oss-sec mailing list archives
Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market?
From: Brian May <brian () linuxpenguins xyz>
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2020 08:00:05 +1100
Greg KH <greg () kroah com> writes:
https://www.theregister.com/2015/06/17/debian_chromium_hubbub/ Chrome, Debian Linux, and the secret binary blob download riddle Browser snuck proprietary voice-snoop code into distroI don't understand the question here, that was something over 5 years ago. How is that relevant for "mobile devices" that run Linux today?
That link looks like a once of issue that Debian had with the distribution of Chromium. Which was probably fixed years ago. More generally, in a typical Android install, there is closed source software - drivers, firmware, Google APIs, Google Play. Before you even get to installing closed source apps from Google Play. These are a concern from a security point of view because you have to trust the device manufacturer / Google with the security aspects of such code, and there is no possibility of somebody else auditing the code because the source code is not available. Android devices typically require a forked version of the Linux kernel. I believe they are slowly moving to reduce the changes required by merging them mainline, but not sure how that is progressing right now. Otherwise, I imagine this might have security concerns too. -- Brian May <brian () linuxpenguins xyz> https://linuxpenguins.xyz/brian/
Current thread:
- major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Georgi Guninski (Oct 05)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Greg KH (Oct 05)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Ian Zimmerman (Oct 05)
- Re: Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Stephen John Smoogen (Oct 05)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Georgi Guninski (Oct 06)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Greg KH (Oct 06)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Brian May (Oct 06)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Greg KH (Oct 07)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Georgi Guninski (Oct 07)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Ian Zimmerman (Oct 05)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Greg KH (Oct 05)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Steve Grubb (Oct 05)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Simon McVittie (Oct 06)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Steve Grubb (Oct 06)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Solar Designer (Oct 19)
- Re: major changes if gnu/linux dominates the desktop and/or mobile market? Ian Zimmerman (Oct 19)