21–30 of 107 posts
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Browsers use it to help you with the copied links. When you click into the URL bar they offer you to jump to the previously copied link right away.
Should be a permission.
I wouldn't be surprised if the apps themselves were not directly responsible here -- that is, the code that's written directly by the app developers. Instead, it may very well be be some analytics/marketing SDK that has been included in the app because of a business request. These have no privilege separation: they run their code in the same context as the code that the app developers wrote. (Consider the example of…
I assumed Apple plugged this hole by now :/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should be a permission.
I don’t disagree but the overflowing of permission prompts is how we get people just clicking Yes to everything. There is a balance. Location services are worth of a permission, but the clipboard seems a bit on the trivial side of things. Then again, people paste passwords, so...
I wouldn't be surprised if the apps themselves were not directly responsible here -- that is, the code that's written directly by the app developers. Instead, it may very well be be some analytics/marketing SDK that has been included in the app because of a business request. These have no privilege separation: they run their code in the same context as the code that the app developers wrote. (Consider the example of…
No.
Windows app can do this. Heck, in the case of a Windows app, you need not even poll the clipboard, you can sign up for notifications when it changes. The API is ancient, well documented, and provides no feedback when it's being used. And some apps indeed use it, one obvious one is remote desktop apps use it to "sniff" what's in the clipboard to mirror it along.
Is there a reason whatever security trade offs are OK in Windows, but not on a phone?
I wouldn't be surprised if the apps themselves were not directly responsible here -- that is, the code that's written directly by the app developers. Instead, it may very well be be some analytics/marketing SDK that has been included in the app because of a business request. These have no privilege separation: they run their code in the same context as the code that the app developers wrote. (Consider the example of…
Obviously this sort of thing needs super-explicit user opt-in and needs to be secured sufficiently that it can't leak private data, and it's possible/likely that a lot of SDKs aren't great about this.
Something that confuses me: Windows app can do this. Heck, in the case of a Windows app, you need not even poll the clipboard, you can sign up for notifications when it changes. The API is ancient, well documented, and provides no feedback when it's being used. And some apps indeed use it, one obvious one is remote desktop apps use it to "sniff" what's in the clipboard to mirror it along. Is there a reason whatever s…
Obviously the Windows APIs are far older and are from a time when there wasn't the same concept of untrusted code.
Also, people do tend to install more random software on their phones than their desktops and laptops in my experience. Someone will install a funny Chinese app in the pub based on a recommendation from a friend. They wouldn't do that to their desktop system.
A solution to this is to re-design this api so that it allows developers to query for specific matches, but requires user-action to unlock them I.e. I can passively ask "does the clipboard contain a photo?" or "does the clipboard contain a url in the *.facebook.com domain?" but in order to get the contents I have to prompt the user to manually paste. Probably this would require putting these queries in the info plist, so that they can be validated by app review and you don't get developers brute-forcing the contents with large numbers of generated queries.
This is very similar to how apple solved apps detecting what other apps you have installed using `-[UIApplication canOpenURL:]`. Apple added rate limiting and an info-plist based whitelist, which essentially put a stop to this practice.
Is there a MacOS utility that clears the pasteboard N minutes after its last content change?
Something that confuses me: Windows app can do this. Heck, in the case of a Windows app, you need not even poll the clipboard, you can sign up for notifications when it changes. The API is ancient, well documented, and provides no feedback when it's being used. And some apps indeed use it, one obvious one is remote desktop apps use it to "sniff" what's in the clipboard to mirror it along. Is there a reason whatever s…