Re:To hack an Android phone, just type in a really long pass...
by kelnos on Monday September 21, 2015 @04:02PM
(#10254782)
Not true, actually. See https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/toolkits.html ... (I'm assuming this hasn't changed, of course, as this was written over 10 years ago... but the fundamental reasons why he was unable to write the dialog as a separate process should still remain, since they're fairly well-known and not-particuarly-surmountable issues with X.)
The password input screen uses only low-level X11 calls (and not a higher-level GUI toolkit) in an attempt to reduce the library dependency list and therefore the possibility of crasher bugs. But if you do indeed manage to find a crash bug in libX11 (or a dep) that you can trigger from xscreensaver's password entry box, that will indeed unlock the screen.
Now, the xscreensaver configuration panel is written using GTK, which is indeed a separate process, and a crash in the config panel won't affect the screen locker.
Re:To hack an Android phone, just type in a really long pass...
by icebraining on Monday September 21, 2015 @05:59PM
(#10255409)
Oh, I don't remember that page, I must have missed it.
Still, Android doesn't run X, and since they control the whole OS, it shouldn't be too hard to avoid having input "pass through" the lock screen.
For example, jwz's XScreenSaver separates the graphical process (more complex and bug-prone) from the daemon. If you manage to crash the password input screen (or the screensaver itself), the daemon will just restart it.