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[Feature Request] Memory Tagging Extension (MTE) asynchronous or ASSYM mode #440
Description
Feature request
Enhanced application security for Android 13+ & ARM 8+, not only for GrapheneOS.
Describe the solution you'd like
<application android:memtagMode="async" tools:replace="android:memtagMode"/>
Additional context
At first the synchronous mode should probably used to debug eventual issues users could met.
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/bionic/+/main/docs/mte.md
https://source.android.com/docs/security/test/memory-safety/arm-mte
Activity
[-][Feature Request] Memory Tagging Extension (MTE) synchronous[/-][+][Feature Request] Memory Tagging Extension (MTE) asynchronous or ASSYM mode[/+]Sami32 commentedon Sep 23, 2026
That's said, in their official documentation, the assymmetric mode seem to be prefered:
Asymmetric mode (ASYMM)
An additional feature in Arm v8.7-A, asymmetric MTE mode provides synchronous checking on memory reads, and asynchronous checking of memory writes, with performance similar to that of the ASYNC mode. In most situations, this mode is an improvement over the ASYNC mode, and we recommend using it instead of ASYNC whenever it's available.