Private Space leaks installed apps

unplugmaverick

Hi, under the settings of Private Space it clearly states: "Apps in your PS won't appear in permission manager, privacy dashboard, and other settings when PS is locked". However, there are two exceptions which seem to counter the intent of this statement:

Settings > Battery > Battery Manager > Restricted apps: lists apps within the PS that have the restricted battery feature turned on
Android Drawer > Search apps > "name of an app installed in the PS" (doesn't have to be the complete name, which means that searching all alphabet letters to find every app is easy for an attacker): shows the app icon greyed out

If PS' purpose was to merely compartimentalize, not to hide, I wouldn't be writing this. But since many efforts to obfuscate the installed apps were taken, it kinda seems like these two features clearly breach the stated purpose of the Private Space.

Is the GOS dev team aware of this? Is it an upstream bug, or is it the intended design? Will any changes be implemented?

PD: I'm on the latest stable release. As always, love the project and many thanks for your efforts.

fid02

unplugmaverick Is the GOS dev team aware of this?

This was reported, confirmed and reproduced by several users a few days after the first A15-based release reached stable. There is a Github issue on this with a comment from a GrapheneOS developer: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/4446#issuecomment-2521922881

If this is to be discussed further, I think it would be beneficial to do it in this thread, rather than on Github, as the Github issue tracker is rarely intended for discussions.

de0u

unplugmaverick I'm on the latest stable release. As always, love the project and many thanks for your efforts.

Though this is a known and tracked issue, so the exact version of GrapheneOS isn't currently a factor, writing "I am on the latest stable release" is somewhat problematic:

If the posting is made within several hours either way of a new stable release, the claim is ambiguous;
If somebody is reading the post a year or a month later, perhaps landing from a search engine, the claim is laborious to interpret.

The best practice is to provide the build number, available from Settings, About phone.

unplugmaverick

Since it won't let me edit the original post, I'll add here: obviously, these two scenarios happen with the PS locked.

unplugmaverick

fid02 This was reported, confirmed and reproduced by several users a few days after the first A15-based release reached stable.

Didn't know, if it's in their radar and a fix is in the pipeline, I have little to add.

de0u The best practice is to provide the build number, available from Settings, About phone.

Sure, I'll try to keep it in mind in the future. 2024121200

fid02

unplugmaverick Didn't know, if it's in their radar and a fix is in the pipeline, I have little to add.

Judging from the Github comment I linked, I don't think there is an expectation that this will be changed.

de0u

fid02 Judging from the Github comment I linked, I don't think there is an expectation that this will be changed.

I agree. Google's position includes:

In some cases, you can’t hide the existence of private space from:

Others who install apps on your phone

Others who can connect your device to a computer, including Android Debug Bridge (adb) access

Other apps which can detect the usage of private space and the apps within it

Device logs

So it appears that Google is not aiming for "invisible space" (and definitely hasn't achieved it).

Stepping back, Google has been making lots of changes to what kinds of user profiles exist and how they work. It makes sense to me that while this part of Android is up in the air the GrapheneOS team might prefer to limit the effort spent making improvements that aren't critical.