Re:Termux no longer updated on Google Play
by anderspitman on Tuesday January 05, 2021 @08:06PM
(#25653581)
Unfortunately not. The underlying mechanism they're using to enforce this is essentially: if your app can write to a directory, it can't execute from that directory.
Apparently this is plugs a vulnerability known as W^X. See their explanation in the issue here[0]. Personally I would love to know how many real-world exploits they can blame on this specific vulnerability, stacked up against the number of truly useful apps like Termux that have now been hamstrung.
Also, this leaves the state of running native executables on Android as something of a joke. Any executable you want to run has to be named `lib<exe_name>.so`, and included in your jniLib directory at build time.
It's clear what side GOOG has picked in the war on general-purpose computing[1].
Apparently this is plugs a vulnerability known as W^X. See their explanation in the issue here[0]. Personally I would love to know how many real-world exploits they can blame on this specific vulnerability, stacked up against the number of truly useful apps like Termux that have now been hamstrung.
Also, this leaves the state of running native executables on Android as something of a joke. Any executable you want to run has to be named `lib<exe_name>.so`, and included in your jniLib directory at build time.
It's clear what side GOOG has picked in the war on general-purpose computing[1].
[0]: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/128554619
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg