this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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Android

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[–] tired_n_bored@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (3 children)

That's not the case. Android is extensively modified in order to have sandboxed applications only and restrictive hardware permissions.

Run any executable on Linux. Likely by default it can access ~/Photos and the webcam. Android doesn't allow that

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Flatpak?
And some level of immutability?

It doesn't seem like much of a step for Linux distros to cover the "gap" if/when we get any sort of viable mobile options for eg 1% of the market.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago

Flatpak has promise but the sandbox much weaker than Android. I wouldn't run anything untrusted with it as sandbox escapes are likely possible. Bubblewrap is highly portable at the cost of being less secure. Kernel level sandboxing such as SElinux and Namespaces are much more bulletproof since they leverage the kernel.

Honestly if you are building something from the ground up I would instead focus on virtualization since the Linux kernel isn't exactly free of security issues.

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I've looked at a couple linux phones and those tend to be designed with hardware switches for antennas and cameras, which I would argue are more secure

[–] Turret3857 4 points 3 days ago

A hardware switch for software accessing a directory?

[–] troed@fedia.io 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

"uses regular Linux security mechanisms" is true regardless of whether any distributions you use configure them the same way or not.

The Android platform takes advantage of the Linux user-based protection to identify and isolate app resources.

As part of the Android security model, Android uses Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) to enforce mandatory access control (MAC) over all processes, even processes running with root or superuser privileges (Linux capabilities).

https://source.android.com/docs/security/features

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 days ago

Android also doesn't require root for basic functionality