[Cryptography] "Death Note" elimination for hashes

[Kent Borg]

On 10/21/2013 10:07 PM, James A. Donald wrote:
> If there had been a credible threat to brick them all, they would
> have been made so that they could easily and routinely be updated.

Maybe.  But manufacturers like selling a whole new phone maybe more than 
they like putting effort and support costs into giving away a free 
upgrade.  (Doing an upgrade is harder than a fresh installation, so many 
possible starting points, so slow to test each, so little reward for the 
job well done.)

And consumers don't necessarily think it is a benefit to have a phone 
that seems to be working changed at the risk of it not working.  Plus, 
many of them expect to buy a new phone shortly anyway.

In the case of Android, it is Google that has a clear interest in the 
health of the whole ecosystem, including secure phones.  And they have 
been recently struggling with improving the upgrade paths.  Moving their 
secret sauce from AOSP into Google Play Services gives them more control 
along these lines, as it makes it more closed source.

-kb