The access to it is controlled by the VPN application. Some applications could be allowed to connect directly when the VPN is active and routing all the traffic by default, some could use VPN if configured not to use it by default.
However starting with Linux kernel 5.7, the unprivileged userspace can now call setsockopt(SO_BINDTODEVICE) directly and use VPN or non-VPN interface even if restricted by the VPN client.
Not fixed in any Android (incl. Graphene, which has fixes for other leaks, but not this) to the day.
PoC is as simple as "curl --interface [ifname, not IP] ifconfig.co" in termux.
A very strange way to reason about killing an API instead of fixing the VPN issue (as someone from Google already suggested they're planning on doing). "Only 4 million people use this, we should kill it" is exactly the kind of reasoning Microsoft in the 2000s would use to kill the ability to install Linux on a PC.
> We plan to heavily overhaul the VPN implementation to make most forms of leaks nearly impossible rather than continuing to use the current system prone to it.
The past couple weeks of our replies were maliciously flagged. We've made a post about it on social media as we've had to do before when this happens. This happens very regularly to posts by GrapheneOS or posts which simply support GrapheneOS. There are a bunch of malicious accounts which show up to each thread about GrapheneOS to make personal attacks towards our team, baselessly claim it's a honey pot, promote non-hardened products reducing privacy/security compared to AOSP and to make a bunch of disingenuous attacks towards it. The attacks towards our team often involve fabricated stories about us and harassment content. There's an account active in many of these recent threads making disingenuous replies and spreading Kiwi Farms harassment content in their profile:
That account should clearly be banned rather than a subset of their posts getting flagged. The same applies to several other blatant ones.
It might help to ask moderation about this. Could be an artefact of brigarding or something similar.
I also wouldn't worry about individual accounts so much. Asking for others to be banned, linking mirrored profiles, etc. That is just not the stuff many users like to read on HN. I think your technical content is truly amazing on its own already.
> A proper fix would require changes in the Android system. The researcher who discovered the leak has reported the issue to the Android Vulnerability Reward Program, but according to the researcher the issue was closed without action. This issue is not public, but based on this information we deem it unlikely that Google will do anything about it. GrapheneOS is aware of the issue and are working on a fix.
A security issue being closed means you aren't getting a bounty and it won't be fixed for existing Android releases. It doesn't mean it won't be fixed in a future Android release. They do track VPN leaks as issues internally and regularly ship fixes in new major releases. They unfortunately don't consider those security issues so they don't get prioritized. If they were considered security issues, then they'd likely consider them Low or Moderate severity which means those wouldn't be backported.
Only a large subset of patches for High and Critical severity issues are backported to older releases of Android. Low and Moderate severity issues stopped having patches backported years ago due to volume. High and Critical severity patch backporting is now being scaled down too due to AI accelerated vulnerability discovery. You need the latest yearly or QPR2 release to get full updates.
GrapheneOS has had to fix a bunch of VPN leak issues and we're in the process of fixing more of the issues. We plan to heavily overhaul the VPN implementation to make most forms of leaks nearly impossible rather than continuing to use the current system prone to it.
I'd say a lot stronger than "cannot rule out". Regardless of how it was introduced, if it is now known and the issue was closed without action, they are actively choosing to keep it.
N.B. I don't disagree there is a possibility of foul play on Google's part, but I think more evidence / better argument is required.
[0] https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/8617#i...
Google just closed the ticket, without communicating their plan to deal with it. I just stated that we cannot rule out a possibility of foul play, thereby keeping other options open. Keeping that thing in mind which is better known as "the reality" I would be a little bit more wary about Google's stance towards privacy than I would be about GOS though. The difference in how these parties are handling this issue is already a tell.
Hello
Check: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49096839
Please upvote/comment/share/mitigate
We have a bunch of internally discovered VPN leaks which are already being worked on and this was added to that workload. We've already shipped a bunch of fixes and will ship more soon. We plan to eventually overhaul the whole system to prevent leaks in a much more systemic way.
a person walks up to you, punches you in the face, and leaves.
it could have been an accident, an AI bot, or a misunderstanding. definitely not deliberate.
You can almost hide the warnings (there's one small notification in the bottom of the notification tray you can't disable) and on some phones even the VPN icon, but you can't hide the new lock screen code your victim suddenly needs to enter to use their phone.
It used to be that Android showed random popups and notifications about identified security risks, which were awfully annoying if you have a private CA certificate installed. Luckily Google got rid of those.
In my experience, you can also set up biometrics on basically every phone, and Google has a few "don't lock the phone while it's with you in your pocket" like services you can optionally enable as well. Your backup PIN doesn't have to be four numbers, you can put a whole passphrase in there if you want it to be secure.
You could also do facial unlock. Less secure than Apple's implementation but more than good enough if you didn't have any lock screen set before that.
More specifically, another commenter in this thread says it's to make sure the user is aware of the configuration of a VPN which, if done maliciously, funnels all your traffic toa a hostile place.
Just to give an example, here is publicly available information: https://github.com/youngrichu/frp-freedom/blob/main/FRP%20By...
Good thing is that some of the aforementioned exploits can be used to work around locked bootloader and liberate the phone.
Do not rely on any security in Android. It has lot of mistakes, poorly coded high privilege vendor software, so it would be dumb to use it for anything valuable.
> More specifically, another commenter in this thread says it's to make sure the user is aware of the configuration of a VPN which, if done maliciously, funnels all your traffic toa a hostile place.
I do not see how PIN protects the user, especially if user had PIN before installing a malicious VPN. Also, isn't Google Play supposed to check every application for malicious functionality?
Most of my apps that decide to ask for their own PIN (e.g. Klarna, Privacy.com, myFICO) have some deterministic garbage that's easy to guess because they provide no real security. I refuse to entertain security theater with real secrets. (real secrets = ones I don't remember)
I have a hunch this leak is bound to wifi hardware only, for details: https://supuk.ch/papers/android-natt-keepalive-vpn-bypass
Good guy Google, as usual.
Google is Evil.
You might as well use Meta or Microsoft products. Or Phillip Morris. Blame yourself for the fallout.
Do any similar leaks exists on iOS currently?
Yeah, i was very confused by that, especially after they invited them to post publicly/privately. They love controlling the public communications when it comes to researchers. I remember ryrona, a guy who found VPN leaks, being censored for no reason whatsoever in their public GitHub issue tracker.
An individual: you're a pedo if you use a VPN
Give over.
some sites really really do not like my t-mobile wireless internet IP
I think it's because t-mobile uses a small pool of IPv4 but that's just a guess
I have to use cloudflare-warp to even get on their sites (it's a free VPN)
major sites too like adidas .com