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More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

arstechnica.com

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Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#71

Post by on_and_off »

cwyers wrote: post #36
izacus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're comment is trying to say - TARGETING a new API doesn't meant you don't SUPPORT an older API. It just determines backwards compatiblity behaviour. We currently release a product that supports Android 4.1 while targeting Android 7.1. Also this dashboard is hugely misleading for the HN audience - in western audiences (USA, Canada, EU, etc. - countries HN users are from) we're tracking ~10% devic…

What it's trying to say is that this can be a big problem even if it doesn't affect Android 6 and up. Your own statistics say it can affect up to 45% of Android users.

The landscape of people who actually download apps is very different though.

And he has a point : Google could easily ask that all new apps target the last version of the OS.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#72

Post by anigbrowl »

voidz wrote: post #60
anigbrowl wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand you right, you're saying that this doesn't actually work most of the time - but not that people are not trying it. Myself, I don't care about the fact that Google is 'failing' on this, because even if they fix all the problems you identify, the people exploit such approaches will find some other loophole to exploit or work around. The inevitable result: another arms race that doesn't create value for…

tl;dr "don't fix anything because of other bugs." Is that what you're saying? If so: that ship don't sail.

That is not what I'm saying. I am articulating a different concern about the nature of the problematic behavior which exploits the vulnerability.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#73

Post by gcb0 »

cwyers wrote: post #32
izacus wrote: post #19

ArsTechnica unfortunately again misleads people due to limited expertise. On modern Androids (6.0+) accessing the microphone requires an explicit permission granted by user (just like on iOS). Furthermore, due to Doze mode implemented in 6.0 and expanded in 7.0 running these kind of services without notifying the user cleary (with permanent notification) has become pretty much impossible and unreliable. To run in bac…

Nearly 2/3rds of Android phones that have accessed the Google Play store in the week leading up to May 2nd are not on Android 6 or later: https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

do the opposite.

build your app for android 5 and push to the store.

done. target 100% of devices and get no dialog for android 6 users.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#74

Post by [deleted] »

lemuurd wrote: post #68
djrogers wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing in iOS prevents an app from using the microphone in the background - I use apps that do it all the time. When I do however, there is a big, obvious, red bar at the top of my screen to remind me/let me know that it's happening. Why dont the android designers want to do something like that?

i think it is fair to say that android can do stuff ios does not allow. for example you can add the behavior you just described to android using something like xprivacy.

[deleted]

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#75

Post by macintux »

voidz wrote: post #64
nom wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that they could if they wanted to. Granted, they don't need the money, but still... it's something you can easily hide and nobody would be able to tell without spending weeks looking at disassembly.

Oh, but they do need the money. The goal of the company is to maximize profit for the shareholders.

The "maximizing shareholder value" idea is a recent and inaccurate belief.

https://www.fastcompany.com/1680174/maximize-shareholder-val...

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#76

Post by PhantomGremlin »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #16
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go even further and light the notification LED the entire time something is reading the camera/mic from the firmware (such that applications can't disable it via software). The indicator works well for the webcams on most laptops.

I'd go even even further and have a physical switch on the device. I want absolute certainty that my devices are incapable of spying on me when they are switched off.

Yeah, that's wishful thinking. Because even if there were such a switch, it would be deliberately perverted.

E.g. some SD cards have a "write-protect notch" the status of which can be changed by physically moving a sliding tab. Very reminiscent of write protect on floppy disks.

Here's the gotcha[1]:

The presence of a notch, and the presence and position of a tab, have no effect on the SD card's operation. A host device that supports write protection should refuse to write to an SD card that is designated read-only in this way. Some host devices do not support write protection, which is an optional feature of the SD specification. Drivers and devices that do obey a read-only indication may give the user a way to override it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#Features

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#77

Post by dbrian82 »

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Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#78

Post by swiley »

vetinari wrote: post #23
rubatuga wrote: post #11

Why does android trust developers so much? Just lock down the apps already, and make microphone usage obvious.

Android doesn't trust developers. It trusts users - everything has to be disclosed and users have to agree. It is a open platform, not walled garden. We have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_pigs problem there.

Android does /not/ trust users. The enormous pile of crap I have to go through just to disable selinux and get write access to the sdcard and ext4 partitions is ridiculous.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#79

Post by swiley »

p49k wrote: post #13
EliRivers wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is made of people. People who change, people who come and go. Maybe Apple today wouldn't, but tomorrow Apple will be a different company.

Apple's OS design philosophy makes this extremely difficult, even if someone wanted to sneak it in. The OS notifies of such activity (mic active) on a system level, and the permission model requires explicit permission at time of first access attempt, even for most of Apple's own apps.

How could you know this though? There's no source code to audit or anything.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#80

Post by voltagex_ »

Markoff wrote: post #47
baobrain wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but greenify might do the trick. You might need root. Also Android now has the doze feature that should hibernate apps by default when not used. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oasisfeng.... [1] https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/greenify

that's quite amusing suggestion considering Greenify is closed sourced Chinese root app which optionally (only?) report data back to mainland China and dev worked for some companies producing shady apps, before according his LinkedIn profile

Please decompile the APK - I'd read your writeup.
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