Well It's About Time - ACLU - Android

tpatt100

HTC got hammered by the FTC, hopefully the ACLU can do something about Android in general. From what I can tell the biggest problem is phone carriers selling phones with old security holes and or quickly kicking new phones to the curb in favor of new models. I think the mobile OS market needs to redesign their operating systems to be more like Windows where you can get patches directly from the OS manufacturer.

There might be a two year support window they are aiming for I guess due to phone contracts which force you to stick with a particular model they don't even want to support anymore which I agree with. If you agree to a two year contract then security patches should be a part of your service agreement. I don't think mobile phone OS features need to be provided just the patches.

Of course AT&T, Verizon and others had excuses, not because they purposely want to hold updates for their new phones only.

I know with my Droid Razor I had a bug where I had no text displayed when I accessed the add widget menu, it got fixed with 4.1 that I got last month which 4.1 was released by Google last summer.

I think Apple dodged this due to their two year OS updates as soon as they are released with an additional year of support for older phones. Still with security fixes primarily coming from an OS upgrade they might want to rethink the design.

ACLU Files FTC Complaint Over Android Smartphone Security | American Civil Liberties Union

ACLU Files FTC Complaint Over Android Smartphone Security

Yesterday, we filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking the agency to investigate the major wireless carriers for failing to warn their customers about unpatched security flaws in the software running on their phones. These companies—AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile—have sold millions of smartphones to consumers running versions of Google’s Android operating system. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these phones never receive critical software security updates, exposing consumers and their private data to significant cybersecurity-related risks.

In a 16-page complaint filed with the FTC, we argue that the major wireless carriers have engaged in “unfair and deceptive business practices” by failing to warn their customers about known, unpatched security flaws in the mobile devices sold by the companies.


Google’s Android operating system now has more than 75% of the smartphone market, yet the majority of these devices are running software that is out of date, often with known, exploitable security vulnerabilities that have not been patched. For consumers running these devices, there is no legitimate software upgrade path. The problem isn’t that consumers aren’t installing updates, but rather, that updates simply aren’t available. Although Google’s engineers regularly fix software flaws in the Android operating system, these fixes aren’t packaged up and pushed to consumers by the wireless carriers and their handset manufacturer partners.


This is in sharp contrast to the norm on the desktop, where Mac and PCs both receive regular security updates directly from Apple and Microsoft. Apple also provides regular security updates to mobile devices, such as the iPad and iPhone. And it is standard practice for the companies that make almost all widely used software -- such as operating systems, web browsers and third party applications -- to issue regular updates to their software, including security fixes.

Jasiono

Damn. My Galaxy Note II was supposed to be updated several months ago and I never got a notification in regards. It says its up to date when I manually do it, yet I see people walking around with software that is more up to date than mine.

Bokeh

Thats one reason I went with Nexus 4. Direct updates from Google the moment they are available.