[Android Apps and Games] nxb:
I hear what you are saying here... but the server environment hardly changes once you set it up. On the desktop apps change and update a bit more frequently and obviously with less testing or micro management. I know about LPF and douane and even tried mandy, they are pretty half cocked. Douane was barely passable. Probably gui for tomoyo is worth a go.

I did... every single system I run personally. Cannot run off the shelf stuff and trust the loaded software anymore. Last 3 years it has reached a breaking point. You mention the bootloader but the baseband is much worse. The carrier has management abilities from the other side and there is very little information publicly available on what is going on or possible. For example, gpsOne transmits back gps coordinates with registration, unless you turn it off and lose agps, thanks baseband logging.

Unfortunately QXDM is getting outdated and the signature enforcement will be absolute in the near future. Nobody is leaking new qualcomm tools, I haven't checked on motorola in a while but assuming its the case there too. On top of that US attacks on encryption will hurt us all. We're getting locked out of our own stuff and [almost] everyone is twiddling their thumbs.

Yep, never said linux was really all that hard. Setting up slackware in 2000 might have been, these days its on par with windows. And don't get me wrong, I like command line for some things. It makes sense remotely managing systems or scripting things, etc. On a desktop system a gui is good, its faster for me to click on something than to type it out, even with copy/paste. You even did it when you needed real-time monitoring, like it or not that terminal with accept/deny was a gui abstraction. You wouldn't have wanted the workflow of check log, manually type package name + command, allow/deny, repeat.

haha, true. if you take out all of the strings it makes things harder. and variables/etc are usually renamed. With apk's however, its very easy to decompile -> edit -> recompile and run with it. The closest runner up to that is .net, except that it doesn't go back together quite so easily. Everything in between usually needs binary patching. I haven't tried IOS apps since I don't have any of those devices.

I haven't submitted to the store yet but from what I know they do that on their end. Your app must be signed with your own key and they check the signature of what you upload. SO while you can be man in the middle attacked, an ES file expiorer made by estr0ngs would probably get reported and removed quickly.

Eh, kinda. Lawyers are expensive, google has more lawyers than you do. They would basically need a class action with a serious cause. If you can find random stooge and he has money to be sued for it would be much cheaper although still most likely a fool's errand.

So a little bit more on topic... I mention the baseband but:

Just what is in google play services/gms/play store/etc. There is undocumented api for sure and its a huge closed code base, lots of libraries, many many services that run. How much remote management capabilities do they have over your handset? Apps can be installed and probably removed? and GMS usually runs as a system app.