Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • May 24, 2010 7:51 AM

Hmm,

Two quotes from above,

1, “We introduce the sensor-access widget,”

2, “Conventional sensor access policies either hassle users to grant applications access to sensors or grant with no approval at all.”

What makes them think that anybody in 2 who would just take privileges (because they can) is going to bother registering with their widget (1).

It needs some fairly fundamental plumbing to stop this sort of abuse and it’s the sort of thing MS should do but we know the chance of them doing that is somewhere between zero and 1/infinity.

Clive Robinson • May 24, 2010 6:20 PM

@ Dom De Vitto,

“All those with beards, and me”

You don’t say what sort of beards and most importantly “they must have a bit of badger” in them…

For those not sure what “a bit of badger” is I refer you to the photo top right of this page for an example 8) I’m just jealous because my beard only has “a bit of dazzle” not badger so I don’t get the gravitas I should 8(

Clive Robinson • May 24, 2010 11:19 PM

@ jim

“To be honest, this is completely a hardware issue.”

Oh if only it was just a hardware issue, in Fast Moving Consumer Electronics (FMCE) things are rarely simple as it is driven by other factors such as line costs and return rates.

For instance the LED is not just an extra component sticking out a hole in the case.

The LED needs to be mounted, restrained, oriented and connected to. All of which have way higher cost implications than the cost of the LED and changing the design of the tooling of the case.

Line costs dictate that the LED be part of the camera PCB, but due to size, sub manufacture / bought in cost this is not likley to happen.

This implies another case mounted sub assembly which has to be inserted and fixed (big line cost) in series with the camera which means increased unreliability (thus higher return costs / loss of brand value).

Then there is the orientation of the LED this can easily have significant “re-work costs” either on the final line or sub assembly line.

Then of course there are design issues LEDs drop voltage (think zener diode) and draw significat current. The acceptable current range may not be the same as the camera thus necessitating other components such as dropper resistors or constant current drivers. Even if the current is compatable the LED drops between 0.8 and 2.1 volts depending on it’s design and colour, thus it is to much to put in series for a battery of only a few volts. Either way it has a big impact on battery life/usage.

Then there are the mechanical design issues over and above modifing the design of the case tool to put that little hole in.

All LED’s have two or more connecting leads. In the case of surface mount devices the mechanics are controled in the case of leaded components unless pressed down to a PCB this opens up a whole can of worms involving forming tools and stand off devices during PCB assembly. Even when surface mount or mounted flush to the PCB the LED still requires a way to get the light out of the case and this will usually involve a “light pipe” which is a clear plastic moulding which has it’s own tooling and line costs.

Oh and users fingers… Any device mounted in the case that pokes out through a hole into “userland” has issues to do with users proding and poking at it. If not considered correctly a light pipe could easily move causing preasure on the PCB causing mechanical strain and early failure and thus effect return rate under warranty or bad product image issues that effect the brand value.

There is a lot more to it but FMCE design trade offs are non obvious to many insiders and not even perceived by those not involved with “design to manufacture”. And it’s these hidden trade offs that make the big difference to profitability.

Clive Robinson • May 25, 2010 3:45 AM

@ AC2,

“You make it sound like its pretty much impossible”

No it’s quite easily possible but is the market prepared to pay the price?

The problem with the way it currently is, is that it’s a race to the bottom as far as price is concerned in a very time critical market (product goes from top of the line to near bottom within three years). Thus “marketers” have to decide what features are going to give the best return on investment in the shortest period of time.

As has been seen with the banking colapse the safe route for a marketer is to push what everybody else pushes if it succeeds then they get the credit if it fails then it’s the market intelligence that was wrong (ie put yourself in a win-draw not win-lose position).

Also with the likes of laptops there is a lot of badge labeling for a number of reasons. This is not just on bought in parts but on whole systems.

Part of this is chip manufacture refrence designs partly to do with tooling up charges. The chip manufactura wants to push chips and the marketers want to sell finished items the faster a chip manufacturer can get the marketers design enginers on stream the more likley they are to sell product.

The downside of these refrence designs is that they tend to come in three hardware flavours high medium and low cost. However “software” can bridge the functional gap (or so the marketers believe).

Also the marketers design engineers do not have time to experiment or inovate so they likewise go for a win draw position, they ask for the highend refrence design then ask “what can we take out”. The result on their PCB aproximates the medium reference design with components left out in production…

The marketer however also wants “design re-use” so that one PCB goes in as many products as possible and they still expect CPU horse power and clever coding to give them profit for free.

If you look at motherboard designs from various manufactures you will see the same little layout blocks on various boards with the variation around the edges of the design blocks. This is “design reuse” in action.

To break this pattern a Marketer has to be convinced to move from the win-draw position to the win-lose position. And they only way they are going to do this is if you can convince them the market not only needs the trend but will pay premium for it…

It is why you see the likes of Apple and Sony “trend setting” they have room to manoeuvre in their premium pricing structure that other manufactures do not have.

It is the consequence of certain economic market models, and usually the first casualty of this “vanilla market” is innovation. Instead products differentiate themselves on “specmanship” bassed not on real bang for your buck but on decreased user performance due to the spec being met by CPU cycles.

As an example look at accelerometers in hand helds. Apple put them in “on risk” but software engineers thought “that’s neat” and built unthought of (at design time) apps. Now the market is playing catchup because the vanilla market wants the premium market “toy”.

If this security increase is seen to work for Apple or Sony then you will almost certainly see it in other market entrants otherwise probably not accept in niche premium products.

Thus not your impossible just my improbable.