Isaac,
Yes, the link you sent is the paper I was referring to. And yes, there
doesn't seem to be a clean way to achieve more secure interaction at
the moment. A possible solution is to ensure that the system only has
one installed application with the ability to start an activity in
response to an ACTION_SET_PASSWORD Intent. However, this is a longer
term idea for a different Android tool I've been working on.
In the mean time, it might be useful to note the limitation on IO
Safe's website.
Thanks,
-Will
On Mar 18, 2009, at 3:29 PM, Isaac Potoczny-Jones wrote:
Greetings, Will. Thanks for the note.
The OpenIntents project is very open for others to implement
compatible
intents. For instance, OI Safe (as it's now called) requires a
password,
but you could imagine implementing a keystore system that used
biometric
or other kinds of authentication.
However, you make a good point. How can we distinguish the users'
desire
to allow an application to act as a keystore from a malicious
application?
It sounds like you suggest somehow requiring permission from a user
for
an application to handle certain kinds of actions, but that there's
really no way to do this right now, is that right?
Is this the paper you're referring to?
http://www.citeulike.org/user/dhein1030/article/3979456
thanks,
Isaac
William Enck wrote:
Isaac,
Your project looks interesting. Quick question regarding the
security of
OI Safe's Keystore Service. In your example, how does the Instant
Message Application know that it is the AndroidPasswordSafe
application
receiving the cleartext password stored in the ACTION_SET_PASSWORD
Intent? Assuming (from the symmetric communication in the diagram)
you
are using startActivity() and not broadcasting an Intent, the API
does
not provide a mechanism to require a permission of the receiving
application.
I believe a caution related to this was mentioned as a "developer
tip"
in the iSec whitepaper by Jesse Burns that was mentioned on this
list a
few months ago.
Thanks,
-Will
On Mar 12, 2009, at 7:32 PM, Isaac Potoczny-Jones wrote:
Greetings, as I just mentioned on the android developers group, you
might find the OpenIntents keystore project of interest as well:
http://code.google.com/p/openintents/wiki/CryptoIntents
It would be great to build something compatible, since the goal of
the
openintents project is interoperability :)
peace,
isaac
--
William Enck
PhD Candidate
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University
[email protected]
