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Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

(peabee.substack.com)
1192 points gniting | 1 comments | 29 Mar 25 21:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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captn3m0 ◴[30 Mar 25 02:37 UTC] No.43520750[source]▶
The ACTION_MAIN loophole has been written about before: https://commonsware.com/blog/2020/04/05/android-r-package-vi...

Google refuses to patch this. I wonder what would happen if you submit it to the Android VDP as a permission bypass.

There’s also this SO question by the author about the bypass: https://stackoverflow.com/q/79527331

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3abiton ◴[30 Mar 25 04:13 UTC] No.43521275[source]▶
> Google refuses to patch this.

That's why projects like XPL-Extended (and previously XPrivacyLua), are an absolute need. I never run an android phone without these.

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ignoramous ◴[30 Mar 25 08:21 UTC] No.43522389[source]▶
XPrivactLua and other XposedMod/Magisk extensions break open the app sandbox. It is better to restrict running those on usereng/eng builds (test devices). For prod builds (user devices), I'd recommend using Work Profiles (GrapheneOS supports upto 31 in parallel) or Private Spaces (on Android 15+) to truly isolate apps from one another.
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pava0 ◴[30 Mar 25 08:45 UTC] No.43522525[source]▶
What do you mean by "break open the app sandbox"?
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schnatterer ◴[30 Mar 25 13:11 UTC] No.43523886[source]▶
I found this description about the security risks of rooting very eye-opening https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/android.html It also explains the sandbox.
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1. dataflow ◴[30 Mar 25 17:42 UTC] No.43525977[source]▶
That link seems to have... an agenda. It's way too hand-wavy (e.g., it doesn't at all attempt to tease out the nuance of whether a rooted phone inherently has a broken security boundary by design, or whether [like on Linux] it's secure as long as the implementation is non-buggy) and seems laser-focused on convincing users that desire sovereignty over their own devices that they might as well jump off a cliff.