this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
96 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37739 readers
557 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The discussion I stumbled upon, about this SSH app for Android, is really worrying. Will Google really manage to make it impossible to root your phone?

But there's more to this, it's more complicated. In the Big Picture, Google has every incentive to make these changes — they lead to more security, and they're aligned with Google's corporate goals as well.

  • When talking to users, Google will emphasize control over hackers.
  • When talking to stockholders, Google will emphasize control over users.

Edit: I disagree with "they lead to more security". That's not "security", let's not turn words upside-down.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Aren't there over a hundred OEMs shipping models with their own Android builds? Google will have to convince every single phone manufacturer to lock down their devices the way it wants, which doesn't seem very easy.

[–] Urist@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

Not when all of them, from a business pov, need to be able to run Google services. As a case study we saw how brutal it was for Huawei to be locked out.

[–] rentar42@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Yes. Everyone can just release a tweaked Android version and Google can't really stop them.

But if you plan to ship Google services (including the play store, which effectively makes a device an "Android device" in many users eyes) then you will have to be able to pass Googles verification suite.

That's already the case today and adding new requirements to that in new Android versions happens all the time.