On Sat, 2003-03-22 at 20:12, Jared Odulio (From Home) wrote: > On Sat, 2003-03-22 at 14:34, Danny wrote: > > > Motorola grabbed a lot of headlines when it announced the world's first mobile > > phone that runs Linux, however, developers won't be able to create Linux > > applications and run those on the phone because Linux is not secure enough. > > > > > If am in the manufacturer's position I could have said the same thing. > Well, first we have to coin some few terms, in Java 2 Micro > Edition(J2ME) mobile apps are called midlets. What are we going to call > our Linux mobile apps? kernlets? scriptlets? chiclets? GTicKlets? > KMoblets? what? It's so diverse the mobile market it's not ready for > that confusion and confusion breeds false sense of insecurity. > > I think everyone who holds a Linux mobile phone is assumed a "superuser" > since it doesnt act and it's not designed to be a server. :) >
this could easily be offset by using the fundamental idea of 'protection' by defining user space memory and kernel space memory. having said this, then the kernel should be the _only_ superuser privileged process running, and every other application will have to communicate with each other using the 3 IPC methods -- semaphores, shared memory, and message queues. now giving superuser privelege to _any_ and/or _all_ processes that will be running on the phone is really stupid. i'm sure the developers that port the linux OS on small devices like these have figured this out. > Let's have a scary use case scenario of putting a linux mobile app into > linux mobile phone: > > 1. Unlike J2ME, A Linux mobile app is native to the Linux mobile device. > Therefore it could access native resources like phonebook, power > management, time, calendar, bluetooth, sms, telephony etc. > but J2ME must run on a host OS, AFAIK. it runs in its own runtime environment which is just another process in the operating system. the security is offered by the virtual machine, and not the OS. in java, it doesn't have to matter what OS you're running it in unless you specifically use native system calls via CORBA or some other mechanism. > 2. If someone has an OTA(over-the-air)hosting for Linux mobile apps that > operates the same way as www.midlet.org. Someone could develop a > malicious linux mobile app that pretends to be a game or a serious > application but underneath it's accessing your phonebook sending some > "F&#* YOU" messages to your associates while you are brandishing your > cool phone in public. Nobody wants that to happen. > this is if you will be running everything it in superuser mode. example, if you ran the hypothetical app as a superuser, and all it does is thrash the system then you're doomed because it can access the devices and the resources at will. but if the linux system put on the phone added measures to say that every app run is run by a user (that is not root, and has limited privileges) then it would be harder for the app to just do everything it wants at will. of course, that would be hard for the developer also. ;) <snip> > That's a big score for J2ME (it's unarguably, secured.), unless someone > could develop a standard SDK for Linux mobile apps that assures > security(oooppps i am giving away a fundable idea). Take note that > mobile application development is a whole new ball game it's no way the > same with desktop and server application that you are used to </snip> true, but linux could still be the host OS of the java runtime environment. now sure, there are other OSes out there, but for the sake of conversation, i think linux is stable and extensible enough to be put on not only phones but planes alike. well that is, IMHO. ;) -- -=[mikhail]=- aka Dean Michael C. Berris mobile +63 917 8901959 work +63 49 5680024 http://free.net.ph/Members/mikhailberis _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fully Searchable Archives With Friendly Web Interface at http://marc.free.net.ph To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
