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> Even when those Android apps are run inside an LXC container, mobile Linux still needs to be prepared for all the malware and spyware that comes with running Android apps.
Doesn't make sense to want to use a more secure and private OS as a guest on a less private and secure host. It should be the reverse. LXC containers also aren't proper isolation like a VM.
You can perfectly run malware and spyware on desktop Linux, nothing is preventing you technically from doing so. On Android, contrary to desktop Linux, the system will prevent those apps from having invasive access to your system and user data, because of the permission model. On Linux, malicious software has more invasive access and can more easily escalate to even higher levels of access.
> However, adding good userspace security to mobile Linux won’t be nearly as much work as adding user empowerment features to AOSP. It will be difficult to convince long-time Linux users to accept application sandboxing with separate users and separate file encryption for each app, and it will probably require some experimentation to get the right balance between security and freedom. Nonetheless, it is wrongheaded to treat the dev work for better security in mobile Linux as an insurmountable task.
It's not wrongheaded. It will break a lot of software. It will ask a lot of time. Time which is reinventing the wheel because Android exists. And it will get a lot of counter from a desktop Linux culture which seems to care little about security and mostly cares about being able to modify as much things as possible to the extent of even being able to break stuff, because 'freedom'.
> It is important to recognize, however, that many Linux phones either come with AOSP preinstalled or have it installed by their users in order to run Android apps. Almost every mobile Linux distro provides instructions and packages to install Waydroid and microG. Jolla’s license for Sailfish OS includes its proprietary AppSupport. FuriLabs’ FLX1/s/s+ includes Andromeda, which is its fork of Waydroid. All of these solutions run AOSP inside an LXC container. In addition, Valve just open sourced Lepton, which runs Android games as a non-root user in an AOSP container, but it doesn’t include Google Play Services or microG.
Those Android subsystems are almost always heavily outdated and have their security degraded. To give two examples: Waydroid doesn't use SELinux so doesn't have proper application sandboxing anymore and Sailfish OS is at Android 13, while we are currently on Android 17.
> Many of Google’s proprietary Play Services have been replicated by the free/open source microG, which uses signature spoofing to make Android apps believe that Google Play Services are installed. Nonetheless, microG doesn’t always work correctly in some situations, such as Google Maps’ geofencing, in-app billing, AR, SafetyNet/Play Integrity attestation, reCAPTCHA, PackageInfo.signingInfo, etc. Some apps fail security checks in Waydroid, because it appears to be a rooted Android device.
A solution like sandboxed Google Play used by GrapheneOS doesn't have most of the issues MicroG has. It's unaltered Google Play forced into the regular app sandbox. The only thing that really doesn't work with it are apps enforcing strong Play Integrity, which is an anti-trust issue that hopefully will be resolved in the future by regulators.
> Presumably Jolla’s AppSupport has been receiving AOSP upgrades, but Waydroid needs to be better supported in the future if Linux phones are going to rely on it to run Android apps.
Their official site says they reached Android 13, we are currently on Android 17.
> Instead of wasting resources on trying to fork AOSP, we should instead be focusing on how to better support Waydroid and microG for people who need to run Android apps.
Makes little sense to focus resources on the options to run Android apps insecurely. Better would be to donate resources or contributions to GrapheneOS and the GMSCompat project of GrapheneOS which enables running Google Play into the regular app sandbox.
> Even when those Android apps are run inside an LXC container, mobile Linux still needs to be prepared for all the malware and spyware that comes with running Android apps.
Doesn't make sense to want to use a more secure and private OS as a guest on a less private and secure host. It should be the reverse. LXC containers also aren't proper isolation like a VM.
You can perfectly run malware and spyware on desktop Linux, nothing is preventing you technically from doing so. On Android, contrary to desktop Linux, the system will prevent those apps from having invasive access to your system and user data, because of the permission model. On Linux, malicious software has more invasive access and can more easily escalate to even higher levels of access.
> However, adding good userspace security to mobile Linux won’t be nearly as much work as adding user empowerment features to AOSP. It will be difficult to convince long-time Linux users to accept application sandboxing with separate users and separate file encryption for each app, and it will probably require some experimentation to get the right balance between security and freedom. Nonetheless, it is wrongheaded to treat the dev work for better security in mobile Linux as an insurmountable task.
It's not wrongheaded. It will break a lot of software. It will ask a lot of time. Time which is reinventing the wheel because Android exists. And it will get a lot of counter from a desktop Linux culture which seems to care little about security and mostly cares about being able to modify as much things as possible to the extent of even being able to break stuff, because 'freedom'.
> It is important to recognize, however, that many Linux phones either come with AOSP preinstalled or have it installed by their users in order to run Android apps. Almost every mobile Linux distro provides instructions and packages to install Waydroid and microG. Jolla’s license for Sailfish OS includes its proprietary AppSupport. FuriLabs’ FLX1/s/s+ includes Andromeda, which is its fork of Waydroid. All of these solutions run AOSP inside an LXC container. In addition, Valve just open sourced Lepton, which runs Android games as a non-root user in an AOSP container, but it doesn’t include Google Play Services or microG.
Those Android subsystems are almost always heavily outdated and have their security degraded. To give two examples: Waydroid doesn't use SELinux so doesn't have proper application sandboxing anymore and Sailfish OS is at Android 13, while we are currently on Android 17.
> Many of Google’s proprietary Play Services have been replicated by the free/open source microG, which uses signature spoofing to make Android apps believe that Google Play Services are installed. Nonetheless, microG doesn’t always work correctly in some situations, such as Google Maps’ geofencing, in-app billing, AR, SafetyNet/Play Integrity attestation, reCAPTCHA, PackageInfo.signingInfo, etc. Some apps fail security checks in Waydroid, because it appears to be a rooted Android device.
A solution like sandboxed Google Play used by GrapheneOS doesn't have most of the issues MicroG has. It's unaltered Google Play forced into the regular app sandbox. The only thing that really doesn't work with it are apps enforcing strong Play Integrity, which is an anti-trust issue that hopefully will be resolved in the future by regulators.
> Presumably Jolla’s AppSupport has been receiving AOSP upgrades, but Waydroid needs to be better supported in the future if Linux phones are going to rely on it to run Android apps.
Their official site says they reached Android 13, we are currently on Android 17.
> Instead of wasting resources on trying to fork AOSP, we should instead be focusing on how to better support Waydroid and microG for people who need to run Android apps.
Makes little sense to focus resources on the options to run Android apps insecurely. Better would be to donate resources or contributions to GrapheneOS and the GMSCompat project of GrapheneOS which enables running Google Play into the regular app sandbox.