Did anyone else notice signs of "AndroidFileHost.com" being abandoned? - General Topics

Hello,
If a site like AndroidFileHost.com enters a state of abandonment, a risky period begins due to the wealthy of (legacy) data shared and linked through it, and its continued use as the #1 mirror for much of the development community.
I noticed the following signs that arouse my suspicion:
- It seems to be no longer possible for new members to gain upload rights, for instance, my application is unreviewed (not denied nor approved) for about 2 months now. I heard the same from some pals. Despite that i pointed to my XDA profile and put a good example of what my first use of that site would be, uploading firmwares. Letters about the approval, as they already have a notice box for, don't get answerred
If it was only that, i wouldn't have begun this discussion as it can be that they are just overloaded when it comes to manpower. But no, that's not just it
- Their site is inoperable very regularly, with the same SQL errors (and subtypes of errors) - indicating they just don't get to fix the causes - on many page loads and refreshes. If you keep hitting F5 the desired page may load, sometimes even after 10 tries, it seems to come in waves and then, during a day their site is affected by these errors, it may as well work for some seconds or minutes.
Example of such error, one that in fact i encountered during log in page loading today (already after their main page was hard to load due to the same type of error):
Code:
Warning: PDO::prepare(): SQLSTATE[00000]: No error: PDO constructor was not called in /web/libs/classes/SqlCache.php on line 11
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to a member function execute() on null in /web/libs/classes/SqlCache.php:16 Stack trace: #0 /web/libs/classes/SqlCache.php(40): SqlCache::runSql('SELECT pref_nam...') #1 /web/libs/classes/System.php(1308): SqlCache::getCachedSql('SQL_CACHE_SYSTE...', 'SELECT pref_nam...', 60) #2 /web/libs/classes/System.php(11): System->update() #3 /web/libs/global.inc.php(123): System->__construct('live') #4 /web/user/index.php(3): require_once('/web/libs/globa...') #5 {main} thrown in /web/libs/classes/SqlCache.php on line 16
Despite mailing them with contact form several times during several weeks, to try help them by reporting the SQL errors on page loads as well, they haven't fixed it nor ever responded, just like with the account approval inquiries. I get the strong vibe that simply no one is manning their mail boxes/processes, and again, that the service is abandoned & just kept online indefinitely.
First of all, is there anyone else that observed what i observe. Secondly, the use of this discussion may as well be that if so, XDA community may want to raise awareness of their data being at risk (abandonment is never good news in that regards), move files if they want to feel safer, or even take the initiative for creating a new main mirror service or naming known alternatives.
Or maybe someone that's close to the site operators can shed some light on what is going on, and if there is any clarity on the situation to be resolved?

If AndroidFileHost goes down, pretty much all of the legacy Android roms and tweaks go with it.
Although it seems up and uploads are recent (like 52m ago).

traman124 said:
If AndroidFileHost goes down, pretty much all of the legacy Android roms and tweaks go with it.
Although it seems up and uploads are recent (like 52m ago).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The uploads can be explained because older members still have those rights, and that infrastructure still works (everything does, outside those waves of SQL errors). How it looks like now is how many services look during early abandonment - the operators keep paying for webhosting & domain bills and it stays up on a best-effort basis, while in fact they have lost interest, got different priorities, or don't really care anymore.
Which is a risky situation as they may throw the towel in at any unexpected moment, or when the first less-than-trivial to solve roadblock comes up (no motivation, shutting down will be the easy way). I'm just recounting what past experience of looking at other services entering a state of abandonment tells me. So, if my suspicions are right, i strongly advise everyone to start saving what can be saved (make backups, move stuff, inform hosters of important files that are still active to do so & replace mirror links, etc) even while we hope it's precautions that turn out not to be needed.

@mxz55 great points… I’ll remove all my AFH files soon

Its been having issues for a few years now with SQL errors. Nothing new sadly

Oh.....

We might need all the filehoarders to download/leech everything from AFH so we can always have an archive of the legacy roms and root.

As a matter of fact the site has been significantly better since GPT-3 was released, probably allowing them to patch some things much more easily and cheaply.
Send them some cash buy the Premium yearly plan, if you ask me.

Related

Webkit vulnerability (mirror)

I threw a thread in Android general to bring awareness of an article about a webkit vulnerability that will be/is being demo'd on the Android platform.
Thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=24154035#post24154035
Article:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-57386319-245/researcher-to-demo-smartphone-attack-at-rsa/
Discuss?
Long as people practice the same rules as receiving fake facebook,banking ,etc emails than you should be ok. One advantage to desktops is you easily can hoover over the embedded link to see if its legit,report it as spam if not,& forward it to the actual company if they have department that handles phishing emails/fraud. Also from the article it doesnt say how the message was being faked as a carrier message. I normally save the short codes I use in my address book so I know whats what but I know from working customer service alotta people skip over the users manual that list the short codes & info for online saftey etc.
Yep, absolutely some common sense and safe browsing practices are important in something that is probably linked to your identity, and likely financial information.
What got me was the control over the real-time tracking ability of the device and recordings of audio (and video would not be a stretch I bet)
I haven't had a lot of time to look into it further yet, and it is a highly focused attack that is probably not of concern to the average user just yet - but given the scope of what this attack allows it's definitely something to be aware of.
Anything that lets joe-blow become a junior On-Star type peeping tom with my Android is something to worry about.
I never use the front-facing camera for anything, so it has a little piece of electrical tape cut to fit over it. No matter of software engineering can overcome that physical obstruction, but what of the microphone, gps and so on?
I'm eagerly awaiting the chance to look into this more after work tonight, meantime just wanted to throw it out there and try to get some awareness out and see what other people had to say.
I'm glad to see the first post in response here was a reminder about user-level security and explicitly cautioning people about clicking random links!
Also:
pimppoet said:
... Also from the article it doesnt say how the message was being faked as a carrier message...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the part where you get to be creative about it - you could make it anything, that was just the method they chose to get to the needed trigger, the user clicking the link.
I'm curious how they faked the carrier message too, but that doesn't mean that's the only method of injecting the desire to click into the users head.
Good points so far!
Edit:
To be honest, if it's not a click that's needed but just a visit to the website, an injection method could be to compromise an ad-serving machine that serves ads in apps and get an 'ad' that would take the user to the website inserted to what's already served to their device.
Heck, if that's viable, then you might even get them to accidentally go there with a stray touch and bam, you win.
Identification explicitly of the problem is step 1 on the path to a solution.
i am kind of in the habit that, whether an sms message is truly from the carrier or not, it's a scam either way **DELETE**
definitely worrisome, but i guess not surprising that stuff like this exists. good tho to bring it to light so that the race for patches can begin.
i'd be more worried if there was something that can attack your device without you clinking on a link or opening a message.... wait a minute, i guess a carrier could do that! tho it seems that their main interest is gathering data as research for how to sell more stuff, or to sell the data to others wanting to sell more stuff.
Blue6IX said:
Yep, absolutely some common sense and safe browsing practices are important in something that is probably linked to your identity, and likely financial information.
What got me was the control over the real-time tracking ability of the device and recordings of audio (and video would not be a stretch I bet)
I haven't had a lot of time to look into it further yet, and it is a highly focused attack that is probably not of concern to the average user just yet - but given the scope of what this attack allows it's definitely something to be aware of.
Anything that lets joe-blow become a junior On-Star type peeping tom with my Android is something to worry about.
I never use the front-facing camera for anything, so it has a little piece of electrical tape cut to fit over it. No matter of software engineering can overcome that physical obstruction, but what of the microphone, gps and so on?
I'm eagerly awaiting the chance to look into this more after work tonight, meantime just wanted to throw it out there and try to get some awareness out and see what other people had to say.
I'm glad to see the first post in response here was a reminder about user-level security and explicitly cautioning people about clicking random links!
Also:
This is the part where you get to be creative about it - you could make it anything, that was just the method they chose to get to the needed trigger, the user clicking the link.
I'm curious how they faked the carrier message too, but that doesn't mean that's the only method of injecting the desire to click into the users head.
Good points so far!
Edit:
To be honest, if it's not a click that's needed but just a visit to the website, an injection method could be to compromise an ad-serving machine that serves ads in apps and get an 'ad' that would take the user to the website inserted to what's already served to their device.
Heck, if that's viable, then you might even get them to accidentally go there with a stray touch and bam, you win.
Identification explicitly of the problem is step 1 on the path to a solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That too. I think tools like lbe,droidwall,adaway etc should come standard but I doubt it will ever since it would cut into google profits aswell.
One ad blocker I would love to see on smartphones is ad muncher since you can see the scripts,urls,etc being loaded,set your user agent for your browser to whatever you like etc.

Cydia Substrate — Native (or Java) Runtime Code Modification

Cydia Substrate is a code modification platform. It can modify the code of any major process, whether that code is written in Java or C/C++. It has been designed to support an ecosystem where many developers are interested in hooking the same processes. It is designed to be powerful and efficient.
== How do I get Substrate? ==
You can either download it from the Play Store or directly from its website.
== How do I develop for Substrate? ==
You download its SDK using the Android SDK manager or from its website. There is extensive documentation on the website.
== What is Substrate's website? ==
http://www.cydiasubstrate.com/
== How is this different from Xposed? ==
Many compare it with Xposed, but Xposed only supports a single use case: hooking Java functions inside of app_process. Substrate can hook native code, such as is required to modify the way styles are loaded inside of the Android asset manager. There are many other differences, however, as Substrate's API is based on five years of experience managing a community of runtime code modification for iOS. I normally avoid doing direct comparisons, but after attending Big Android BBQ and presenting on Substrate, I have been encouraged to make the differences and advantages of Substrate's approach more explicit here on XDA.
Xposed requires an inverted form of logic based on "before" or "after" hooks while Substrate lets the developer use more straightforward "replace and call previous" implementations. This also enables more complex interactions with the previous implementation that have been shown to be valuable among the thousands of developers using Substrate on other platforms. Xposed attempts to offer something similar with "replace" hooks, but those do not provide access to the previous implementation, and while Xposed provides a way to call the "original" implementation, that skips any other hooks that might be stacked.
Xposed requires the developer to find a safe moment to interact with the class being hooked. To make this possible, there are numerous lifecycle events such as "VM loaded", "package loaded", and "command line application started". However, this does not solve the problem that touching classes can change the order in which they statically initialize. This also means that it will not be possible to provide declarative syntax wrappers (such as Logos, which developers use on iOS) on top of Xposed, as this context will have to be made implicit in imperative logic. Substrate solves this class initialization problem by allowing developers to hook the classloader itself, getting a callback when a class is "linked" so that the developer can find a class loaded in any classloader (even as a plugin to an application an hour after that application starts, where the code is downloaded as a .dex from the Internet).
Xposed has a method hook implementation that makes it lose track of which method was hooked, requiring it to do a lookup every time such a method is called. This implementation is currently linear in the number of hooks, making it slow down the more hooks you install. Worse, there is a high constant multiplier on this algorithm, as the comparison between entries is very expensive (and was made more expensive when recently fixing a longstanding bug caused by this lookup being slightly incorrect). Substrate, in comparison, uses runtime code generation to avoid the need to every look anything up at runtime: you can use Substrate to hook small functions in tight loops without experiencing the same kind of performance issues you would see with Xposed.
Substrate is also designed with a different user focus: while it currently has a setup interface, it would prefer to not have any UI at all (and this will be strived for in subsequent versions, assuming anyone cares to use it). Upgrades to Substrate can be automatically installed by the Play Store and do not require the user to interact with Substrate for the changes to "stick". Substrate itself is distributed via Play. Rather than confine these kinds of modifications to advanced users who use forums such as XDA, the idea is that everyone should have access to using this kind of technology. If you have a ROM or another store in which you'd like to see Substrate distributed, I would be more than happy to talk to you about this to make that happen, and these installations will be fully supported.
For some more information on the differences between Xposed and Substrate (or if you are wondering why you should bother paying any attention to things that I say, as maybe you don't remember me from my earlier Android projects), I encourage you to read the comments I left a couple posts down from here on this thread that describe the history of Substrate, how I fit into the Android ecosystem, and more about how Substrate differs from Xposed. I will also likely be posting the talk I gave at Big Android BBQ (with either notes to go along with each slide or in the form of a video I will record re-giving the talk and advancing the slides), which might make some of these things more clear.
Current Changelog
[this is the changelog from Play, which has been compressed slightly. I will bring the more full changelog back, as I have it saved somewhere, and put it here or link it here]
v0.9.4011:
* fix decoder bug inside ARM emulator
* support Genymotion Intel emulator
* add symbol names for Moto X
v0.9.4010: critical Android 4.3 fix, avoid old Superuser bug
^^ must install before Android 4.3 OTA!
v0.9.4009: work around Xposed bug, 4.2 fix, better errors
v0.9.4008: HTC linker path patch, limit symbol exports
v0.9.4007: RAZR i 4.1.2, detect HTC override, avoid ps
v0.9.4005: incompatibility detector, avoid mount/ln/mkdir
v0.9.4004: Holo, Script Failure, detect physical /vendor
Comments from Developer
So, yeah: I'm the developer of Cydia Substrate, the framework everyone uses on iOS to do runtime code modification. Back in 2011, I gave a talk at Android Open along with a demo of Substrate running on Android 3.0. However, after some in-depth discussions with people there who were interested, I realized that what I had at the time "wasn't sufficient": it was just the core of an implementation, not an end-to-end offering. By the time it had everything I felt it needed to launch--including a comprehensive website filled with documentation, a configuration application to install with it, fully tested support for both ARM and x86, a forward-compatible pure Java API vetted by a bunch of the top people in the iOS modding community (as I feel like breaking APIs after launch is one of the more evil things a framework can do), and an extension that would make sense to end users that they could try (so that trade press wouldn't be horribly confused, as I knew they would report on the release)--it was already 2013.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA9cnemnQ0A <- Android Open 2011 keynote teaser
As many people then know, I released it in June. A lot of people have tried it (165k installs just from Play, and another 20k downloads of the APK off the site), and many of those people even like it enough to keep it installed and leave positive reviews, despite there being almost nothing available to use with it except WinterBoard (which I really only did as a demonstration). However, I also get comments from people who seem to believe I'm some kind of "interloper" in the world of Android. Additionally, there are the people who leave reviews saying stuff like "this is stupid, we already have Xposed" (sometimes then explicitly adding in the "go home to iOS" kind of spiel). The #1 complaint, however, is "nothing I can do with it", because developers never seem to talk about it or use it much, and the people installing it are all end users. Clearly this isn't the kind of reaction that I thought would happen, especially after having discussed Substrate at length with pulser_g2 before launch (who said that the community here tends to be very good about judging things on their usefulness and technical merits as opposed to having emotional attachments).
http://www.cydiasubstrate.com/ <- Cydia Substrate
Given this, and after an encouraging back/forth I had with some people on reddit's Android subreddit a few days ago in some threads about the analysis I did of that recent Android iMessage client (people who didn't know much about the ways in which Substrate is very different than Xposed in capability and focus), I figured I'd finally make a post on XDA. I kind of had been waiting to make this post as well, honestly (as again: I like things to be more perfect before I release them than maybe people are used to around here ;P), but it seems like I'm now waiting for something that is itself causing the delay (I had really expected to do this in July, before the whole thing got more actively depressing). This is clearly that post ;P. I've responded to a bunch of other threads here talking about Substrate (and the many other Android projects I've released) in the past, but this is the first time I've actually started a thread.
(In specific, Substrate currently doesn't support some Samsung devices due to a change they make to the linker paths, and I wanted to have 100% device coverage before making the inaugural XDA post. However, I'm finding it very demotivating to spend the time to think through all the options I've been considering for workarounds given the overall lackluster reaction to my work, so I'm not even making fast progress anymore: I tend to work on the things that people react positively to, and while I got a lot of positive reactions on the balance from users, I got much less than I expected from developers given how many people use Substrate on iOS and how powerful the framework is. I think, from some conversations I've had, this is largely due to confusion over how Substrate on Android relates to Xposed, which many people seem to think of as the "home-town competitor" "that does the same thing". I thereby figure that I may as well attempt to directly address that core motivation problem, to see if I should even bother continuing spending time helping out in this community, hence this ludicrously long and highly personal post about what is essentially a technical framework ;P.)
[Readers who find the next section boring should skip below to "=== Substrate ===".]
I imagine I (sadly) thereby need to start by defending my history in the Android community, as many people seem to not be aware of much of it; it actually goes back very far, as I had promised the overall mobile community that if Android were ever rooted, I'd immediately start looking at it in earnest (before there was a device, I had already been messing around with the emulator, but the device concepts Google had at the time were more like slightly souped-up feature phones, not competitors to something like an iPhone). So, in 2008, when that first "root console attached to keyboard" mistake was found on the G1 that let you get a root telnetd running by just typing it into any search field, I dropped everything and drove two hours to Los Angeles to pick up a G1 (they were not selling them in Santa Barbara yet, due to T-Mobile not really having a presence here at the time). As promised, I immediately set to work attempting to help out.
As I ran a number of mailing lists already for iOS, I set one up for Android called g1-hackers, which attracted a good number of people, and even a few Google employees who worked on bionic and the kernel. On this list is where the G1's bootloader was first dumped: if you've ever heard the stories about Eddie Dost figuring out how to do it, this is that. In fact, it was from my G1, with a kernel I compiled (following Eddie's direction: I did not know much about flash drivers), that that first Android NAND was obtained (as Eddie had already updated his device and thereby didn't actually have root). Here is a link to the mailing list thread, directly to the post where we finally succeeded and I provided the kernel image I used so that others could perform the same dump on their own devices.
http://www.telesphoreo.org/pipermail/g1-hackers/2008-December/000096.html <- [g1-hackers] G1 boot code
Around that same time, I was also contributing to AOSP, providing a bunch of patches to things like mount and init, as I wanted to be able to get Android devices to a state where they could run something much closer to Debian than Android (I had my eyes set on kind of a hybrid). In the process of doing this, I wrote a guide that for a couple years subsequent were the canonical instructions for getting a bootstrapped build of Debian installed as a chroot under Android. At the time the patch turnaround on AOSP was sometimes over half a year (and almost never shorter than a couple months), which made contributing to the project sufficiently painful that I eventually stopped. If you search through Android's codebase, though, you still find some of my work.
http://www.saurik.com/id/10 <- Debian & Android Together on G1
At the time, I honestly do not remember XDA having yet become "the place" where people spent much time talking about Android: instead, a lot of conversation happened on IRC (which is where the iOS community had already been, and where it remains). There was a channel that I was a part of which included a bunch of people whose names would hopefully be familiar to people around here, including JesusFreke (and, much later, Cyanogen). I got to see the birth of a lot of great websites and tools (such as JesusFreke's smali/baksmali) while participating on that channel. Apparently, I was talking about "Substrate for Dalvik" on that channel in November of 2008 (which is also when I first joined XDA): that's how long I've been staring at this ;P.
During the next couple years, I ended up developing and maintaining a website called Cyrket, which had the mission to allow developers and users to search the contents of the Android Market using their desktop web browser. It also solved a few key problems that developers had with comments, in that you could only see comments for apps your device had access to that were then written in your language. Developers without devices, or with devices that could not see their product (which often included those that paid extra for the ADP1, which could not see copy-protected apps) could not see comments at all. Cyrket presented all of the comments for your application in all regions in all languages (and even used Google Translate to translate them all into your own language).
The way Cyrket had worked is that I scraped the contents of the Market using the same protocol Google's client used, indexed it (supporting find-as-you-type search), and exported it all to the site (well, originally, it was actually just a live client, but then it got really popular ;P). It got me into some mild trouble occasionally with the Android Market team, but overall no one seemed to mind it that much. Cyrket was actually the primary site people used for this purpose for a long time, and I even got the impression that people at Google were begrudgingly using it as it was more convenient than the alternatives. There were a few times where it had to be taken offline (due to changes and rate limits from Google), one time for months, but I'd usually figure out some new way to get it running. Honestly, though: I was really glad when Google finally launched a website for the Market and I was able to stop working on Cyrket ;P (and also glad that Google added most of Cyrket's features for developers to their publishing console, features that Apple actually still doesn't have AFAIK).
http://www.androidtapp.com/cyrket-android-market-browser-back-from-awol/ <- Cyrket Android Market Browser Back from AWOL!
Since those times, I mostly felt the need to get Substrate "awesome" (which started to really come together during 2011, after Cyrket was no longer needed), and so didn't do many larger projects on Android until recently. That said, I have been involved in things related to exploits and security. One of the higher impact things that I did was to release mempodroid, an implementation of the mempodipper exploit described by Jason A. Donenfeld for Linux 2.6.39+, which became the primary method to root devices running Android versions 4.0.0 through 4.0.2. Much more recently, users have been using Impactor, my implementation of the various "Master Key" exploits (based both on bugs described by Jeff Forristal as well as techniques I pioneered against a random AOSP bug).
https://github.com/saurik/mempodroid <- mempodroid README
http://www.saurik.com/id/17 <- Exploit (& Fix) Android "Master Key"
Given all of this, I hope people can get a feeling for just how strange and depressing it feels to me when people seem to suddenly believe I'm some kind of foreign invader . (FWIW, I also feel rather awkward having to describe all of this in this fashion, but frankly I'm at a point where I'm realizing that if I don't explain it in this much detail myself, no one else will. While I'm certain I'll get some people responding really negatively with comments like "he's such a blowhard, going on and on about silly little things he did", so far when I've given similar spiels to people in person at conferences, they often go "oh wow, I remember that tool/happening, but didn't remember that that was also you", and so figure that this might go a long way to fixing this weird problem: I'm not just "that iOS jailbreak guy".)
=== Substrate ===
Alright, now with that aside: in time for Google I/O (which was arguably bad timing, as I was then immediately unavailable for days ;P), I finally released Substrate. Substrate (in my clearly biased opinion ;P) is actually really cool: as far as I know, it is currently the only tool available for Android that allows developers to easily modify native code without patching/replacing. I know, for example, that people often ask how to modify features like the holo themes that are implemented in C, and the answer is Substrate: if you can find the code (which is often exposed via a symbol as there are tons of C++ symbols available on most Android builds) you can use Substrate to hook it at runtime in a way that avoids having to patch the files on disk, allows developers to deploy their changes across multiple ROMs, and supports the idea that users should be in charge of the specific features that they have on their devices (as opposed to ROM distributions).
As another concrete example that maybe makes this more obvious: sometimes you download a program from the Play Store (which, incidentally, I have a very hard time not constantly still calling the Android Market ;P) that is pretty much just a massive JNI binary--maybe an OpenGL game or a media player of some sort--that refuses to run on a device that has been rooted. A really common way that developers implement such checks is to do things like verify the existence of files on disk. The simple/common checks are very easy to detect and defeat using Substrate as you can hook the native "open" call from the C standard library, check if the filename is something like /system/xbin/su, and return "nope, not there".
http://www.cydiasubstrate.com/api/c/MSHookFunction/ <- MSHookFunction()
Substrate lets you do this kind of hooking in any system daemon (not just those spawed via app_process). Yes: if there's a program running in the background of your phone, some native service written by the OEM that manufactured the device, you can use Substrate to modify it. A lot of very interesting extensions on iOS involve these kinds of hack; for an extreme example, the software unlocks that we used to have for earlier iPhones involved modifying CommCenter, a native program that initializes the radio hardware: by hooking some of the code in that daemon, it was possible to, at just the right moment, inject a different command sequence over the serial connection to the baseband, exploiting it for the unlock.
http://www.cydiasubstrate.com/inject/android/ <- Android Native Injection
Of course, Substrate also supports hooking Java code (yes, a little like Xposed, which at some level uses the same underlying trick I walked people through in my talk at Android Open 2011). Somehow, though, a lot of developers don't seem to catch all that other stuff that Substrate lets you do, and get hung up on this one part that Xposed also manages, leading to all those aforementioned irritating comments about how "there's no point to Substrate because we already have Xposed": Xposed can't do most of the things Substrate can do (and the developer has even told me that he actively tries to avoid Substrate-like techniques as they are "pretty complicated", so it isn't even moving in that direction). FWIW, on iOS it took a lot of time for Substrate to get these features (it did not have them in 2008 when I first released it): they aren't trivial ;P.
http://www.cydiasubstrate.com/api/java/MS.hookMethod/ <- MS.hookMethod()
Even within the restricted context of modifications to Java, however, I think Substrate has a lot to offer. Again: I actively refused to release Substrate until I felt I had truly nailed a few things, including in particular the Java API (at Android Open 2011, I only supported JNI, which developers there told me would not lead to traction). I was a major proponent of aspect-oriented programming when I was younger, I got into byte-code engineering in college, and I co-published a paper on a Java code modification framework called jMonitor in 2004: this is something I've been thinking about for a long time, and I think the approach I take has some merit in and of itself. I know a lot more can be done (I feel it would be really interesting to have AspectJ-style pointcuts, for example, or the kind of bytecode-level instruction matching that I implemented as part of jMonitor <- features not described in the paper, I think ;P), but I felt a good first step was be to directly leverage the iOS community's six years of experience.
http://www.cydiasubstrate.com/id/6dfa187d-6e04-4f97-b63a-ae75b5338e01/ <- jMonitor [RV '04]
To this end, Substrate provides an API for Java that is very analogous to the API that it provides for modifying C/C++ and Objective-C. The focus is on "I know about some code and I want to modify it", allowing you to not have to think much about the timing or execution details of the program that may be loading that code (so you never have to think about "packages" or "processes" or "applications": you just concentrate on "classes", and thereby don't need a million "helper APIs" to handle each narrow timing case). To enable this, I use the aforementioned ability of Substrate to modify native code to hack features into the VM itself, giving me the ability to instrument events like "a class has been loaded". If you want to hook a method of a class from Apache Commons, and you want to hook that class no matter whether it was loaded as part of an application or dynamically as part of a classloader for a plugin downloaded by an application, this is trivial to express with Substrate. AFAIK, that use case isn't even describable using Xposed.
http://www.cydiasubstrate.com/api/java/MS.hookClassLoad/ <- MS.hookClassLoad()
This kind of VM-level modification and runtime code generation support (that is heavily flexed on iOS Substrate, and thereby has had years of in-the-field testing; so far Android has exposed just one bug in its ARM reassembler after release, and that was only in the qemu emulator for some reason) also means that Substrate's implementation of hooks is highly efficient: to compare again to Xposed, every time a method that has been hooked is called via Xposed, there is a linear-time search through a linked list doing a rather heavyweight comparison to determine which method it was after the fact; with Substrate, every call is direct, there are no lookups, and there are no comparisons, so you can hook an arbitrary number of methods with no slow down, so even very small methods that are called very often can be hooked without issue.
Additionally, with Substrate I wanted to address a specific pain point that many people would bring up when I'd give talks: "how is this secure, and how do I control what apps can use these features". This became even more important, as I wanted Substrate extensions on Android to be easily deployable via conventional means, such as the Play Store (yes: Cydia Substrate itself is in the Play Store, as I believe it is important for these kinds of features to not just be in the hands of developers on forums, but to be used by end users everywhere). To this end, I integrate into the Android security model, providing a special permission that applications must have to install a Substrate extension. This helps enable the idea that Substrate mostly "gets out of the way", becoming more of a technical detail behind your extension rather than something users will need to interact with constantly to activate or update your product.
I also wanted to provide at least something that would help solve the "reflection hell" that developers seem to always find themselves in while attempting to do runtime code modification in Java (even back on desktop Java using AspectJ). I thereby provide the means to "bless" a class loader, allowing it to access private fields and classes without the overhead of reflection: the access checks, for just that one class loader, no longer apply. Substrate extensions are loaded into such a "blessed" classloader. (I do not, even though I could, ever just whack an access check VM-wide; Xposed does this, and I feel like it is going to have security implications on Java security contexts applied to class loaders for plugins.) In the case of WinterBoard, for example, I don't ever have to deal with invoking Methods or getting Fields: setAccessible is just a dim memory.
Being able to use this functionality, however, can be awkward, and in some cases is almost impossible: while testing this feature, I realized that developers would end up needing "public stubs" for all the classes they were working with, but the calling convention for a public method and a private one is different, so the calls fail at runtime. I thereby ship as part of the Substrate SDK (yes, there's an easily-updated SDK package that you can download using the Android SDK Manager ;P) an extension to javac itself (as you might imagine at this point, written using AspectJ) that turns off access control checks: you can thereby access private fields or call private methods with no extra work both during development and at runtime. This all works sufficiently well that I generally run all of ant under the modification, such that anything ant compiles becomes "blessed".
http://www.cydiasubstrate.com/id/c17c554f-b603-4e3b-8f99-ebb3528e3ef8/ <- Java Access Controls
(And yes: this is one of the things that caused Substrate to get delayed even longer than it already had been. There was also a rather serious delay caused by my attempts to really nail the boundary between "code that is shipped with Substrate" and "code that is shipped with the extension", something that burned me a lot throughout 2013 as it was the kind of problem that spending time actively thinking about didn't directly help, requiring an epiphany I had soon before Google I/O. Arguably had I been willing to ship without documentation at all, and had I generally cared less, I would probably have had everything out in very early 2012, but during January-May I started working on the initial draft of cydiasubstrate.com, as I had apparently incorrectly thought that such efforts would be critical to developer adoption.)
Again, I write this in the hope that it clears up misconceptions, either about myself or about Substrate. As far as I can tell, Substrate has a lot of very unique value propositions: things that currently are only made possible by Substrate; and, even within the restricted scope of hooking Java code inside of a service being managed by Zygote (the only area of overlap with Xposed), I think that it offers a bunch of advantages in security, performance, deployment, and ease of development that cannot be so casually dismissed with a flippant "we already have Xposed (go home)". A lot of these features (and I haven't even gone into all of them: I could write paragraphs about the advantages of how Substrate's API handles chained hooks, the ways I enable extensions that need to cross classloader boundaries, or the way Substrate makes it easy for end users to temporarily disable extensions without complex tooling) come from having spent over a decade now thinking about this problem and the last five years actively managing a developer ecosystem with tens of millions of users on iOS.
I am thereby happy to answer any questions about how to use Substrate, issues with Substrate on any device (I never blame the device: I might not have a fix immediately for a specific problem, but I always consider it Substrate's job to work around issues the device throws at it to get its functionality in place so the task will at least end up on my todo list), or even about me (as a lot of why I find writing this both so important and so painful are due to the occasional-yet-present more-personal attacks/misconceptions I often seem to receive about somehow being an "outsider"). (That said, please do have some patience: sometimes my ravenous need to do nearly 24/7 testing on a specific device has to give way so I can go to a conference I'm giving a talk at, or so I can focus on a different problem that might be more pressing or simply have a higher probability of near-term success: spending an infinite amount of time on one problem is unfair to all of the other problems that exist ;P.) [And, in fact, I have a meeting I have to be at tonight, but which hopefully won't take insanely long.]
Reserved Post
["reserved", as apparently you always should have at least one of these ;P]
Links to Extension Threads
[and finally, I can see ending up with a page that might link to other threads on XDA, although arguably I should put this on cydiasubstrate.com. right now, most projects that use Substrate are in Play. I am not certain if I'm now just misunderstanding how to use XDA, though: again, this is my first thread I've started myself]
Wow. The timing couldn't be any more perfect for you to post this.
I do not have an Android device yet and have been theorizing exactly how I could easily make modifications to applications.
Because I am just getting started in the Android development community, I don't have any biases towards one framework or the other.
Sooo.... this is on my watch list.
gugbot said:
Wow. The timing couldn't be any more perfect for you to post this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The opinion of many (reasonable) people differ ;P.
gugbot said:
Sooo.... this is on my watch list.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yay! If you have a moment, I'm curious: how/why did you find this thread? It seems like very few people actually go to this "Frameworks" sub-forum; there are almost no threads posted to it except the one about Xposed, which I'm presuming people must be finding by links from other places (whether random websites or other threads on XDA).
saurik said:
The opinion of many (reasonable) people differ ;P.
Yay! If you have a moment, I'm curious: how/why did you find this thread? It seems like very few people actually go to this "Frameworks" sub-forum; there are almost no threads posted to it except the one about Xposed, which I'm presuming people must be finding by links from other places (whether random websites or other threads on XDA).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was browsing in development tools and was surprised to see that a Saurik posted about Cydia Substrate!
I was brought to this forum by one about theme development?... Maybe you should post this in a forum with more traffic. There seems to be an endless amount of categories for everything.
i have try your cydia substrate on cm10.1.3 stable..device samsung i9300..
install winterboard..apply icon pack but icon pack not applied..
then when want to open other apps the apps fc..except winterboard..
slipar said:
i have try your cydia substrate on cm10.1.3 stable..device samsung i9300..
install winterboard..apply icon pack but icon pack not applied..
then when want to open other apps the apps fc..except winterboard..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, as I mention in this thread WinterBoard was more of a demo that has been difficult to justify improvements to . This isn't an issue with Substrate, at least.
Would you mind sending me the crash report from the adb log? At least, would you mind telling me the name of the theme you applied? Also, thinking about it, CyanogenMod already has a theme engine... it never occurred to me how WinterBoard would interact with the existing theme engine in CyanogenMod (although I guess thinking even longer about it, I see no reason why it would fail horribly... it should just layer on top).
saurik said:
Yeah, as I mention in this thread WinterBoard was more of a demo that has been difficult to justify improvements to . This isn't an issue with Substrate, at least.
Would you mind sending me the crash report from the adb log? At least, would you mind telling me the name of the theme you applied? Also, thinking about it, CyanogenMod already has a theme engine... it never occurred to me how WinterBoard would interact with the existing theme engine in CyanogenMod (although I guess thinking even longer about it, I see no reason why it would fail horribly... it should just layer on top).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hope i send u the correct logcat..
im using ios7 concept theme..g play link here
slipar said:
hope i send u the correct logcat..
im using ios7 concept theme..g play link here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you so much for the information. Here is a new version of WinterBoard that seems to work with this theme.
http://cache.saurik.com/apks/com.saurik.winterboard_0.9.3922.apk
thanx saurik..tested but this time winterboard just fc when try to change theme..
logcat attach..
slipar said:
thanx saurik..tested but this time winterboard just fc when try to change theme..
logcat attach..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry about that issue... this is actually quite interesting to me as it might indicate that I need to do some more work on the blessed compiler as it relates to miranda methods. I had verified that the theme functioned, but had not gone back to attempt to re-verify the setup activity itself, which I guess hadn't been recompiled in a long time. I've added a temporary workaround to the issue while I investigate further. ("Humorously", if you have Xposed installed, I am pretty certain that the WinterBoard settings activity would have worked, as Xposed just destroys the access control checks for the entire VM.)
http://test.saurik.com/xda/com.saurik.winterboard_0.9.3922+1.gf733f01.apk
Hey there, I just happened upon this thread while deeply perusing the boards after just getting home from a 17hr drive and being unable to go to sleep yet. I am VERY interested in the substrates capabilities, it sounds like a very interesting concept. I am a new developer and am wanting to learn more and play more....I use xposed on my phone now and was considering starting to develop modules for it, buuuttt I think I just changed my mind I'm on an att sgs4 running a 4.3ge Rom. Going to install the substrate the night via Play Store and mess around with it starting tomorrow. Thanks for this
Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk
Sc4ryB3ar said:
I'm on an att sgs4 running a 4.3ge Rom. Going to install the substrate the night via Play Store and mess around with it starting tomorrow. Thanks for this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yay! (Now, watch your GT-I9505G be one of those few Samsung devices Substrate detects as incompatible ;P. Samsung has so many model numbers that all map to the same high-level marketing names that it's difficult to keep track of what's what. If that happens, and you are interested in helping out, I can implement one of my alternative injectors quickly for you to work with.)
saurik said:
Yay! (Now, watch your GT-I9505G be one of those few Samsung devices Substrate detects as incompatible ;P. Samsung has so many model numbers that all map to the same high-level marketing names that it's difficult to keep track of what's what. If that happens, and you are interested in helping out, I can implement one of my alternative injectors quickly for you to work with.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It installed just fine, quickly and with no apparent issues
winterboard, however rendered neither theme I chose correctly, wondering if its the themes though.... Didn't get a logcat and then I hosed my system last night messing around too much, so I started fresh and haven't gotten back to substrate and wb yet....I'll be back to it withing a couple of hours
Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk
substrate source code
Saurik,
I've been dabbling some with Cydia Substrate and it seems to offer a lot of unique possibilities for Android apps.
Do you have any plans to release the source code for this like you did on iOS? I'd be very curious to learn more about how it works. Also, is there a link to your talk from the Android Open conference?
Thanks,
Fred
(Ugh. I have no clue how people keep up with a forum, especially with the website as slow to load every page as it is ;P.)
fjones8856 said:
Do you have any plans to release the source code for this like you did on iOS? I'd be very curious to learn more about how it works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I currently do have an intention to release the source code, but I'm not certain under what license (all of the licenses I normally use don't solve the specific issues related to Substrate). That said, no one seems to care much about Substrate on Android: on iOS people tend to (almost to a level of it being a problem) jump on new solutions to evaluate constantly, whereas on Android people seem to just snark "we already have X" even when there are compelling advantages to a replacement. Given this situation, I am highly unmotivated to spend the time to figure out the right solution, given that in a way Substrate is "my magnum opus": it is the culmination of the research and experience of so many years of my life, that passing up the ability to license it to the companies that sometimes talk to me about that (for either enterprise wrapping or security) to satisfy a group of people who are mostly asking for the source code specifically to replicate the technique *and then avoid using Substrate*, makes very little sense.
On the project side of it, Substrate on iOS only ever received a single code contribution from someone I wasn't already so close with that I was sharing code already. It isn't even the kind of project that one would expect getting many contributions: it is more of a backend technology, and the extent to which it has a GUI is actually a bug (I intend for it to be 100% seamless as part apps that use it: Substrate on iOS does not have a GUI and never will have a GUI, and that's how I think it really should work on Android as well, but of course right now I need the silly Install button). If anything, on iOS, we often end up with random companies that want to "own the scene", which ends up with them forking Substrate in ways that cause platform incompatibilities for other developers: Substrate on iOS has thereby actually been closed source now for almost two years, and it has actually improved the stability of the platform. I thereby am somewhat loath to "repeat the same mistakes from before" and end up with forks.
fjones8856 said:
Also, is there a link to your talk from the Android Open conference?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There was no recording of the actual talk, just of the keynote introduction that I already link to from my website. In the talk I walked people through a demonstration of using an early version of the JNI-level Substrate API, and showed how it worked (which was very simple at the time). In essence, I demonstrated, with my exact code on the projection, the technique that Xposed started using half a year later (which is just "oh, I'll change the contents of this Method object, as apparently the runtime doesn't care if the Method is allocated as part of a Class; if I do it right I can simulate registerNatives") and the most obvious way of implementing MSJavaHookClassLoad (which--for the really really low-level API I had at the time, on pre-4.0 VMs that didn't have complex JNI stacks--is clearly "MSHookFunction the class load and provide a callback"). Everything is going to be new for ART, though: the techniques are going to have to be much more sophisticated (which I'm excited by, as this is a game changer).
Pm sent
Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk

[CVE-2014-3153][root] Linux kernels < 3.14.5

CVE-2014-3153 was published 5 June 2014.
Affected Kernels: <= 3.14.5 (see specifics)
Affected Devices: Multiple!
As of last night, security researcher @geohot proved that the Samsung Galaxy S5 from AT&T
was vulnerable, by gaining root. He also believes the Verizon version is affected.
The details of this can be found here:
http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2014/q2/467
http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2014-3153
http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2014-3153
http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/27fl04/another_linux_kernel_exploit_this_time_reachable/
The description of the vulnerability is best described by the comments from the experts themselves:
From seclists.org:
Pinkie Pie discovered an issue in the futex subsystem that allows a local user to gain ring 0 control via the futex syscall. An unprivileged user could use this flaw to crash the kernel (resulting in denial of service) or for privilege escalation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Specifically, the futex syscall can leave a queued kernel waiter hanging on the stack. By manipulating the stack with further syscalls, the waiter structure can be altered. When later woken up, the altered waiter can result in arbitrary code execution in ring 0. This flaw is especially urgent to fix because futex tends to be available within most Linux sandboxes (because it is used as a glibc pthread primitive).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a serious flaw from all levels, as one commenter state:
Indeed. This is probably the biggest security flaw in Linux in the past 5 years (if not the biggest ever) since it allows a full kernel compromise even from extremely tight sandboxes...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or as user gsuberland writes and explains in this Reddit thread:
Ok, so I read the code, and I think I know what's happening. A futex is a "fast usermode mutex", which is kind of locking mechanism for memory pages that prevents bad things like two threads writing to a page at the same time.
There's a function in the implementation called futex_requeue(), which "requeues waiters from uaddr1 to uaddr2". I'm not really sure what that means, but basically uaddr1 is the address of a source futex in user-mode memory, and uaddr2 is the address of a destination futex in user-mode memory. But, because it was assumed that they'd always be distinct, the code provisions a bunch of stuff expecting to have two objects to deal with, and in the end some of them are just left there doing nothing - they point to uninitialised structures or memory.
Basically, the trick is that if you get a futex and call futex_requeue() with your futex as both uaddr1 and uaddr2, the structure that describes the futex (in user-mode memory, which you can access) is left with "dangling pointers", i.e. pointers to memory that hasn't been allocated yet. By then looking at those pointers and allocating memory to the locations it describes, you can write your own stuff there. Once execution passes down to kernel-mode, you've essentially got a situation where kernel-mode code is using data that you control, but in a context where it expects the data to be trusted. This could lead to all sorts of nasty stuff like read-what-where or write-what-where conditions, which can be used to privesc.
I probably got some of this wrong so don't quote me, but hopefully I at least described the core of the issue correctly.
EDIT: Also, I don't know why this is linked to as an "exploit". The Chrome bit makes sense once you read OP's comment about the sandbox escape - basically Chrome didn't restrict certain futex-related calls which could be used to trigger this bug. I still don't know how exploitable it is, though, or which vector would be used to exploit it. As far as I can tell it's just a "this is probably bad" situation until someone finds kernel-mode futex code that can be messed with by crafting data to coincide with the dangling pointers. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since geohot said he wouldn't be releasing the exploit publicly, can we talk a bit of methodology/implementation. I for one would really like to get this moving forward for those having att & vzw. Basically, what do we need to do to trigger the futex_requeue error utilising chrome?
ks3rv3rg said:
Since geohot said he wouldn't be releasing the exploit publicly, can we talk a bit of methodology/implementation. I for one would really like to get this moving forward for those having att & vzw. Basically, what do we need to do to trigger the futex_requeue error utilising chrome?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did I read right that it said you need a ChromeOS to be able to trigger it?
ks3rv3rg said:
Since geohot said he wouldn't be releasing the exploit publicly, can we talk a bit of methodology/implementation. I for one would really like to get this moving forward for those having att & vzw. Basically, what do we need to do to trigger the futex_requeue error utilising chrome?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
kprice8 said:
Did I read right that it said you need a ChromeOS to be able to trigger it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You do not need to execute this through Chrome. It is a generic flaw in the Linux kernel, that happens to be shared on many, many Android devices. I have been studying this for the Razr M (vulnerable), and have been coming up with theories how to implement this...
Basically, the futex_requeue error allows a segment of code to be written to memory, and then executed as root. This means that you can modify system files through this error, meaning that you can write scripting that will gain root, save it to the memory, and execute it.
I am trying to implement this on my Razr M, and have even more incentive seeing that it was used of the Galaxy successfully. I don't have a lot of experience in this area, but am researching a lot and have a couple of theories to try out.
I should note that this is just my understanding on the exploit, and I am only in the very early stages researching it... I could be completely wrong.
For those wanting to root a device using this vuln:
I don't believe this is a good vulnerability to target Android devices with, the difficulty is beyond most of us (myself included), and the success rate is going to be rather low on all/many/most devices. A more successful approach would be to spend the research time seeking another vulnerability.
ks3rv3rg said:
Since geohot said he wouldn't be releasing the exploit publicly, can we talk a bit of methodology/implementation. I for one would really like to get this moving forward for those having att & vzw. Basically, what do we need to do to trigger the futex_requeue error utilising chrome?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Chrome is not needed, Pinkie Pie used this vulnerability in conjunction with Chrome vulnerabilities when collecting a Chrome bounty (I could be wrong, I'm assuming without researching).
kprice8 said:
Did I read right that it said you need a ChromeOS to be able to trigger it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, see above
xKroniK13x said:
You do not need to execute this through Chrome. It is a generic flaw in the Linux kernel, that happens to be shared on many, many Android devices. I have been studying this for the Razr M (vulnerable), and have been coming up with theories how to implement this...
Basically, the futex_requeue error allows a segment of code to be written to memory, and then executed as root. This means that you can modify system files through this error, meaning that you can write scripting that will gain root, save it to the memory, and execute it.
I am trying to implement this on my Razr M, and have even more incentive seeing that it was used of the Galaxy successfully. I don't have a lot of experience in this area, but am researching a lot and have a couple of theories to try out.
I should note that this is just my understanding on the exploit, and I am only in the very early stages researching it... I could be completely wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you test my Pie exploit on that device?
jcase said:
For those wanting to root a device using this vuln:
I don't believe this is a good vulnerability to target Android devices with, the difficulty is beyond most of us (myself included), and the success rate is going to be rather low on all/many/most devices. A more successful approach would be to spend the research time seeking another vulnerability.
Chrome is not needed, Pinkie Pie used this vulnerability in conjunction with Chrome vulnerabilities when collecting a Chrome bounty (I could be wrong, I'm assuming without researching).
No, see above
Can you test my Pie exploit on that device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I am willing to test it, however, I believe it is confirmed not working for the 2012 Droid series (HD, MAXX, M).
Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
xKroniK13x said:
Yes, I am willing to test it, however, I believe it is confirmed not working for the 2012 Droid series (HD, MAXX, M).
Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me know, it was working a few months ago but may have been patched
Sent from my MotoX+1 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
jcase said:
Let me know, it was working a few months ago but may have been patched
Sent from my MotoX+1 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe it was patched with the KK update, but I'll let you know later today. If you have anything else to test just let me know!
Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 11:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:13 AM ----------
jcase said:
Let me know, it was working a few months ago but may have been patched
Sent from my MotoX+1 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It indeed failed,
Code:
rm failed for /data/local/atvc/blop.asec, No such file or directory
rm failed for /data/local/atvc/blop, No such file or directory
If there's any other ideas, let me know, I'd be glad to help. We can also move to PM's if you would prefer. :good:
xKroniK13x said:
I believe it was patched with the KK update, but I'll let you know later today. If you have anything else to test just let me know!
Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 11:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:13 AM ----------
It indeed failed,
Code:
rm failed for /data/local/atvc/blop.asec, No such file or directory
rm failed for /data/local/atvc/blop, No such file or directory
If there's any other ideas, let me know, I'd be glad to help. We can also move to PM's if you would prefer. :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those errors are meaning less, just pre-emptive clean up. If it didn't work, it is probably patched
jcase said:
For those wanting to root a device using this vuln:
I don't believe this is a good vulnerability to target Android devices with, the difficulty is beyond most of us (myself included), and the success rate is going to be rather low on all/many/most devices. A more successful approach would be to spend the research time seeking another vulnerability.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you know how difficult it is, if you haven't done it?
Most of the time difficulties are overcome by new ideas and fresh angles.
And all of the time I am wondering who you "actually" work for?
And now I wonder how the #$^# (mod edit) you can be more "successful" looking
for unknown vulnerabilities, when you have a great one already sitting
on your desk?
Basically you're saying; if you venture out to planet X and look for new fish in
the oceans there, you're less likely to go hungry, than if you figure out how
to cook and eat the one in your home aquarium. I just don't understand why
you would say such a thing.
E:V:A said:
How do you know how difficult it is, if you haven't done it?
Most of the time difficulties are overcome by new ideas and fresh angles.
And all of the time I am wondering who you "actually" work for?
And now I wonder how the #$^# (mod edit) you can be more "successful" looking
for unknown vulnerabilities, when you have a great one already sitting
on your desk?
Basically you're saying; if you venture out to planet X and look for new fish in
the oceans there, you're less likely to go hungry, than if you figure out how
to cook and eat the one in your home aquarium. I just don't understand why
you would say such a thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For one, if you want your threads to stay open, don't curse at mods giving you accurate advice.
I know it is difficult because I spend all day researching android security and actually looked at it?
Who I work for is well public, it was even published on XDA's portal. As they say, the search feature is your friend. Who do you work for? Since mine is public, and you questioned mine, I think you should make your's public.
How you can be more successful? Because for most people capable of developing at futex exploit, it would take less time locate an easier vulnerability. Even GeoHot took 4 days to develop his futex exploit, and it has something like a 10% success rate. I do believe his skill level in this field is beyond most of the people posting in this sub forum.
If you go to planet X, and you see a fish that is obviously extremely hard to catch by looking at it, and it is also slippery so once you catch it it might escape, or you see a bunch of trees that probably have plenty of bananas if you go an Look. Where do you go for your food supply? Do you spend a months trying to eat the fish, or a few hours picking bananas? Of course you go and find the bananas.
jcase said:
For one, if you want your threads to stay open, don't curse at mods giving you accurate advice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know that I know better, than cursing at the mods I most often find helpful.
That is just a quirk of English, that "you" can be very personal or it can be
the completely opposite. I was simply Cursing out Loud. (CUL?)
Anyway, I have the right to question such statements regardless of their origin. And at that, it was not clear at all that you actually had been looking closer at it. BTW. I don't really care who you work for. Just a flash in my mind, that I should have kept to myself.
Thanks anyway.
Can people please quit arguing and just find a mostly successful exploit? No good is coming from any of this. Every thread I read is 90% bickering and 10% people volunteering to test when a method is ready. If I knew anything about how this stuff works I would be too busy digging to post complaints. Just saying.
weasel87 said:
Can people please quit arguing and just find a mostly successful exploit? No good is coming from any of this. Every thread I read is 90% bickering and 10% people volunteering to test when a method is ready. If I knew anything about how this stuff works I would be too busy digging to post complaints. Just saying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Everything is cool now. There's a lot of stuff bubbling under that will surely surface soon. Some which already have. Just search XDA for "S5 root".
"..There's a function in the implementation called futex_requeue(), which "requeues waiters from uaddr1 to uaddr2". I'm not really sure what that means, but basically uaddr1 is the address of a source futex in user-mode memory, and uaddr2 is the address of a destination futex in user-mode memory. But, because it was assumed that they'd always be distinct, the code provisions a bunch of stuff expecting to have two objects to deal with, and in the end some of them are just left there doing nothing - they point to uninitialised structures or memory.
Basically, the trick is that if you get a futex and call futex_requeue() with your futex as both uaddr1 and uaddr2, the structure that describes the futex (in user-mode memory, which you can access) is left with "dangling pointers", i.e. pointers to memory that hasn't been allocated yet. By then looking at those pointers and allocating memory to the locations it describes, you can write your own stuff there. Once execution passes down to kernel-mode, you've essentially got a situation where kernel-mode code is using data that you control, but in a context where it expects the data to be trusted..."
aah, terminal - "man futex" .. the man pages -
http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/futex.2.html
how it ties in with the mobile phones, it has to do with the network sockets within the android (linux) kernel..
even the nexus 5 is reported to be issued an security update in relaton to this - https://community.sprint.com/baw/thread/163896 & that's only labeled a *security patch*...
these socket views came up some years ago, in the gnome d.e. & was asked about, & they're all related to network timing sockets -
What is the “Waiting Channel” of a process?
~good link~
you could actually see them, then analyze them later with the netstat command, & see the process in action via **cat /proc/some_pid/stack** in a shell..
in the upper userspace, you can *feel* it on action on your phone;
especially on a nexus 5 on sprint -
it's single path at a time triband rf chip when it lulls to/from lte to 3g at times, some ppl complain they see a *telephone calls unavailable now* or something to that nature,
or wifi that won't catch when turned on
or an lte signal that simply won't latch, keeping them stuck on 3g..
underneath in that chipset, it's like a human mind processing a blank for a few trying to decide before acting,
** it's that dead moment**
right then, that this issue speaks of, like below from that gnome link in '10..
1.A task can be either a Process3 or a Thread2
2.A Thread is a sub-section of a Process. Many threads can run parallel
3.A process is a full-blown program, it consists of one or more threads, though a program can consist of multiple processes as well.
4.Remember, this is still a very high level view of things, it's not considering the implementation details
•
__skb_recv_datagram
Wait for some data on a locked network socket.
•
sk_wait_data
Wait for some data on a network socket.
•
do_exit
This is the last part of quitting a process. do_exit() calls the schedule() next, to schedule another process. When do_exit() is called, the process is a ZOMBIE.
•
do_wait
A process is added to the schedulers wait queue.
•
pipe_wait, unix_stream_data_wait
A Process is waiting for data from a subprocess. This happens, for example, when you run this sort of code:
ooh, the *top* command can expose the upper levels of those processes also!
you know when i can *see* it?
when i'm listening to music while riding the subway underground with my nexus 5;
as my signal changes between stops losing service, re-gaining it.. it effects the volume of the music, this morning, the train had to pause between stops in a tunnel, & my music player sounded kind of muffled but the music was, edible for my ears, that pause in the tunel, made the nexus 5 lose total signal, & BAM, that loss, of processing in the networking , gave me gain in volume with the music player!
it's related to one chip doing all the work...
xKroniK13x said:
You do not need to execute this through Chrome. It is a generic flaw in the Linux kernel, that happens to be shared on many, many Android devices. I have been studying this for the Razr M (vulnerable), and have been coming up with theories how to implement this...
Basically, the futex_requeue error allows a segment of code to be written to memory, and then executed as root. This means that you can modify system files through this error, meaning that you can write scripting that will gain root, save it to the memory, and execute it.
I am trying to implement this on my Razr M, and have even more incentive seeing that it was used of the Galaxy successfully. I don't have a lot of experience in this area, but am researching a lot and have a couple of theories to try out.
I should note that this is just my understanding on the exploit, and I am only in the very early stages researching it... I could be completely wrong.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you know, since yesterday, i've been thinking, & pondering about this exploit, it's not the same as on desktops, many processing calls DO makes Lo (or loopback / 127.0.0.1 for window users) calls that don't hit the outside..
but with phones, these are different beasts, (they are networking animals) their design is currently for TOTAL world facing calls to the outside, mostly, & with android phones which this exploit adresses, & with the newer qualcomm chips being single pathed, that plays a significant part in this..
the post i made on how to overcome the ecsbf issue - http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/help/nexus-5-e-csfb-issue-t2729014 which i DEARLY wanted participation, but i think it went clean over everyone's heads, even the mod that closed it, it was relating to the how these chipsets interact with the network at hand (sprint's)
the biggest issue with the chipset was that it was an asymmetric multiprocessor, i mentioned it before - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=52708292&postcount=15
in the last link i posted (What is the “Waiting Channel” of a process?), that guy stated -
"..If you really want more detailed information you could check the kernel source.
If you type cat /proc/some_pid/stack in a terminal you'll get some output like that one :
[<c0227f4e>] poll_schedule_timeout+0x3e/0x60
[<c022879f>] do_select+0x55f/0x670
[<c0228f40>] core_sys_select+0x140/0x240
[<c0229241>] sys_select+0x31/0xc0
[<c05c9cc4>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
[<ffffffff>] 0xffffffff
And on the first line you get what's displayed on the system monitor. As far as I know, poll_schedule_timeout indicates that your process is waiting for something.
It deals with asynchronous I/O and polling..."
reference - Asynchronous I/O
...............
android is linux at it's heart, & what does linux have as a stateful firewall, yes, **iptables** built into the kernel!
we have to find out what effects this exploit has on the stateful tables in the kernel to create the gateway for the exploit(s) ..
has to be the tables, with the single chipset qualcomm has unleashed, 3g (gsm / cdma) switching to & from lte, & wifi, presents a new ip address everytime, it's NEVER the same IP addy while in wifi, 3g or 4g.. & how many times within **an hour** does a phone switches just between 3g & 4g?
we have to find out how futex_requeue() effects iptables..
i have to give credit to another poster today, which made me post what i suspected, he found this gem -
"..I think i've found an acceptable explanation from another site for z4root and it must be almost the same with towelroot:
What z4root (or any other rooting program) does it runs some exploit to change its own uid (user-id) to 0 (root). You can think of it as of performing some kind of hack and tricking kernel into thinking it actually has the right to be root (then if z4root was a virus it could do everything with your phone from installing keyloggers to bricking it). Of course if it is possible to trick kernel in such a way to give you root access it is considered a security vulnerability (any app could do that and perform some malicious stuff) and usually gets fixed in future kernel updates (that's why z4root may not work if you upgrade your firmware).
When z4root has set its uid to 0 it does the following: remounts /system partition as writable (by default it's read-only), copies over su binary, Superuser.apk and busybox and then remounts /system back as read-only.
So how does the su binary give you root access without doing "the hack" thing when normally applications have same uid as parent process? This is because su binary has set-uid flag set and is always ran as uid 0 (root).
Now, if you have copied su binary over to /system/bin then you must have had root access which means you have to change owner/permissions (chown root:root /system/bin/su; chmod 6755 /system/bin/su). .."
from - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53492633&postcount=71 (i'm going to thank him after this post)
we know busybox on the linux desktop is simply a window manager, like fluxbox, like what i use, openbox, or metacity, etc, they all make Lo calls...
this exploit is a 2-3 step exploit; it CAN'T have r00t privileges w/o 1st, gaining access, which means, it must 1st be granted r00t access to network sockets (**THE** MOST DANGEROUS THING TO GRANT) TO DO the rest...
towelroot is called a root *toolkit*... lol
but, if you snatch the *tool* from root toolkit...
imaleave it alone.. lol
it's not that towelroot, was **malicious by intent** ;
i don't believe so, it was coded with good intentions, it's just had, a nasty side effect; in a nutshell -
". . .the app runs some code, the code crashed [sic] android and leave it confused, in its confused state it thinks that the app should be root, then the app installs something to allow other apps to become root..."
‘Towelroot’ exploit reveals security nightmare for Android
me.. i like to understand HOW things work, see & study the source of why it fails, or why it does things better than whatever, before simply adding it in, w/o any understanding at all of how it work.. that's just me...
like if i'm to modify the radio on the nexus 5, do i understand HOW it works better than the older or newer radio? .. many would ask "should i"?
just take it on word from others that it just works, or an issue is what it is, ther's no way around it...
sorry, i'm not built like that..
Hi,
Where I download source of exploit using CVE-2014-3153?
Thanks
Alex
Anyone happen to know where a public exploit for this can be found searched google mainly sites that talk about it but it doesn't appear to be public so i assume its still a 0day.
Guess i better check my servers kernel version and see which one my vps is running i never checked but i was curious to see just never got around to it im that lazy to ssh into my vps.
ZaraByte said:
Anyone happen to know where a public exploit for this can be found searched google mainly sites that talk about it but it doesn't appear to be public so i assume its still a 0day.
Guess i better check my servers kernel version and see which one my vps is running i never checked but i was curious to see just never got around to it im that lazy to ssh into my vps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't find the source to any, but it would be simple to check your kernel version and update it!
Sent from my RAZR M xt907 (KitStalk) using Tapatalk

[Q] List of Android Applications with Issues (power drain, leaks etc etc)

Hi again,
Bit of another weird question but i'm looking up applications that have issues such as memory leaks, Power drain Issues and a like. TBH, any application there is out there from sat nav to gaming, From simple notepads to full office suites. Everything and anything basically. Wanting to make a comprehensive list so that when we get our 'reports' sent to us it will flag up the particular application the customer is using that may be a issue. Even ones that have issues with certain versions of android.
Again, Thanks for any help
Ok then, Let me rephrase the question,
What applicatiuons do people know about that cause issues. From malware like GluMobi to Memory leaks of mGlow or Resource Hogs like hotmail to network hogs like netflix. Security issues like the one in apache cordova 3.5 and below to simple storage eaters like The SIms Freeplay.
ANY issue, not matter how big or small basically that can cause ANY potential problem. Technically, Its going be a HUGE list
Bugs, Battery Drain, Issues with certain versions of Android, battery drain, LITERALLY anything, No matter how big or small.
Thanks again
It's flat-out impossible to maintain an accurate list of what you're asking for. Most issues reported in most cases would be fixed within a few days as the apps get updated. Simply asking people to report these things is also a dangerous precedence and an ineffective way of doing it as there will be prejudice left and right, users reporting subjective information that isn't technically true and/or applicable to their specific phones and/or ROMs only. And how would you make comparison? How slow, leaky, disruptive etc does an app need to be to make it on the list? What if an app gets added that had real issues, gets fixed the day after, and then remains on your list for several more months because no new reports are coming in? It would be rather unfair to the developer(s).
Any truly disruptive apps are eventually removed and banned from ALL app repositories as the app host gets complaints about it (like Google bans apps from Play Store), so there's no reason to make a list of them here.
If i misunderstand your intentions with this list, i'm sorry. But you have more explaining to do before this idea makes any sense.
RobbyRobbb said:
It's flat-out impossible to maintain an accurate list of what you're asking for. Most issues reported in most cases would be fixed within a few days as the apps get updated. Simply asking people to report these things is also a dangerous precedence and an ineffective way of doing it as there will be prejudice left and right, users reporting subjective information that isn't technically true and/or applicable to their specific phones and/or ROMs only. And how would you make comparison? How slow, leaky, disruptive etc does an app need to be to make it on the list? What if an app gets added that had real issues, gets fixed the day after, and then remains on your list for several more months because no new reports are coming in? It would be rather unfair to the developer(s).
Any truly disruptive apps are eventually removed and banned from ALL app repositories as the app host gets complaints about it (like Google bans apps from Play Store), so there's no reason to make a list of them here.
If i misunderstand your intentions with this list, i'm sorry. But you have more explaining to do before this idea makes any sense.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im in total agreement with what you say and this is just an extra feature that we are adding to what we already have. I work for a company in the UK and our intentions with this is we already have a system that checks clients hardware/software for what it has as we do a lot of work for many other big companies in the uk (all of them basically) as we have some very good engineers here. THe idea behind this database is just to flag certain things that may be causing issues and its more for internally than anything external although that as come up in meetings about adding this feature to the program we plan to release in the near future where 'certain' clients will be able to access our databases with our app we provide them. This is all preliminary at the moment and as i say, For our internal use only. This is why im looking for such a vast catalogue of problems, whether rumour or not
is not an issue at present. I'm just building the bare bone of this to test out how it works against our other databases and how easy/effective it will be working with what we already have.
Thanks for your answer and that's the conclusion we were at also. The fact that pre bundled software as total access to all information is kind of worring which we have dug up. This allows other programs that can get access to any of that information if it can pull a request from said bundled software. Example would be a program that requests use from the bundled program to read a PDF file (with the bundled software been a PDF reader). This is given access and then allows all the privileges of the bundled software. This is very very dangerous and a concern as most phone companies chuck plenty of bundled software (often not wanted by the consumer) on to there phones.
I was working on the 2G,3G,4G radios on all major phones the other week so im accustomed to A LOT of data entry
Thanks for your help my friend, Its good to know what we thought would be true but we have dug up a few other issues by doing this, So its not all a loss
EDIT: A piece of software still available and apparently malware/spyware is droiddream (bicchali.harish.droiddream) from what i can find on it. Also, Livelocker (net.livelocker) looks as if its got malware/spyware. As you say, What defines spyware is different in different peoples opinions but me personally am dubious about everything, As i think everyone should be but they are not. People just don't care as long as they have their facebook and crap lol. Point of interest about facebook, Funded to the tune of 12.8 Million by In-Q-Tel to get going, WHich was formed by the CIA. Just a little nugget there
I'm surprised no one as ANYTHING to say on the matter, Even if it's just on a whim that they hate app for x, y,& z. I have plenty personally lol

Nest API and Dev program users?

Mods - very sorry, saw the sticky too late that questions don't go in general. Please move as needed and I'll be good next time!
So, I'm trying to set up a Current Cost Envi electricity monitor to write data to the Nest platform for display in the energy history plot but have run into some difficulty and have had trouble finding anyone who'd worked with the official API and can make suggestions on how to proceed. I'm not a professional computer scientist but have some coding experience and can usually fight through learning new things but this is giving me more grief than anything has in a while!
So far I've registered as a developer with Nest and with Google, which I think is required to get an OAuth2 redirect URI, and can create a client in the Nest Developer page with thermostat read privileges, but what I really want is to make a client with product data write privileges. However, when I attempt to do so and fill in all fields except OAuth2 redirect URI (it says leave blank to use PIN and I'm still learning the ropes of OAuth so was planning to come back to this shortly after reading up some more), I get and error at the top of the screen that says "scopes.justification exceeds required maximum length of 140". According to the documentation, I should get at least as far as seeing a message telling me the Dev team will contact me in a few days to set up data storage etc, but I don't think I"m getting to that due to the error.
Am I missing something obvious that could be generating this error?
I'm wondering if it would be WAY easier and faster to just pull data from the Nest and push it to a different database of my own choosing that will also hold the energy monitor data?
Last, is there documentation on what Nest open source compliance is all about? There's a whole page with Nest open source packages but I can't for the life of me find any information to go with it.

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