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The Dumber Android Is, the Better, Say Experts

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the are-we-talking-lore-dumb-or-kryton-dumb dept.

ZDOne writes "ZDNet UK is reporting that it will not be known until the Android software development kit comes out on Monday whether the Gphone will be strictly Java-based, but security experts claim that the less smart a phone is, the less vulnerable it is. Android developers should stick to a semi-smartphone platform because the Java sandbox can protect against the normal kinds of attacks, experts claim. The article also discusses some of the pros and cons of open vs. closed source security. 'The debate about the relative security merits of open-source as opposed to proprietary software development has been a very long-running one. Open-source software development has the advantage of many pairs of eyes scrutinizing the code, meaning irregularities can be spotted and ironed out, while updates to plug vulnerabilities can be written and pushed out very quickly. However, one of the disadvantages of open-source development is that anyone can scrutinize the source code to find vulnerabilities and write exploits. The source code in proprietary software, on the other hand, can't be directly viewed, meaning vulnerabilities need to be found through reverse engineering.'"

4 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Speaking of Dumb Androids... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    looks like we have a junk science blog (Client Audit) leading the best science blog in the best Science blog award. Polls close in an hour, so Making a firehose entry won't do a bit of good because it simply won't be visible enough and I know Mods are going to knock this off topic, but durn it, vote for bad astronomy (which is in second place), heck vote for anyone, we're slashdot, we should be able to sway the vote.

    http://2007.weblogawards.org/polls/best-science-blog-1.php

  2. Are they gonna make it unhackable? by ceeam · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    $SUBJ. If so (they gonna "tivoize" it as RMS would say) I'm sure backlash will be huge. If not - it's pretty clear that "Java-only" will not hold for more than a day or two.

  3. XUL would be a better widget set by tvlinux · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    XUL is the widget set of Mozilla. Because it is XML based, it is more secure because there is less parsing and less chance of programming errors. It will also allow digitally signed remote XUL applications to run. Mozilla is working on a phone version browser.

    shaun

  4. Dumb and Dumber by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    And the more extra complexity a car has, the more there is to go wrong.

    That's why we all drive Model A Fords.

    --

    --
    make install -not war