Unix: Android Security Internals: Nikolay Elenkov, no starch press, 2015

I was intrigued when I first saw this title. I’d known for a long time that Android was built on top of a Linux kernel, but I hadn’t any sense for whether this would make it easy for a thirty year Unix veteran to understand or actually work with it. After making my way through this excellent book, I’d say that those of us who are Linux savvy will have a leg up getting started because we will understand some of the basic concepts that help make Android what it is. We may even understand the role that SELinux plays in securing applications. But that’s just the “getting off the ground” stuff. This book starts with familiar concepts, but quickly launches into the guts of how Android works — starting with its security model and then delving into the details of packages, cryptographics, credentials, accounts, devices … In short, it moves from building blocks to edifices fairly quickly and you’ll soon be “slinging a lingo” that is well beyond the reaches of ordinary Linux admins. That said, the ground covered can best be expressed by displaying the table of contents, so here goes:

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