ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Lucio Torre <lucio.torre@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 3:27 PM, Alejandro J. Cura <
alejandro.cura@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
> This gives the developer flexibility, yes, but it also sounds like
> something that could affect negatively impact battery life, so surely
> I'm missing some part of the bigger picture.
>
>
It is something that could impact battery life, but i dont think we should
take action to defend ourselves against that scenario.


Will every random app installed from the store be able to have such
> helpers run on new notifications?
>

Yes, that is the idea. We no longer consider helpers to be a privileged
feature.


> What would be the security context of the helpers? If they are able to
> do calculations, I assume it will be the same security context of each
> app to access their local files.
> Will the helpers be rate-limited in cpu time or frequency of runs?
>
> The helper will have a limited time to run and in the same security
context of the app.

There will be a rate limit on the server side to how often you get to post
notifications for apps, and there are many bundling strategies we can
implement to reduce network usage, wakeups and user interruptions. But i
dont think this is critical right now.

We will find apps that send millions of notifications per day just by
looking at the logs, and if they are malware, we will drop their requests
and get in contact with the store guys to let them know.

The gained flexibility outweighs the risk of abuse, i think.


Lucio