Nice! :P
News regarding vulnerabilities reported to Google and physical attack roadmap
Wow!
Thanks to each and every one of you.
Thanks for the detailed info update on the vulnerabilities around physical data extraction and the roadmap matchboxbananasynergy ! That sounds like really great and important features will be rolled out soon - thanks for your great work!
You guys are killing it. I did notice some changes which I couldn't find further info on. Wondering if this is something thats changed from OS
Seems like
1) Existing wipe apps only kick from second user and doesnt actually delete/wipe anymore
2) Wipes can't be interrupted to cancel anymore. While you can still go back to fastboot, up restarting device, it will revert back to Factory Reset/Erasing no matter how many times you reboot / power off
One of my concerns with existing USB wipe was that data may still be in RAM. I know that may be the case if it is on owner profile and USB wipe triggers. Having a second profile that is locked/session ended would protect that data at least. My unknown was say you are on second profile, you have USB wipe active on Owner profile.
You plug in and it goes straight to factory reset. Is there a chance here that the data / keys for the second profile are in RAM and therefore higher chance of being exploited when RAM Dumped since you were active on the second profile at the time of activation, even though the activation came from owner profile in the background?
(I hope that made sense lol im not too technical)
Awesome job team Graphene! If we could only get Google to work with us a little more on the certified OS stuff. That would be a dream and worth every bit of the bounties, IMHO.
1) Existing wipe apps only kick from second user and doesnt actually delete/wipe anymore
Can you clarify what you mean?
2) Wipes can't be interrupted to cancel anymore. While you can still go back to fastboot, up restarting device, it will revert back to Factory Reset/Erasing no matter how many times you reboot / power off
You're still able to interrupt it by going to fastboot mode to either exploit fastboot mode or boot the OS to attempt to exploit it again. OS remembering that it's in the process of trying to wipe is not a real solution. The real solution is the OS wiping data without rebooting to recovery and shutting down after wiping is finished.
matchboxbananasynergy passphrase primary unlock with fingerprint/PIN secondary factor for unlock!? That's fantastic! I use an 11 character passphrase now, this would be fantastic! I'm often putting it in after first boot because Private Lock keeps locking my phone, so I'm used to using it a lot, does this mean using it all the time, even after first boot? Then just using fingerprints for the second factor?
I'd be so OK with that! If that were an option, I would use it all the time, it would round out the unlock mechanism with a very secure option for those of us who don't mind needing to take a whole 15 seconds to unlock instead of needing it done instantly....
One thing that would help with this, if we could enable the microphone without unlocking the device? Right now, if the microphone is off for privacy reasons, and someone calls, it will ask "do you want to unblock the microphone?" And if you say Yes, you need to go through the whole unlock process. If you need to enter passphrase, + fingerprint/PIN, the call will have stopped ringing by then... So can you make "unblock microphone" via Quick Setting Tile like the Flashlight quick setting tile, in that it doesn't require unlock to activate please?
Also, thanks for your incredibility awesome hard work on these new features! Really making GrapheneOS stand out from the crowd of other mobile OS's even more!
@matchboxbananasynergy you folks are fantastic
Wish there was more I could do to show it but let it be known everyone on the graphene team are appreciated each day I turn on my phone.
I think you answered number 1 in another post, the apps seem to no longer work on secondary profiles, they will only end the session rather than wipe, which as you stated is most likely a compatability issue on their end.
For the fastboot exploit, from what I am reading the next update from Google should fix this correct? Basing this off the below comment "resulting in the firmware's fastboot mode fully clearing all of the device's regular memory before enabling USB"
Just wondering if you can shed some light on the final question.
Scenario: USB Wipe is set up on owner profile. If you have ended second profile session, and fastboot is exploited, I would believe that second profile would be safe from RAM dump and only owner profile is compromised. Is this correct?
Scenario 2: USB Wipe is set up on owner profile, and you are currently logged in to Secondary profile
USB is plugged in and the device initiates wipe (Tested; I presume this is because owner is always active in the background?) If this occurs, will ram dump now also compromise secondary profile as it was logged in at the time of Factory Reset initiation?
"We fully intend to make the same proposals to other Android OEMs like Samsung."
What does this mean? They'll be working on a ROM for Samsung?
Dumdum
Thank you for the clearest explanation of how this works that I have read to date.
It should e labeled something like “USB port only for charging when in AFU and locked”
Too many words, but I can’t figure out how to condense it.
Blastoidea Thank you for the clearest explanation of how this works that I have read to date.
The explanation was Matchbox's (quoted from the post in the link), not mine.
- Edited
meeky10 "We fully intend to make the same proposals to other Android OEMs like Samsung."
What does this mean? They'll be working on a ROM for Samsung?
"The proposals" are ways for Google to prevent RAM extraction (in part by changing fastboot, I believe). I read the quoted text as indicating that the GrapheneOS project plans to suggest that Samsung make the same changes to Samsung's bootloader (etc.) that Google is expected to make.
The GrapheneOS project has already made changes to GrapheneOS. Those are not "proposals". I believe the "proposals" are to vendors for things only vendors can do.
Please note that I do not speak for the GrapheneOS project.