Well it seems like a great idea, yes, but in all reality it may cause some serious problems. What exactly does easily enable root mean? Will it essentially be a one click root built into the OS? Personally, for my Nexus, it takes about 2 minutes to root. All that has to be done is open the command pront/terminal and type a few words. I actually just had to reroot after flashing the 4.0.4 update.zip. I'm actually not too sure this is a great idea.
"Many of you may not give it a second glance, but among all the furor and concern about permissions requested by market apps and privacy, all Custom ROMs (CyanogenMod included) ship with one major security risk — root!"
Most anyone who is willing to root and ROM will be savvy enough to know how to avoid security issues and things like malware in non-market apps. While I believe this is a good idea I am not sure how easily it can be implemented.
Knowing the CM team is pretty good gives me high hopes about this, but I am just curious how they plan on allowing everyone to root easily from within the OS.
Edit: Actually what they are doing makes sense. You don't run Linux as root all day. I am just curious as to how they will easily allow root to be turned on and off.
> Most anyone who is willing to root and ROM will be savvy enough to know how to avoid security issues and things like malware in non-market apps.
Based on nearly every thread I've read on xda-developers forums, I'd put my money on the fact that most users are just savvy enough to copy-paste directions, and the moment something goes wrong the only recourse is to jump to the internet and hope someone else has figured it out already. I have plenty of friends that don't have the slightest clue as to what root actually means or what sudo or su do with rooted Android phones running CM.
Hell, the Rooting scene is one of the shadiest scenes I've ever seen. Have you seen how many links are on xda-developers that point to random binaries on mediafire.com? Half those binaries are completely open source, with the majority being distributed with the Android SDK, as in, there is no reason it needs to be distributed as a binary, but most users don't know how to compile it anyways, so it comes in the easiest unsigned format without sha/md5 sums. The other half are kernel modules to install or binaries you execute as root on your phone. I wouldn't touch a random kernel module from mediafire.com on my desktop or servers, but since it's going into my phone, it's somehow safe? How is installing that any different than installing a non-market malware app?
Funny to see so many people running with this story today. As expected the comments in /r/Android are miserable.
This feature has been in CM9 since... before there were nightlies. The Kangs at the end of December had this feature enabled. It is literally a single check-toggle in the Settings app. It takes... all of 3 seconds to enable.
And yes, as anyone who has used root before knows, the SuperUser app limits permission to root and will ask each time if you choose for it to
"Many of you may not give it a second glance, but among all the furor and concern about permissions requested by market apps and privacy, all Custom ROMs (CyanogenMod included) ship with one major security risk — root!"
Most anyone who is willing to root and ROM will be savvy enough to know how to avoid security issues and things like malware in non-market apps. While I believe this is a good idea I am not sure how easily it can be implemented.
Knowing the CM team is pretty good gives me high hopes about this, but I am just curious how they plan on allowing everyone to root easily from within the OS.
Edit: Actually what they are doing makes sense. You don't run Linux as root all day. I am just curious as to how they will easily allow root to be turned on and off.