An architecture that gives users full control over their smartphone

In recent years, many smartphone users have become concerned about the privacy of their data and the extent to which companies might have access to this data. As of today, the apps that users can run on their phone and what they can do with those apps are being dictated by a few big tech companies.

Researchers at ETH Zurich recently set out to change this current trend by developing a new smartphone architecture called TEEtime. This architecture was presented in a previously published article arXivallows users to flexibly choose which resources on their smartphone to dedicate to legacy operating systems like Android or iOS and which to keep for their own proprietary software and data.

“This work was (partially) inspired by our experiences developing (Swiss) contact tracing applications, where we quickly realized how limited we as researchers/developers are in accessing some basic services on ‘our’ phones,” said Srdjan Capkun , one of them the researchers who conducted the study, told TechXplore.

“This experience has taught us that even governments have to negotiate with leading phone operating system vendors (Apple/Google) to get certain access, such as B. Bluetooth radios. that have political and economic implications for citizens, businesses and governments.”

The lack of user control over resources on smartphones is typically justified by OS developers and phone vendors as a necessary means of providing security and privacy. In particular, one could argue that opening smartphone systems would compromise users (i.e. increase their vulnerability to attacks) and degrade their overall navigation experience.

The main aim of the recent work by Groschupp et al. It should be shown that one could possibly give users greater control over their phone while retaining existing operating systems with their functionalities and security measures. To this end, the team developed TEEtime, a new smartphone design architecture that allows different “domains” running concurrently to coexist on one smartphone.

“With TEEtime we provide concurrent executing ‘domains’ – protected from each other – and leverage hardware features built into current CPUs/platforms,” ​​explained Groschupp. “Users can run multiple domains on their phones, e.g. a full Android/iOS, with all the convenience and security they offer, and in parallel proprietary software running on another domain.”

Essentially, TEEtime isolates different domains, allowing users to decide to what extent each of those domains has access to resources on their phone. This means that users can, for example, run a navigation application in their own isolated domain, grant GPS access only to that domain and thus prevent Android/iOS from accessing their GPS data. The same could be done with other peripherals like Bluetooth or the phone’s built-in microphone and camera.

“The introduction of domains has two main advantages when it comes to giving users control over their devices,” explained Groschupp. “First, it gives users full control over the privacy of their data, for example by allowing them to store their photos on a separate domain where the user can ensure that no client-side scanning is performed. Note that in current phone ecosystems, these features can be introduced quietly, without the user even noticing or having an opportunity to opt out.”

The second benefit of the TEEtime architecture is that it can prevent or increase resistance to censorship. In other words, if their operations service provider blocks an application or prevents them from installing it, they can still run it in a separate domain.

So far, the researchers have tested a prototype of their architecture on an ARM emulator, a software tool commonly used to test operating systems and other smartphone software. These initial reviews were promising as they indicated that TEEtime works well and does not compromise a system’s security.

“We show that it is indeed possible to run mutually distrusting software on a phone with pre-existing hardware primitives,” Groschupp said. “We hope this will lead to a shift in public perception of the smartphone ecosystem. Ease of use, security and user control are not mutually exclusive. privileged software on the phones as this would in turn require trusting large commercial entities to develop and update them.”

In the future, the architecture developed by this research team could pave the way for the development of other software solutions that give users more control over their smartphone. In the meantime, Groschupp and her colleagues plan to continue developing TEEtime to overcome limitations that could potentially hinder large-scale implementation.

“Our goal is to develop a fully functional phone prototype and thereby inspire phone manufacturers to support this design,” added Groschupp. “We are currently working on a number of remaining issues, including securing user interactions with our system and investigating changes to the hardware that would make our solution easier to integrate and even more efficient.”

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