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GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

grapheneos.social

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Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#41

Post by worldsavior »

protimewaster wrote: post #20

Unfortunately, the headline is somewhat optimistic compared to the reality, I think. The thread makes it sound like it could have been disabled due to errata or performance issues. Basically, it looks like the software Google is shipping intentionally doesn't use MTE on the Pixel 11 hardware. That raises the question of...what does Google know is wrong with MTE on the Pixel 11?

Nothing is wrong. They just don't use MTE yet, they probably have other priorities. They wanted to save some costs until they will use MTE, so they removed some hardware acceleration and downgraded the GPU. Simple as that.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#42

Post by demonshreder »

iamnothere wrote: post #24

It’s absurd that a small project like Graphene is able to run rings around a giant like Google in the security sphere. Almost makes you wonder if some of those vulnerabilities are intentionally allowed to exist. Vulnerabilities in the world’s most popular (by volume) mobile OS could provide a plausibly deniable global espionage backdoor.

Just to nitpick, the facilitation by AOSP & ARM is available so it is not about the OS but about Google as a Hardware manufacturer.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#43

Post by iamnothere »

surajrmal wrote: post #38
iamnothere wrote: post #24

It’s absurd that a small project like Graphene is able to run rings around a giant like Google in the security sphere. Almost makes you wonder if some of those vulnerabilities are intentionally allowed to exist. Vulnerabilities in the world’s most popular (by volume) mobile OS could provide a plausibly deniable global espionage backdoor.

The perception that they are able to run rings around Google is not necessarily an accurate one. There are tradeoffs in any engineering situation and GrapheneOS devs make different ones based on different requirements. Google is one of the reasons MTE even exists. I don't think GrapheneOS devs would be capable of helping push forward that technology in the same capacity.

Fair, and also Google is not a monolith. I’m sure that their own security experts who helped push things like MTE are also confused and frustrated by the lack of internal adoption.

A lot of heavy lifting is involved at the lower levels of security and Graphene doesn’t have to deal with this work, generally. I guess my surprise comes at the “fit and finish” stage where Google regularly seems to be lacking.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#44

Post by drabbiticus »

12 hours before this was posted to HN: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/117198980596943121

GrapheneOS: "Multiple Google engineers we've contacted have said they aren't able to give us any information about this so we're left doing reverse engineering and relying on leaks. The leaks do not seem reliable and do not match what we see. Our concern is that MTE may actually be broken due to CPU errata."

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#45

Post by surajrmal »

rkozik1989 wrote: post #13

Phones typically have 2 operating systems: one to handle telephonic functions like managing tower connections and separate operating system for user applications. The security implication here is that the telephonic operating system has access to the same system resources as the application operating system at the same time, right? The problem is your data is always available in plaintext to the telephonic OS because…

No, shared peripherals need to go through a central arbiter for access. In the case of things like storage the AP's OS, eg android, provides that roll. This is also true for the OS that runs under the trustzone. Be careful about spreading rumors without validating them.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#46

Post by serf »

iamnothere wrote: post #24

It’s absurd that a small project like Graphene is able to run rings around a giant like Google in the security sphere. Almost makes you wonder if some of those vulnerabilities are intentionally allowed to exist. Vulnerabilities in the world’s most popular (by volume) mobile OS could provide a plausibly deniable global espionage backdoor.

>Almost makes you wonder if some of those vulnerabilities are intentionally allowed to exist.

the fact that someone can say that post-Dual_EC_DRBG/project-rubicon/eternalblue/eternalromance exposure boggles the mind.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#48

Post by edent »

moonshot5 wrote: post #26

[flagged]

Perhaps they complain because that's literally the only way to get Google to take notice?

Let's be real, AOSP doesn't exist any more. Google have closed down nearly everything. All the development happens in private, you've stopped addressing bugs raised by the public, the source of patches are only infrequently released, device trees are gone.

Wouldn't you complain?

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#49

Post by Yokolos »

protimewaster wrote: post #20

Unfortunately, the headline is somewhat optimistic compared to the reality, I think. The thread makes it sound like it could have been disabled due to errata or performance issues. Basically, it looks like the software Google is shipping intentionally doesn't use MTE on the Pixel 11 hardware. That raises the question of...what does Google know is wrong with MTE on the Pixel 11?

I've read that there's a significant performance cost to MTE on Android (or on Tensor). It might just be that.

Re: GrapheneOS says Pixel 11 has MTE support after all

#50

Post by delichon »

iamnothere wrote: post #24

It’s absurd that a small project like Graphene is able to run rings around a giant like Google in the security sphere. Almost makes you wonder if some of those vulnerabilities are intentionally allowed to exist. Vulnerabilities in the world’s most popular (by volume) mobile OS could provide a plausibly deniable global espionage backdoor.

There's a lot of speculation that US model censorship around "cyber capabilities" is about protecting an inventory of non-public vulnerabilities used for intelligence purposes. That same explanation could cover Google's MTE actions as a result of pressure from intelligence agencies. Nobody should be surprised if they prioritize what they see as national over personal security.
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