you don't really have to give up much.

One important thing to note with Graphene is that they prioritize security, which is a little different than many ROMs in the past. For example, they highly discourage rooting due to its security implications, whereas in the past many ROMs came with root out of the box.

Post reply on HN