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Re:Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads th... by djsumdog on Friday August 30, 2019 @01:02PM (#20840386)
Well Android does have a Linux kernel. The permissions happen at different layers within Android, as apps are run on their VM (Dalvik byte code). The /system partition is read-only on Android, but I don't /think/ you'd need any special permissions to read most of the system partition. The data partition is what's protected.

I mean, an application has to be able to read standard libraries to function, right? Same with any traditional Linux distro and /lib, /usr/lib. Really tight Apparmor or SELinux profiles can lock this down a bit.

Re:Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads th... by gnfurlong on Sunday September 01, 2019 @01:18PM (#20853402)
Regarding apparmor/selinux, who creates/audits those profiles to make sure each application only has access to exactly the libraries it needs? It probably defeats the purpose if it's the app authors. Similarly, who validates that these profiles don't break functionality for any device/os version? I could see this being an option for power users who are willing to collaborate on creating the profiles and deal with fixing the occasional incomplete profile. I'm not sure how feasible it'd be as a solution for your typical user though.