Cell Phone Security Updates: Voluntary or Involuntary?

“I’m going to preface this by saying that I’m not a big fan of
security patches to software. They’re the worst possible form of
securing software, but they’re still a necessary evil in
today’s world.

“We’ve been doing software patches for years, of course.
Windows, OS X, Linux, and others all have automated and pretty
mature methods for updating and patching software. Until not that
long ago, however, the solution for updating software on mobile
devices was pretty archaic. Even Apple’s iPhone uses a pull-based
firmware update mechanism.

“To be fair, some mobile phone carriers have had push-based OTA
updates for a while now as well. But we’ve achieved new heights
quite recently. What’s changed? Well, the operating system updaters
I mentioned are all pull-based — meaning they periodically (or
manually) poll the vendor for new versions of the software, and
install them if they’re available and the user agrees.”

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