is there any way to abuse the recovery tool on chrome OS

[jakershaker 13]

i am getting ready for freshman year and my high school gives chromebooks to kids for school. the problem is they put a crap ton of limits on it. I was wondering if it would be possible to abuse the recovery tool to boot linux.

my reserch so far has led me to find it is an actual os that it boots not a program or activates a trigger. not sure if that helps.

[Mike Frysinger]

if you find a bug, let us know so we can fix it ;)

-mike

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 4:41 PM jakershaker 13 <jschae...@gmail.com> wrote:

i am getting ready for freshman year and my high school gives chromebooks to kids for school. the problem is they put a crap ton of limits on it. I was wondering if it would be possible to abuse the recovery tool to boot linux.

my reserch so far has led me to find it is an actual os that it boots not a program or activates a trigger. not sure if that helps.

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[Vadim Bendebury]

you won't (or rather are not supposed to) be able to switch to dev mode on a chromebook properly configured for school use. 

--vb

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 1:41 PM jakershaker 13 <jschae...@gmail.com> wrote:

i am getting ready for freshman year and my high school gives chromebooks to kids for school. the problem is they put a crap ton of limits on it. I was wondering if it would be possible to abuse the recovery tool to boot linux.

my reserch so far has led me to find it is an actual os that it boots not a program or activates a trigger. not sure if that helps.

--

[Keith I Myers]

I have tried to see if I can use it as a attack vector before with no luck 

Keith I Myers
http://KMyers.me
Mobile : (305)-929-3475

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[Matthew Peterson]

I think you're asking the wrong question - what you want is the ability to enable "crostini" or the built-in linux container for chromeos.  I completely agree that it makes no sense to lock down chromebooks for high school students (I'm a parent of 2 juniors) but this is a policy issue, not a technical issue.

You might have better luck asking your parents to advocate for the change in your school district or putting together a request with a large group of students and a well-argued rationale (or a change.org petition or whatever you think will get their attention). 

Here are some of the things I'd suggest::

* crostini, the containerized linux virtual machine (VM) for chromeos is stable - yes, google calls it "beta" but they called Gmail "beta" for years after it was released

* crostini is available in standard mode, not developer mode - no loss of sandboxing or OS verification

* crostini does not provide access to chromeos - the OS and filesystem are independent (i.e. a linux container); as far as I know, it can't be used to circumvent other chromeos restrictions

* The linux environment shares the networking restrictions of the host OS

* The linux environment opens up the full potential of chromeos, including access to java (used heavily in high school programming courses), visual studio code, C++, python, golang, docker, kubernetes, etc. These are all tools students need exposure to for the "real world"

* linux runs the world - this message will probably go through 10 linux servers before it hits your screen; students need familiarity and experience in this environment

Best of luck!  Feel free to ping me for more feedback or info. 

Matthew

On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 1:41 PM jakershaker 13 <jschae...@gmail.com> wrote:

i am getting ready for freshman year and my high school gives chromebooks to kids for school. the problem is they put a crap ton of limits on it. I was wondering if it would be possible to abuse the recovery tool to boot linux.

my reserch so far has led me to find it is an actual os that it boots not a program or activates a trigger. not sure if that helps.

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[Keith I Myers]

I do agree that they should allow access to Crostini but one could argue that it could allow a student to side skirt  restrictions on the device such as ChromeOS browser policies. 

--

Keith I Myers http://KMyers.me Mobile : (305)-929-3475

[jakershaker 13]

well the reason im trying to boot linux from a live usb is because we already have a way to get blocked websites on chromebooks (coding with chrome has a live html viewer) but teachers have a way to see our desktop and then you can get in trouble. my thinking is if i can get linux to run outside of chromeOS they cant see it.

[Keith I Myers]

While this group does not condone bypassing restrictions that were setup by the actual owner of the ChromeOS device you are using, I can tell you that if a teacher can see your ChromeOS desktop, they will definitely be able to see what is being done within the Linux environment.

[jakershaker 13]

my thinking is if one could run something outside of chrome os the only way you could be detected is if a teacher was standing over your shoulder

[orion120]

While I subscribe to the same "responsible" use of your school's Chromebook, I suggest you shift your perspective a little and look at this as part of your research. Perhaps, there might be bug bounty in it for you. So your questions will sound more like a researcher than a kid trying to watch porn at school.

[jakershaker 13]

It has never made any sense to watch porn on school chromebooks. like I mean why tho?