Emulating Windows system calls, take 2

Posted Jul 23, 2020 13:59 UTC (Thu) by clump (subscriber, #27801)
In reply to: Emulating Windows system calls, take 2 by domenpk
Parent article: Emulating Windows system calls, take 2

You're right about typical distributions. However the security features of Android are useless if the user has no choice but to accept all or none of an application's permissions. Some Android applications allow users to disable some permissions, while some applications fail to function at all unless you accept everything. Worst of all you have no choice whatsoever about which applications can use networking.

Android's additional security features are meaningless in practice.

Emulating Windows system calls, take 2

Posted Jul 23, 2020 14:47 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

> Android's additional security features are meaningless in practice.

Incorrect.

Android completely isolates applications from each other. One application cannot see/access the data of another.

> However the security features of Android are useless if the user has no choice but to accept all or none of an application's permissions.

That sounds like a problem brought on by using proprietary software, not the underlying permission/security model.

Android's model requires those permissions to be explicitly stated and granted, which is a huge step forward from the free-range model of a traditional desktop environment (Linux or Windows or whatever) -- where applications have carte blanche to do pretty much whatever they want -- including audio, video, networking, and access to every file the user has.

Emulating Windows system calls, take 2

Posted Jul 23, 2020 16:20 UTC (Thu) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link]

> Android completely isolates applications from each other. One application cannot see/access the data of another.

Unless the storage permission is required which makes the external storage a free-for-all. I trust you'd agree that there's plenty of valuable application and user data on the external storage.

Great points about a traditional desktop environment. An exploit or hostile application shouldn't allow the compromise of a user's entire home directory by default. We can and should do better.