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Proving that the more complex the OS, the easier it is to hack, and how root really isn't required to attack a device a malicious app bypassed Ubuntu Phone security checks to give the attacker full control over the phone.
Luckily only 15 people are known to have downloaded the app but one has to wonder if Ubuntu Phone is already being targeted so successfully in its infancy what does that bode when its a more juicy target?
An educated guess for the unreleased sales statistics can be found on Riccardo Padovani's blog.
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Slowly and surely the unix crept up on the Nintendo user ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @05:22PM
I can't understand whether that sentence is sarcasm or if the submitter actually believes what he wrote. If the latter, please define "more complex" (and compared to what ?) and how the hack proves anything.
It bodes nothing. Never mind that it will likely never be a "more juicy target", Ubuntu phone are a niche market.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Tuesday October 20 2015, @05:32PM
Ubuntu phone are a niche market.
I considered getting an Ubuntu phone, so I could write apps in Java rather than Yet Another Incompatible Language like Android (which is painful). It would make my business life soooo much easier. However, Canonical decided to use Mir as a display server, which means that Java won't run on it. Than means that Ubuntu phone is not a viable option for me.
Secondly, I'm far more interested in a Ubuntu or Kubuntu tablet than a phone, but I looked into phones since that is where the Ubuntu efforts were heading. Plasma Active might fit the bill, but I don't know if it will run stock Java/Swing/JavaFX.
Anyway, the ability to run standard Linux on a mobile device is VERY appealing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @05:38PM
Android's a language now?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @07:59PM
(original AC here) I understand and I find it very appealing as well (as in I need one for both technical and irrational reasons), but I'm also very much aware that we are a tiny minority, so the niche market qualification applies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @06:02PM
Doesn't matter how "complex" the OS is if the users are willing to copy/paste any "sudo" command they find on the internet.
That's not a problem with just Ubuntu users either. The Arch Wiki is filled with mis-information and bad configs that people just mindlessly copy and paste commands as root. And the BlackBerry forums are full of people claiming how superior their OS is security-wise to everything else, yet they download "leaks" from unknown users hosted at sites like Mega.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday October 20 2015, @06:57PM
Insightful. And one reason to not like sudo. Root access should require a different password than the main account.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by present_arms on Wednesday October 21 2015, @11:44AM
That's actually Ubuntus fault as sudo can indeed be made to have a separate password than that used by a user, and yes it's stupid to allow an elevated application use the same password as the user, as obviously if you crack the users password you basically have root permissions, It's one of the reasons I'll never have ubuntu or their offshoots on my machine :)
http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/