Hacker News Reader

HNHacker News

Top New Best Ask Show Jobs

Comment by zb3 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

zb3·

> Which is already what Android's security model specifies.

Which means removing user control over that data.

> Unverified devices have the possibility of having that security model broken.

Again, this "security model" implies removing user control. The apps protect user's data from that user..

View on HN

No user control is being removed. The data was managed by the app by design.

There is no way for the phone to know who owns the device, nor would it be able to know that when ownership is transferred to not show sensitive information to the new owner.

Let's not pretend to be daft. The user can prove ownership by providing a PIN. They can also delete their data before transferring ownership to a new owner. (Not to touch at all upon the fact that selling devices is really uncommon to begin with.)

Nothing about any of that requires the user to cede control of their own device as a "solution".

If the user writes down the PIN a person that is not the owner can use that PIN despite not being the owner.

The user should not write down a PIN then, or at least not write it down somewhere easily reachable by someone malicious. Attempting to hide data from the device owner is a non-solution to this problem and does nothing but frustrate and diminish the device owner's freedom.

You can't as a phone ensure that happens. The device is more secure by taking away the backdoor of using a PIN. Backdoors are a security incident waiting to happen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com