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Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

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Re: Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

#161

Post by spacemanmatt »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #49
StavrosK wrote: post #42

From a reddit comment: > The permissions you see on the install screen are actually triggered by various permissions in the permission group. I've checked Ubers (there's a button on the web play store and you can see it in the manifest), and the only one from the Device and App History group they actually use is "GET_TASKS", or get a list of recently opened apps. > Furthermore, on Lollipop this permission doesn't eve…

Either that's not entirely truthful, or the app permission system is totally broken... Need to find out when you last opened the app? "Get running apps"...?

It could be both. The app permission system is almost totally broken.

Re: Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

#162

Post by hartpuff »

teamfrizz wrote: post #114
levemi wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're on to something, for example the Uber app probably also uses the `true` constant in places, which could be used by `if` comparisons, and Uber could actually be using `if` comparisons all over the place. Who knows what sort of suspicious `if` comparisons Uber's app might be making? We don't know, and until we do we should probably not use this app.

Not sure if this is sarcasm or just strange.

Not sure why your post is being downvoted, when the laborious Reddit-level sarcasm in the post you replied to is the kind of useless, non-constructive crap I thought was frowned upon here.

Re: Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

#163

Post by lsc »

this is why I don't use an android device as my primary phone, even though my perception is that you get rather more bang for your buck, hardware wise, on android phones, and even though the samsung gear VR looks like someone implemented one of my less-realistic fantasies.

On IOS, yes, uber asks for access to my contacts list, I click 'no' and uber works just fine (modulo the 'spam my friends' feature, which I didn't want anyhow.)

On an android, my understanding is that I've gotta chose between giving uber permission to spam my contacts list and simply not using uber, which is sad, because uber is way more convenient than a yellow cab.

This contributes to the perception that because IOS is paid for up-front, apple is willing to do things that might make apps less profitable, if it makes those apps better for the users, but that Android, because it is paid for by advertising, is less willing to side with the user against the app providers/advertisers.

Re: Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

#165

Post by hartpuff »

dlandis wrote: post #126
jsprogrammer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the Gmail TOS used to state that one person could only have one personal account. That has either changed, or I am misremembering.

I think you're misremembering. In fact they make it very easy to have multiple accounts and open them all simultaneously within the same gmail tab, switch between them and manage them fairly seamlessly.

Plus you can register multiple accounts with the same number.

Re: Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

#166

Post by Too »

brad0 wrote: post #36

Anyone who knows android dev knows this is a non issue. The permission they request doesn't even do anything in lollipop and later. Sounds more like a bad dev than anything malicious. What's the saying? Never attribute to malice with what can be explained by stupidity?

If the prompt is there it surely must do something. Otherwise google would remove it because the fewer prompts the better.

Re: Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

#167

Post by taneq »

tadfisher wrote: post #77
dlubarov wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This page has more detail on Android's permissions model: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/security/permissio... I don't really understand the point of having fine-grained permissions (like READ_CONTACTS), when the user only sees broader permission groups. Can someone shed light on this?

It wasn't always this way. The individual permissions used to be displayed to the user directly; newer releases of the Play Store have "streamlined" this permissions prompt so that users see general permissions "groups", and some permissions (such as INTERNET) are considered "not dangerous", requiring a click on the "See all permissions" button to view everything the app requests. I imagine it's because Google recogn…

> I imagine it's because Google recognized the general insanity of the system, and presenting fewer "scary" permissions improved conversion rates.

Because the way to fix "apps can demand a laundry list of permissions and users can only take it or leave it" is to sweep it under the rug?

A sane way to do it would be the way browsers deal with location data: "App [appname] is requesting permission to access [resource]. Allow always / allow / deny / deny always?"

Re: Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

#168

Post by victorNicollet »

enraged_camel wrote: post #154
ross-life wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can someone shed light on this? Whoever is in charge of the permission system is absolutely nuts. Or it's designed by the committee from hell. Those are the only reasons I can think of. No one sane would create this. They actually wanted to "simplify" the permissions system and let the user have more control/understanding. You could argue they've done the first... at the expense of everything else. Half of it seems…

>>- Want to write contacts? Here's reading too! Want to write texts? Here's reading too! Same as above really. Is the use-case of wanting an application to be able to add to my data (at my request) but never-ever read all my data really that hard to predict? I've configured security for a large variety of systems and I've never heard of a write-only permission. Read-only is often seen as a lesser right than read-writ…

I'm sure you've heard of the UNIX sticky bit, which is used so that anyone can write a new file to `/tmp`, but without being able to access other files in the same directory. I can certainly imagine the same implementation for contacts (create new contact, see only contacts you have created) and texts (create new text, see only texts you have created).

Re: Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

#169

Post by cha5m »

ludamad wrote: post #8
ape4 wrote: post #2

Presumably they want to see if you are running Lyft.

And it wouldn't do anything for if you had two phones, right? This is pretty annoying as someone who still wants to use Uber. Enough that I would consider a competitor.

Ah yes the multitude of people who have lyft on one phone, and uber on another.

And then of course they have their twitter phone, and their facebook phone and...

Re: Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

#170

Post by 5ersi »

lsc wrote: post #163

this is why I don't use an android device as my primary phone, even though my perception is that you get rather more bang for your buck, hardware wise, on android phones, and even though the samsung gear VR looks like someone implemented one of my less-realistic fantasies. On IOS, yes, uber asks for access to my contacts list, I click 'no' and uber works just fine (modulo the 'spam my friends' feature, which I didn't…

This is how it works in Android 6 - permissions are requested as needed and user can deny them individually.

Unfortunately apps have to be build against the new API, so it does not happen automatically for old apps.

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