Two-way isolation seems like it'd only be useful for DRM and Treacherous Computing.
I'd love the easy ability to run confidential computing loads with fine grained control over the data it gets access to. You can do this now on the desktop using SGX (etc) but on mobile it's really hard.
As a specific example of this, it'd be great to be able to run Whisper continually and have strong, system level guarantees about what can read the data.
Do you trust any modern OS not to accidently include sensitive information when it generates a crash report for an app and sends it off the some remote server in the background?
Isolation is a useful tool. In an ideal world it can be done perfectly at the OS level, but we don't live in that world.
The problem with DRM and "trusted computing" part is that it's under someone else's control, some central authority etc. From my reading of the docs on this, this is not the case with pVM, from https://source.android.com/docs/core/virtualization/security
> Data is tied to instances of a pVM, and secure boot ensures that access to an instance’s data can be controlled
> When a device is unlocked with fastboot oem unlock, user data is wiped.
> Once unlocked, the owner of the device is free to reflash partitions that are usually protected by verified boot, including partitions containing the pKVM implementation. Therefore, pKVM on an unlocked device won't be trusted to uphold the security model.
So my reading of this is that that it is under the users control, as long as they have the ability to unlock the bootloader, and reflash the device with their own images.
I'd love someone who is more knowledgeable to weigh in, but this tech, to me, doesn't seem that close to TPM/DRM type chips where there is no possibility of user control.
There are also vendors that are doing smart contract execution in trusted computing devices so you can get the benefits of trusted execution without the overhead of everyone executing the same code.
Think about gaming in VR. You might want to make a game where the ML can adapt to the physical peculiarities of a person (think like personalized audio for airpods) but want to guarantee it isn't giving the person an advantage. Even simple things like setting up a VR system (or any physical computing device) can give an advantage to someone if corruptible.
At the moment there are lots of "anti-cheat" technologies that attempt to solve this, but really it needs trusted execution.
AFAIK Qualcomm's implementation does include passing touch input / display into the VM and is marketed in similar term ("Trusted User Interface") to TEE-based techs, except they are not in S-EL0/1.
I've only seen this used in some really obscure scenario (cryptocurrency wallet) though.
I think there are usecases like this outside the mobile _phone_ that are interesting. For example on-device learning for edge devices where the device is not under your control.
This absolutely isn't the case. I know a number of vendors who are deploying edge ML capacity in satellites where the use case is for "agencies" to deploy ML algorithms that they (the vendors) cannot see.
So in general, just would avoid labeling the quality of other people's takes. You never know who is reading yours
Qualcomm has trusted input for at least touch sensors into their trusted enclave (unsure about microphone input at this point). Look for "TUI" in https://www.qualcomm.com/content/dam/qcomm-martech/dm-assets...
(Putting aside the fact for the moment that most - if not all - trusted computing platforms have some security vulnerabilities. Obviously this is bad, but doesn't preclude their utility)
DRM and remote attestation already use a separate secure environment, so I don't see what would change by adding virtualisation.
There will be a chilling effect because people won't want to upset their Google/Microsoft/Apple/Meta etc overlords by saying or doing the wrong thing, and then get locked out of services they need to exist in society, do their job, spend money, etc.
I'm no fan of the modern dependence on Play Services or Google's attempts to kill adblockers through remote attestation, but none of these technologies are inherently bad. Business devices authenticating to business websites should allow remote attestation to verify that their hardware has not been tempered with just as an extra security measure.
Maybe your government is more evil or incompetent than mine, but bad governments aren't going to he limited by technological concepts like these.
Instead of just losing your account, you (or at least both your machine and your digital ID) are banned for good. This already happens with phones, where the entire device gets banned by apps for good, adding a layer of digital ID on top of it worsens the consequences of such decisions by platform owners against users.
> Remote attestation is the norm for many types of apps already yet I can use my bank app on my rooted phone just fine,
Many people can't on their rooted phones, and this cat-and-mouse game will eventually be won by the parties with million/billions to throw at it.
But I don't disagree, I'd rather have a rooted phone with a few islands out of my (and the software that I run!) control for sensitive authentication use cases than a phone where I'm not in control at all. Or than two phones, because only one of them can be rooted.
It's like SafetyNet today, you can't run a good amount of apps on unapproved platforms already, even apps that don't handle confidential data.
When I traveled, this is how I was able to spend money without having to call my bank every time I tried to use my card in person.
Do you have the IdentityCheck/SecureCode/3-D Secure stuff (2FA for online transactions and at certain terminals)? Are these calls for transactions without chip + PIN?
I’ve had some transactions declined while travelling but maybe about 1/1000, and still no call, and nothing the bank support could do to allow them if I called. I’d just have to use a different bank with a vendor. It’s very much a “computer says no” situation then. Otherwise, the payment just goes through in the 99.9% of all cases.
But the banks in central EU, the Nordics, and the UK don’t seem to monitor the transactions I make while travelling to the point that there would be an actual person involved (calling me or reaching out in some other way).
I’m mostly curious about what problem these bank calls are solving. Is it for credit card fraud? In that case, I wonder why this seems to not be a practice in Europe. Is it because we do chip & PIN in physical payments, and 2FA for online/some kiosks?
That probably just means that you never made transactions that crossed the banks' suspicion threshold. Which might be quite high if the bank is confident that it won't be on the hook for credential abuse and does not care if their customers lose money to identify theft. That confirmation call would be an indication of good service, not of bad service.
I'm not saying that calls would be preferable to better authentication schemes like chip+pin (in skimming is very much a thing though), calls are just another second factor after all. And not even a particularly safe one. But defense should be layered and that layer stack should absolutely contain a form of confirmation call on some level if you are a bank.
Confidential computing is cool and useful when you’re the one controlling the VM, but scary when you’re the one blindly running it on your hardware
Hopefully this gets (publicly!) backdoored like SEV, SGX, etc
Important point.
> Hopefully this gets (publicly!) backdoored like SEV, SGX, etc
From my reading this doesn't need to be backdoored, if you have the ability to unlock the bootloader, you are not reliant on googles root of trust to be able to use this feature, you can go ahead and become your own "vendor", by signing your own images, or use your choice of vendor, then relock the bootloader and have the same security guarantees.
I'll admit this only from a cursory glance over the documentation and a vague understanding, happy to be corrected, but seems a lot of the arguments in this thread are about your first point, who has control over the OS.
I'll also add that the EU is being quite proactive in people having control over their own device, and who is their 'choice of vendor' so while I understand concerns people bring up, I'm a bit more optimistic that it can be a more useful tool than not.