TheDevil

Shout out to FDroid for being awesome. But realistically it’s not going to cover all the apps you’ll ever need.

My concern is with malware that exploits the software stack though, and those links pertain to scams that exploit human nature. Hence they don’t really support the argument that the iOS/android stack is more/less secure.

Scams that exploit human nature are an inevitable part of being online and there is no foolproof way to prevent them. I never said that either company was better or worse at reactive removal.

Scam apps require user interaction to achieve their goals. They largely aren’t doing anything that the user doesn’t allow them to do. So while I would always advocate swift removal, the onus is on me to protect myself rather than the store itself.

The links I posted related to software on the play store exploiting aspects of the Android stack to surreptitiously perform tasks without the users knowledge. If somebody downloads one of those apps they are able to do things that the user isn’t aware of and never allows. This is the kind of exploitation that is preventable by thorough fuzzing. And this is the kind of threat that iOS does a fantastic job at protecting against.

Put it this way: I can safely download any app from the Apple App Store knowing that it is highly unlikely it will fuck with my device. I know that if it does it’ll probably be noteworthy enough to make the news. I can’t say the same for the Google Play Store.

Except that somehow it just keeps happening to google:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/android-malware-infiltrates-60-google-play-apps-with-100m-installs/amp/

https://www.wionews.com/technology/google-deletes-50-apps-after-joker-malware-attack-users-should-delete-them-if-they-are-installed-501251

https://www.zdnet.com/article/android-warning-these-malicious-apps-had-over-a-million-downloads-from-google-play/

Whatever Apple is doing, you just don’t see this level of compromise on iOS. It’s not just that the google store is no better, it seems to be so much worse.

The Wileyfox Swift was a rebadged device from an ODM, and at the time was quite well known and liked because the company was UK based and touted responsive local support. The hardware was good and the software support certainly no worse than any other at the time. The frustration of using it came from the problems inherent in the android stack, not the device itself.

I wanted to use android and I tried my best to make it a rational choice. The issues I encountered applied all the same to phones many times the price I paid, hence making iOS my only option. All these years later most of those core issues persist.

No I did not and the Swift was (at the time) an official lineage target. It performed well, but the amount of work and effort it took to attain and maintain that performance was simply unacceptable to me. I like the concept of Android and I like how open it is but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be an apologist for it’s shortcomings. Of which there are many. I would love to be able to justify using an android device but it is just not a rational choice for me. And it would seem many others.

Denigrating something is by definition unfair criticism - and I don’t think even the most evangelical of android fans can support the mediocre manufacturer support and security history of the platform.

I tried a full phone cycle on Android. A Wileyfox Swift. I stuck with it for 4 years. I’ve dealt with a handful of Android tablets. I still have to wrangle Android on fire sticks.

I love to mess around with electronics but holyshit never again. These are devices that need to work and perform, I got so damn tired messing with Lineage and TWRP - the alternative being the zero updates from the manufacturer. The whole stack is a janky mess, and a moving target in terms of security and performance. Flagship phones that might stay current and perform well for a couple of years? Wtf?

So many android apps are dogshit. There’s no minimum bar to entry. Malicious apps sneak onto the play store. Out of date apps linger around.

My phone is not a project piece. It’s an essential device. Apple gives me a stringently vetted App Store, strong privacy controls, dependable hardware and performance. They expose the settings that I need and optimise everything else. My iPhone works and does it’s job with far less painful maintenance. I’m definitely willing to trade some freedom for that utility.

Not only that but Apple hasn’t tried to drm the open web lately. Are you sure this is consumerism and peer pressure? And not a dogshit software stack with poor performance, security and hardware driving away the users who are most engaged with their devices?

Do I care what phone you’re using? No. But I think bullshit click bait articles which effectively denigrate an entire demographic for the sake of instigating a tired back and forth about apples vs oranges should stay on the other side of the fucking paywall.

Hasn’t been an issue for me. HA would only be depending on Opnsense for a DHCP lease so assuming you have reasonable lease times it’ll just pick up where it left off.

Without checking I would imagine you could just set a delay for the HA container to make sure opnsense can start first, if it does become an issue.

I use an N5105 generic mini pc running proxmox and opnsense. You can get them fairly cheaply from Aliexpress. They’re particularly low power and come with 4-6 gigabit network ports. I have two containers, the second of which hosts my Home Assistant instance. As an added bonus they often don’t have a fan.

For wifi I use Ubiquity wifi 6 Lite APs with the controller running under home assistant.

The short answer is no, because it’s a pain in the ass and offers little tangible benefit. But I can speculate.

If I was going down this path I would look for an x86 box with a wifi card that is supported by OPNsense or PFsense(that’s usually going to be dependant on available *BSD available drivers). I don’t how well they would function but I would expect quirks. You could also check the compatibility lists of the open router distributions to find something that’s well supported. You can check the forums for posts from people with similar goals and check their mileage.

You might even be able to achieve this with an ESP32.

But what are you hoping to achieve? Do you mean open radio firmware or do you mean open drivers? Or an open OS talking to a closed radio? What’s the benefit?

Radios in any device are discrete components running their own show.

Open drivers should be possible. However I have a feeling that open firmware for wifi access points radio hardware is going to be extremely hard to find. The regulatory agencies really don’t want the larger public to have complete control because of the possibility of causing interference and breaking the rules(for good reason - imagine if your neighbour had bad signal so he ignorantly cranks up the power output, not realising that he can’t do the same with his client devices, rendering his change useless).

I seem to remember a change in FCC rules some time back that seemed to disallow manufacturers obtaining certification for devices that permitted end users to modify the firmware, much to the concern of open router users at the time. The rule was aimed at radio firmware but the concern was that the distinction would be lost and the rule applied to the entire router by overzealous manufacturers who hate third party firmware at best.

A fully open radio is basically an SDR. Can you move packets over an SDR? Hell yes, but now you’re in esoteric HAM radio territory. It’s going to be a hell of a fun project and you’re going to learn a lot, but in so far as a practical wifi ap, your results will be limited.

I use FOSS wherever it’s practical but if you want working wifi just stick to the well tested brand names. For what it’s worth you probably won’t gain any security by going open, if there’s any weakness it’ll probably be baked in at the protocol level which open devices would need to follow anyway. At least a discrete AP can be isolated and has no reason to be given internet access.

I would take these projects over stock firmware on traditional home routers any day. And I have done where I’ve been unable to rig a more permanent solution. They have an honourable mission in a section of hardware filled with absolute junk.

But the trouble is the sheer number of hardware targets and meagre resources on these devices combined with the contempt of third party firmware from most manufacturers make them hard to flash and leave them rarely updated, if you’re lucky enough to have a supported device. Even then they are prone to quirks and bugs. Some devices do receive and are capable of receiving updates but they often cost more than the equivalent low TDP general purpose computer.

Just imagine: the developers of DD-WRT have to target not just each individual router model but every single revision as the manufacturers have a habit of switching major components or even entire chipsets between product revisions. On top of that the documentation for the components used might be sparse or non existent. I’m impressed that these router distributions can make it work at all but that doesn’t make it any more practical or sustainable.

At this point you may as well flip the router into modem mode and run OPNsense or PFSense and get a fully fledged operating system running on far more resources than any of these SoCs. Assuming you have the power budget you’ll get assured updates and far more flexibility with fewer compatibility issues and quirks. My passively cooled N5105 box with 8GB of ram and a 128GB HDD happily routes a 1gb/s WAN while simultaneously hosting a busy home assistant instance. The resources aren’t even maxed out.

Following my experience I will always opt to run dedicated APs. DD-WRT WiFi support is amazing considering what they have to work with, but there are only so many wifi chipsets they can support and because they try to support as much as they can there are always problems with something. I really don’t have time to constantly troubleshoot the wifi following cryptic posts from years ago. Ubiquity stuff isn’t flawless either but it’s stable and a lot less prone to hard to trace issues. YMMV.

DD-WRT and friends I love you, you really saved my ass a few times when all I had was some shitty CPE. You’re still way nicer than Cisco gear. But I find it hard to justify using a gimped out SoC from a couldn’t-care-less manufacturer when I can buy a 5W TDP passively cooled x86 computer for ~100usd.