On Feb 29, 2012 6:23 PM, "MikeG" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I work for a company that wants to deliver apps to its users to their
> personal mobile devices; without letting the devices behind the
> firewall.  Solution is to put up a web distribution point in the DMZ
> and require folks to log in with their domain (or whatever) account.
> After much much testing we find that this is not possible with a stock
> Android phone.  Amazingly, using the stock browser you can
> authenticate to a web server for the standard "web" mime types, htm,
> xml, txt, pdf, etc, but - and this has to be an oversight - you cannot
> authenticate for an .apk file.  Yes the mime-type is set on the
> server, you can d/l .apk anonymously no problem.  You can even install
> Firefox on your device and d/l the authenticated file.  Still - this
> inability to authenticate an apk from the default browsers surely is a
> mistake, right?  Or maybe I am missing something obvious..
>

Sounds about right.   The arbitrary restrictions based on file type and
what you are describing pretty much reduce stock upload/download etc to a
heaping, worthless,  steaming pile of it.  I do believe this could be
carrier  imposed on some level,  but have never confirmed.  I think if you
install busy box, or just compile an apk for wget, you should be able to
script the necessary download and authentication.

> So, since this appears not to be a core capability of the phone, how
> do you distribute a sensitive app to your company in a secure manner
> that does not involve a public market, a USB cable or installing a
> more capable browser on your Android Device. We have not tested with
> an ICS device yet, but even if it works, there are millions of pre-ICS
> devices that apparently have this same limitation.
>
> Looking for ideas on Secure App Distribution.
>
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