1 Android OS Operating System based on Linux [24-02-16] [Jonas Teuscher, Alex Cuordileone, Cédric Glaus] 1 https://www.androidpit.com/android-marshmallow-update-overview-for-smartphones-and-tablets 2 https://blog.idrsolutions.com/2014/12/android-apps-ide-for-java-coder-programmers/
CONTENT 1 Introduction...3 1.1 Abstract...3 1.2 History of Android...3 1.3 What is Android...3 1.4 Open handset alliance...3 2 Android Versions...4 2.1 Android architecture...5 2.1.1 Linux Kernel...5 2.1.2 Native libraries...5 2.1.3 Android Run Time...6 2.2 Application Framework...6 2.2.1 Activity manager...7 2.2.2 Resource manager...7 2.2.3 Notification manager:...7 2.2.4 Location manager:...7 2.2.5 Package manager:...7 2.2.6 Window manager:...7 2.2.7 Telephony manager:...7 2.3 Application Layer...8 3 Security...8 3.1 Design review:...9 3.2 Code review and penetrating testing:...9 3.3 Open source and community review:...9 3.4 Incident response:...9 4 Features of Android...9 5 Advantages... 10 1
6 Disadvantages... 10 6.1 Limitations of Android... 11 7 Survey... 12 8 Conclusion... 13 9 Bibliography... 13 10 Affirmation in Lieu of Oath... 14 2
INTRODUCTION 1.1 ABSTRACT Android is basically an operating System for mobile phones. It uses a modified version of the Linux Kernel 2.6. In this report, we will describe, how Android can confirm security on the Operating System so that users can safely use Android Mobile Phones. 1.2 HISTORY OF ANDROID Android Inc. founded in Palo Alto, a little city in California, United states in October 2003 by Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire Communication Inc.) Nick Sears (once VP at T- Mobile), and Chris White (headed design and interface development at web TV) to develop. Surprisingly it wasn t founded by Google Inc. as all people think. 1.3 WHAT IS ANDROID o open source software platform and operating system for mobile devices o Based on the Linux kernel o Developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) o Allows writing managed code in the Java language Android has its own virtual machine i.e. DVM (Dalvik Virtual Machine), which is used for executing the android application. Android is a free open source software stack for mobile devices that include an Operating system. You can download it for free on the web. 1.4 OPEN HANDSET ALLIANCE The open handset alliance (OHA) is a business alliance of firm to develop open standards for mobile devices. Dedicated to advancing open standards for mobile devices Develop technologies that will significantly lower the cost of developing and distributing mobile devices and services. 3
2 ANDROID VERSIONS o Android 1.0 Cup Cake-The first version of the open source software was released back in 2008. o Android 1.6 Donut, released in September 2009 o Android 2.0 / 2.1 Éclair, released in 26 October 2009 and January 2010 o Android 2.2 Froyo, frozen yogurt, Released in the summer of 2010 o Android 2.3 Gingerbread, Gingerbread landed by the end of 2010 o Android 3.0 Honeycomb, for the first time Google released a software that was totally focused on tablets. This version was released in July/august 2011 o Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, released in October 2011 o Android 4.1 Jelly Bean4, released in 26 th June 2012 o Android 4.4 KitKat, released in October 31, 2013 o Android 5.0 Lollipop, released in November 12, 2014 2 2 Information : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/android_version_history 4
2.1 3 ANDROID ARCHITECTURE The software stack is split into Four Layers: o The application layer o The application framework o The libraries and runtime o The kernel 4 2.1.1 LINUX KERNEL o The architecture is based on the Linux 2.6 kernel. o This layer is core of android architecture. It provides service like Audio Driver or Flash Memory Driver Native libraries 3 Image : http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/android-5-0-lollipop-10-highlights-of-the-latest-version-ofgoogles-android-operating-system-720503.html 4 Image : http://www.zdnet.com/article/how-android-works-the-big-picture/ 5
Android has its own libraries, which is written in C/C++. These libraries cannot be accessed directly. With the help of application framework, we can access these libraries. There are many libraries like web libraries to access web browsers, libraries for android and video formats etc. 2.1.2 ANDROID RUN TIME 2.1.2.1 DALVIK VIRTUAL MACHINE o The Android Runtime was designed specifically for Android to meet the needs of running in an embedded environment where you have limited battery, limited memory, limited CPU. o Dalvik is the process virtual machine in Google's android 0.S. It is the software which runs the apps on android devices. So that s why it is an important part of android, which is typically used on mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablet computers. o Programs are often written in java and compiled to byte code. 2.1.2.2 CORE LIBRARIES o This is in blue, meaning that it's written in Java. o The core library contains all of the collection classes, utilities, IO, all the utilities and tools that you ve come to expected to use. 2.2 APPLICATION FRAMEWORK The Application Framework layer provides many higher-level services to applications in the form of Java classes. Application developers are allowed to make use of these services in their applications. The whole framework is written in a Java programming language. The application framework is the toolkit which all applications use. These applications include the ones that come with a phone like the home applications, or the phone application. It includes applications which are written by Google. It also includes apps that will be written by you. So, all apps use the same framework and the same APIs. These are as follows: 6
2.2.1 ACTIVITY MANAGER It manages the lifecycle of applications. It enables proper management of all the activities. All the activities are controlled by activity manager. 2.2.2 RESOURCE MANAGER It provides access to non-code resources such as graphics etc. It helps clear out waste Memory and storage which is basically freeing up RAM so that your phone runs better. Some also clean cache which is a part storing temporary files created by applications. Though these aids apps help to am extent it's better to not use them much as they usually kill system applications( which will reload obviously) leading to wastage of resources Just let android handle it, Google knows what they're doing ;) 2.2.3 NOTIFICATION MANAGER: It enables all applications to display custom alerts in status bar. 2.2.4 LOCATION MANAGER: It fires alerts when user enters or leaves a specified geographical location. 2.2.5 PACKAGE MANAGER: It is use to retrieve the data about installed packages on device. 2.2.6 WINDOW MANAGER: It is use to create views and layouts. 2.2.7 TELEPHONY MANAGER: It is use to handle settings of network connection and all information about services on device. 7
2.3 APPLICATION LAYER The final layer on top is Applications. o It includes the home application, the contacts application, the Browser and apps. o It is the most upper layer in android architecture. o All the applications like camera, Google maps, browser, SMS, calendars, contacts are native applications. These applications works with end user with the help of application framework to operate. 3 SECURITY Android is a multi-process system, in which each application (and parts of the system) runs in its own process. Most security between applications and the system is enforced at the process level through standard Linux facilities, such as user and group IDs that are assigned to applications. Securing an open platform requires a robust security architecture and rigorous security programs. Android was designed with multi-layered security that provides the flexibility required for an open platform, while providing protection for all users of the platform. For information about reporting security issues and the update process, see Security Updates and Resources. Android was designed with developers in mind. Security controls were designed to reduce the burden on developers. Security-savvy developers can easily work with and rely on flexible security controls. Developers less familiar with security will be protected by safe defaults. Android was designed with device users in mind. Users are provided visibility into how applications work, and control over those applications. This design includes the expectation that attackers would attempt to perform common attacks, such as social engineering attacks to convince device users to install malware, and attacks on third-party applications on Android. Android was designed to both reduce the probability of these attacks and greatly limit the impact of the attack in the event it was successful. Android is designed having multi-layer security which provides flexibility for this platform. When attackers attempt attack on device, android platform help to reduce the portability of the attack. There are key components of android security which are described as follows: 5 5 Information: https://source.android.com 8
3.1 DESIGN REVIEW: When a security model is designed then it will be reviewed by the developers so that risk level will be very less while using the model. 3.2 CODE REVIEW AND PENETRATING TESTING: The goal of this code review is that in which it will be checked that how the system will become strong? 3.3 OPEN SOURCE AND COMMUNITY REVIEW: Android uses open source technologies that have significant external review such as Linux kernel. 3.4 INCIDENT RESPONSE: Android team enables the rapid mitigation of vulnerabilities to ensure that potential risks to all android users are minimized. 4 FEATURES OF ANDROID o Background Wi-Fi location still runs even when Wi-Fi is turned off o Developer logging and analyzing enhancements o It is optimized for mobile devices. o Java support,media support, multi touch, video calling, multi-tasking,voice based features, screen capture, camera, Bluetooth, GPS, compass and accelerometer,3g. o Messaging SMS and MMS are available forms of messaging, including threaded text messaging and Android Cloud To Device Messaging (C2DM) and now enhanced version of C2DM, o Multi-touch Android has native support for multi-touch which was initially made available in handsets such as the HTC Hero. The feature was originally disabled at the kernel level (possibly to avoid infringing Apple's patents on touch-screen technology at the time). 6 6 Information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_features_in_android 9
5 ADVANTAGES o The ability for anyone to customize the Google Android platform o It gives you better notification. o It lets you choose your hardware. o It has better app market(1,80,000 application) o A more mature platform with the support of many applications, the user can change the screen display. o With Google chrome you can open many windows at once. o Supports all Google services: Android operating system supports all of Google services ranging from Gmail to Google reader. All Google services can you have with one operating system, namely Android. 6 DISADVANTAGES o Android Market is less control of the manager, sometimes there are malware. o Wasteful Batteries, This is because the OS is a lot of "process" in the background causing the battery quickly drains. o Sometimes slow device company issued an official version of Android your own. o Extremely inconsistence in design among apps. o Very unstable and often hang or crash. 10
6.1 LIMITATIONS OF ANDROID Development requirements in o Java o Android SDK o Bluetooth limitations:- o Android doesn't support: Bluetooth stereo Contacts exchange Modem pairing Wireless keyboards o Firefox mobile is not coming to android because of android limitations o Apps in Android Market need to be programmed with a custom form of Java o There are no split or interval times available. o Small memory size. o Continuous Internet connection is required 11
7 SURVEY We have made a survey considering the operating systems on our smartphones today. There are some interesting results that we d like to mention in this report. Here are some of our results. As you can see on the graphic on the right, the study is almost balanced. There are 53% who uses Android as their operating system. The other 47% uses IOS as their operating system. In this study it is only about Apple or Android. The other O.S. are analyzed in the study below As I already mentioned yet, here you can see all the owners of a smartphones we have asked in our survey. Exactly 50% are owner of an Apple device. 31% own a smartphone based on Android. All the others aren t represented that much. Most of the people who ever owned a Android have used it at least for two years. After five years, we can see that there aren t many people who have the same phone they had 5 years ago. This shows us, that after two years, people do change their phone. 12
8 CONCLUSION We have learned through our research that Android is a much more different operating system than ios or/and Windows Phone Mobile. Android has grown so fast over the past 4 years becoming the most used smartphone operating system in the world. It's because Android does not release a phone from 1 company with 1 new OS every year, but countless phones from numerous companies, adding their own specifications, throughout the year, developing gradually day-by-day. The advantage of Google s operating system is, that you can customize your phone as you want not like all the other operating systems as for example Windows Phone or Apple (ios). It is also unique and incomparable to other operating systems. We hope that the next versions of Android have overcome the actual limitations and that the future possibilities became a reality and may this software is also developed to use in PC s also 9 BIBLIOGRAPHY http://www.4shared.com/office/0rx_5-ie/file.html 8 March 2016 http://www.android.com 1 March 2016 http://www2.dcsec.uni-hannover.de/files/android/p50-fahl.pdf 9 March 2016 Android overview http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/android_overview.html 8 March 2016 https://source.android.com 8 March 2016 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/android_(operating_system) 1 March 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_features_in_android 29 March 2016 Architecture overview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm6ju0xhuw8 16 March 2016 Mark L. Murphy: The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development. USA 2008. 13
10 AFFIRMATION IN LIEU OF OATH We confirm that all the borrowed sentences, ideas and remarks have been rendered truthfully and have complete and accurate indications of the sources. Place: Date: Signatures of the group members: 14