Yeah, this is really bizarre to me. I was trying to check on volume levels through walls in my apartment, so I wanted to find some random decibel measuring app and lock it down so I don't have to worry too much about trusting it. But somehow Apple's permission model, which provides a whole pile of privilege switches including mobile data, has no way to completely revoke Internet privileges for an app.
Anticipating a question, the best phones IMHO for rooting are the OnePlus phones and Pixel. Motorola had been good in the past but you have to get a code to unlock the bootloader (which I don't like).
Downvoters: so what security features do you lose and gain when you root your phone? You've weighed the pros and cons, right?
There's a fantastic example in my sibling post. Rooting gains you the ability to more tightly control network access. That alone is massive for privacy and security.
Obviously you have to run code with lots of permissions, which means you could be highly compromised by a malicious app. The onus on the user is much higher to vet apps. At the end of the day you have to place some trust, even if you don't root. It's a game of balancing tradeoffs.
It's overly simplistic to say that rooting dramatically decreases security regardless of background or technical expertise.
So yes, that was a bit overly simplistic. I rooted my phones for a number of years before carefully looking at the pros and cons and deciding it was a poor choice for a consumer mobile phone. Obviously, we need root access for our dev machines and servers. But I try to follow the principle of least privilege, and in that case, not clear why root would be needed for a mobile phone.
But I concede that for some use cases, it can be a trade-off.
What other security advantage of rooting can you name besides tighter control of network access? Also, note that there are a few apps that allow some degree of firewall with unrooted phones. I also suspect there's a lot of room for improvement there.
I would ideally want websites to also have a "no more network access after your initial load" mode, but as you say that's fundamentally incompatible with modern web development. So I kinda just accept the loss there.
For instance is there any specific model behind blocking device location, short of just not wanting to share the info ?
I’d see not wanting an app to send anything related to your device nor that it was even opened to be of the same kind.
I've been coming around to a similar idea. I'd like a setup something like this for my desktop:
1. Some devices representing network connections. One or more are "real"; others may be VPNs.
2. Per-application settings governing which network devices, if any, the application may use. Default to none.
For example, the common way to use a VPN is like this:
1. Start your machine. You're connected to the internet, but not yet to the VPN. All of your running software is already using the internet over the unprotected connection.
2. Start the VPN. It will magically do something such that applications wanting to use "the internet" find it instead of the connection they used to find (the one the VPN itself is still using). All of your running software is now using the VPN. Did you want something to use the other connection? Too bad.
I'm sick of the idea that Windows perceives an internet connection somehow, hides it from me, and automatically makes it available to everything that asks for "the internet". But I don't actually know how to do this. Someone is working really, really hard to make sure I don't affect who uses what device.
They secure and compartmentalize at the VM-level so you can setup a VM to work only over Tor or VPN, and others to work directly over your own network. You can also restrict access to hardware per VM.
sudo pflask --netif=macvlan:enp4s0:net0 tmux
You can't just set your vpn connection as the default route? What's even the point if it's not the default route?
Applications (at least on Linux) have no idea what device they are using. They just request a connection to an IP and it's the kernels job to route that request correctly.
In particular this sentence is complete nonsense:
I'm sick of the idea that Windows perceives an internet connection somehow, hides it from me, and automatically makes it available to everything that asks for "the internet". But I don't actually know how to do this. Someone is working really, really hard to make sure I don't affect who uses what device.
As usual, MS has pretty decent documentation on this: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/mo...
I don't particularly like the GUI_centric nature of much of it, but the complaint itself is completely ill-informed.
> Applications (at least on Linux) have no idea what device they are using. They just request a connection to an IP and it's the kernels job to route that request correctly.
This is a bad idea. I want to connect the application to the device I think it should use. It shouldn't be able to find anything I don't tell it about.
> This is a bad idea. I want to connect the application to the device I think it should use. It shouldn't be able to find anything I don't tell it about.
Telling applications about resources is literally what the operating system is for. Both Linux and Windows let you do what you want.
In my Android Pie based ROM, in Settings / Network & Internet / Data Usage / App data usage I can select any app and disable WiFi, Cellular data or both.
You can forward your number to a work phone while you're on duty, you don't need to carry a personal device with you.
About once a week security folks wander through the offices looking for phones with some type of detector. God help the person who brought their phone in.
That's when you check the TOTP code on your phone, put it back on the stack of phones, and race as fast as you can back to your desk to enter the code before it expires.
This is a legal and compliance issue. If you made the marketplace share liability for fraudulent apps, and had meaningful law around the ownership of electronic data, this problem would go poof.
In the US, a piece of paper in a locked drawer requires a warrant to access. Electronic data requires as little as an administrative subpoena
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App security is so bad that you pretty much need to virtualize the phone and feed it fake sensor data. The whole idea of unrestricted network access is stupid.