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Taking screenshots isn't allowed by the app after upgrading to Android 11

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Re: Taking screenshots isn't allowed by the app after upgrading to Android 11

#351

Post by hunter2_ »

kevindong wrote: post #347
Polylactic_acid wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is abused, just not widely. I have seen a few apps that use it. There should never be a situation where the user is not able to screenshot their own device.

I'm inclined to say that there is a small handful of cases where apps should actively prevent/modify screenshots: * apps that show sensitive personal info (e.g. credit card numbers, SSN, etc.) should ideally self censor the sensitive info to help prevent accidental leaks * corporate devices where the phone and all of the data within it belongs to the employer

What about the analog hole?

When it comes to piracy of copyrighted music and movies, the analog hole is deemed to offer a significantly degraded signal and therefore DRM is still effective enough.

When it comes to screenshots, I think a native screenshot and a photo of a screen offer more similarities than differences and therefore it's not worth blocking one without blocking both.

Re: Taking screenshots isn't allowed by the app after upgrading to Android 11

#352

Post by ev1 »

jaspergilley wrote: post #152
swebs wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already block you from disabling location services if you want to use bluetooth.

Jesus, I had no idea. Remind me to never, ever switch to Android

This isnt' an android thing. Allowing BT/BTLE scanning reveals extremely precise location.

Re: Taking screenshots isn't allowed by the app after upgrading to Android 11

#353

Post by kumarvvr »

dghughes wrote: post #290
_odey wrote: post #27

You can use scrcpy ( https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy ) to bypass the policy if you really need to have a screenshot. All you need is to have a Linux laptop at hand, debug mode enabled, and a USB cable plugged in. Super simple stuff right? (this is satire!) Now, I'm as frustrated as anybody else here that I'm forbidden to use whatever feature I want from MY phone, for which I paid, with MY MOENY (and nobody else'…

> Now, I'm as frustrated as anybody else here that I'm forbidden to use whatever feature I want from MY phone, for which I paid, with MY MOENY Samsung disabled the oxygen sensor (SPO2) on their phones for Canada. For other countries they moved access for the SPO2 feature further into the Samsung Health app. But for Canada SPO2 sensor access is gone not accessible. No warning (probably buried in an email) just one day…

Seems to be something about Patent issues or the like.

I would certainly demand more information. Who actually opposed the sensor on phones, who actually sued whom, etc.

Re: Taking screenshots isn't allowed by the app after upgrading to Android 11

#355

Post by ffpip »

zrobotics wrote: post #267
ffpip wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Chrome should be banned as well, since I'm sure there's some sketchy corner of the internet with that crap available. Do you know the difference between a open browser and a app store meant to distribute apps? Chrome is not responsible for the website's content. But the app store will be help responsible for an app's content.

Maybe I'm obtuse, but I don't really see the difference between downloading Firefox from the play store or downloading a porn app. In either case, I downloaded an app from Google's servers that allows me to view objectionable content. If the objection is that Google doesn't want to provide an app that can be used to access illegal content, then why provide a browser? I would think that there is less of a chance of fi…

> I don't really see the difference between downloading Firefox from the play store or downloading a porn app. In either case, I downloaded an app from Google's servers that allows me to view objectionable content.

Congratulations. You may see it like that, not many others will.

> The only difference I can think of is that a browser has other functionality besides adult content.

Yes. Same reason why the reddit app exists in the play store. There is some other content other than porn on reddit.

Re: Taking screenshots isn't allowed by the app after upgrading to Android 11

#356

Post by stainforth »

vagrantJin wrote: post #114
jimlikeslimes wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's play store requires screen grabs of payment screens when submitting. They recommend you photograph the phone with a separate device...

All those highly paid, highly educated people really and truly believe this to be a solution?

I believe there are even actual Google employees that read these forums. And barring them, I believe there are even tech executives responsible for these policies that read this forum.

Re: Taking screenshots isn't allowed by the app after upgrading to Android 11

#357

Post by nexuist »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #305
kmeisthax wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a bug on Android's part. If you disable something called "location services", then you would expect that the GPS sensor no longer works.

Why would you expect that? If you deny an app the location permission, you would expect that the app cannot use GPS, and that is exactly what happens on Android. If you want faster location information in return for sharing "anonymized" location information with Google, you can optionally turn on location services to do so. This is considered a big enough privacy invasion that Android devices with Google services ask…

> But if you disable location services, you cannot get your location at all.

I think this is exactly what the average user would expect. In fact, users may not think location services have been disabled if apps are still able to show their location after the fact.

Do you happen to know if the location look-up (probably for nearby hotspots) is anonymized or not? I can imagine this would be an issue if your specific query can be tied to a specific device. Obviously this isn't an issue if you have Find my iPhone enabled since you consent to Apple having your location anyways.

Re: Taking screenshots isn't allowed by the app after upgrading to Android 11

#358

Post by nexuist »

ssivark wrote: post #280
nexuist wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted that there are legitimate reasons for blocking screenshots; on corporate managed devices handling sensitive data e.g. files or PDFs for example. Obviously if the device is owned by the company then the company is well within its rights to control what functionality is available (just as a solo user is within their rights to control what the device is doing at all times). This is a bug where the dev…

> there are legitimate reasons for blocking screenshots Couldn't someone anyways display the content on one screen and take a photograph with another device. For text content, the degradation of image quality doesn't even matter. Doesn't that make screenshot-blocking a pointless exercise?

Security is always a matter of making things harder for the bad guys. Couldn't someone just bomb your safe, fly a plane into your house, send an ICBM at your car?

Of course they could, but you reduce the probability that any random person can do that by taking precautions. Screen photographs also betray information that screenshots don't, for example nearby surroundings where the photo was taken, any reflections on the screen which may show who took it, metadata that can be used to conduct forensics to figure out which device took the picture, etc. In order to avoid giving yourself away, you'd actually have to plan a photographing mission, which may be made impossible by the circumstances (e.g. the device is held in a room with security cameras, nearby coworkers question why you're taking pictures of documents on your screen, your workplace may not allow secondary devices past the entrance, etc.)

Whereas with a screenshot you just hold two buttons and you now have an image that you can exfiltrate through a variety of ways into the hands of the bad guys.

Re: Taking screenshots isn't allowed by the app after upgrading to Android 11

#359

Post by Dylan16807 »

crazygringo wrote: post #190
arnaudsm wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a feature: FLAG_SECURE is real and used by many apps. i.e. Chrome's Incognito mode. Sure, you have workarounds for power-users, but Google is locking the Android ecosystem progressively for regular users. Just like the Manifest v3 for Chrome. Maybe Google is doing the "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" strategy that worked really well for Microsoft in the past.

Do you have any evidence for that? The thread is about behavior caused by a presumably erroneous ".nomedia" file residing in certain users' screenshot folders. The FLAG_SECURE feature doesn't appear to have anything to do with that. Two entirely separate things, unless you can show otherwise.

> Two entirely separate things, unless you can show otherwise.

Read the error message! It's clearly related to the real feature, which means the bug can't be "entirely separate".

Re: Taking screenshots isn't allowed by the app after upgrading to Android 11

#360

Post by bdcravens »

floatingatoll wrote: post #289
bdcravens wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but fortunately the apps on iOS can't block an OS-level feature, only take action in their app

https://screenshieldkit.com/ doesn’t seem to agree, though I have no idea if they’re still effective two years later.

As best I understand it, it's still working at the app level, making the screenshot you grab an empty image
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