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Google have declared Droidscript is malware

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Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#471

Post by unexaminedlife »

jedimastert wrote: post #435
unexaminedlife wrote: post #392

Here's a thought. One of the most frustrating things to me about this kind of thing is that Google (or any other major tech company) could just ignore me and just tell me "you're malware". I get it. Technology people cost a lot of money, so I would propose that companies who the public depend on MUST offer consulting out-of-band at an hourly (or daily?) rate. This way the real issues are squashed. Now I know that I c…

Except that ties access to these companies depend on to people who have the money to do so, which creates a huge imbalance

We're not talking a huge amount of money. I'm saying let these companies recoup the balance of the cost. For a small company it might seem unreasonable for a Google to bill them $100/hr for consulting services. Then again if 1,000,000 people are asking for those services at 8 hrs a pop. You do the math.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#472

Post by blacklight »

This is the same story that HN readers have read hundreds of times over the past couple of years, just with different subjects.

Independent developer/small organization gets their app/YouTube channel/Google account shut down overnight because of false positives triggered by their system.

It takes weeks and insistence with bots to just get to speak to a human.

When you get to speak to a human, they usually respond with template responses and refuse to provide further information.

Rinse and repeat the same kafkanian process again and again.

In all honesty, what the hell is everyone waiting to get off Google? Gmail accounts, app stores, YouTube, ad networks... Alternatives exist nowadays for all of the products developed by a shapeless and faceless corporation that listens to nobody.

I wish a long and successful journey for the Droidscript guys on F-Droid or any alternative store. Time for Google to understand that without the content uploaded by us (users, creators and developers) they are nothing but a useless empty box.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#473

Post by edoceo »

tannhaeuser wrote: post #465
fuyu wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were to ask you if I could get a refund for an item out of warranty, what language would you use to refuse me? I'm struggling to come up with a response that doesn't use the terms "unable" or "can't" that wouldn't come across as fairly rude.

How about "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave"?

computer says no

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#474

Post by marcus_holmes »

ShroudedNight wrote: post #198
ficklepickle wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what kind of situations is it socially awkward to not be on your phone? Genuine question, I'm not great with social stuff.

When loitering, I've found that phones are a strong signal that distinguishes those uninterested in engaging with the strangers around them, from those that are. When trying to convey one's innocuousness to the wardens of a domain, it can be helpful to use your phone. Related, if in a group, everybody else disengages to be engrossed in their phone, it can be helpful to do the same if one does not want to demonstrate…

this, mainly.

Though if everyone else is on their phone, and the crowd is large enough, I find it fascinating to people-watch.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#475

Post by rOOb85 »

lupire wrote: post #151
protoman3000 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get your point. Sideloading apps was always possible on Android even without a jailbreak. We’re not in Apple world, so it’s unclear which Playstore rules got broken here.

Side loading is an Android OS feature, not a Play Store feature. Can you sideload via Play Store apps? F-Droid isn't in Play Store, but APK Manager is, so I'm confused.

> Can you sideload via Play Store apps?

Yup. Check out aurora store. It's a open source frontend to the google play store. All apps can be installed(except of course paid apps. Though if you bought the app and sign in to the account with aurora you can)

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#476

Post by marcus_holmes »

ficklepickle wrote: post #138
marcus_holmes wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I uninstalled all social media from my phone. I feel so much better. I use it for chat apps, phone calls (usually via chat apps), and occasionally wandering around Imgur when it would be socially awkward to not be on my phone. The rest of the time I've come to appreciate being present in the moment. So yeah, I'm looking at the new generation of Linux phones with interest. If I can run the chat apps in a browser OK, t…

In what kind of situations is it socially awkward to not be on your phone? Genuine question, I'm not great with social stuff.

I'm a middle-aged white guy. In situations where everyone else is 20 years younger and dressed in half the clothing I am, I come across as a total perv if I look at anything except my phone. Or at least that's how it plays out in my head.

I do find it useful to sometimes be absorbed in my phone and not aware of what's going on around me. Or at least to have that impression.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#477

Post by tshaddox »

zepto wrote: post #359
bipson wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I can't agree with you" "I cannot continue this relationship" "I can't kill this guy" "I just can't eat meat anymore" "I cannot continue like this" These are all examples where someone clearly could for physical reasons, but they can't for other reasons they are bound to, whatever these reasons are.

Technically you are right. However the key here is exploiting the ambiguity. ‘We are unable to’ is a cowardly way of saying ‘we choose not to’, or ‘our policy dictates’.

And yet no one, including people in this thread who are claiming that the intent of Google's wording is to deceive, are actually the slightest bit unclear about what Google means.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#478

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

mschuster91 wrote: post #372
veeti wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? It takes a minute to disassemble literally any APK with AdMob SDK and abuse their ID's. These values are not secrets. If a billion dollar company like Google can't detect simple fraudulent activity like this, how are their ads supposed to be worth a single dollar?

> how are their ads supposed to be worth a single dollar? Hard truth: a lot of internet ads is fraud. With paper, radio and TV, any ad buyer can cheaply verify that their ad spending ends up where it should by buying a paper at a random train station or listening to the airwaves. On the Internet, it's worse than the Wild West, with fraud and deception on every part of the chain.

Which is ironic because in the 1990s web-advertising was sold to marketeers' as the best form of advertising because every view is logged and tracked: unlike a magazine ad you can know exactly how many people saw it and interacted with it (...right before middle-school kids realized they could make free money by clicking ads they put up on their geocities webpages)

When Facebook launched their ad platform people were saying there would be even less fraud than open web advertising because FB (at the time...) was doing a good job of keeping bots out of Facebook - but I understand right now that Facebook advertising is the worst form of advertising you can spend money on...

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25623858

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26193544

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#479

Post by zshift »

easton wrote: post #440
franga2000 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done some, although not a lot of, native Android development and I'm not quite sure what's so bad about sending intents. "Could access other applications" sounds dangerous, but as far as I know that "access" is limited to things those apps have explicitly decided to allow external apps to access.

Applications could be exposing intents they assume will be used by trustworthy applications (i.e. apps in the Play Store). A user could download a Droidscript (which as I understand doesn't trigger the unknown sources policy) which then tries to use intents it shouldn't need without asking the user for permission. If Droidscript required unknown sources to do anything (not just APK exports), then other apps could che…

> Applications could be exposing intents they assume will be used by trustworthy applications (i.e. apps in the Play Store).

This is a poor assumption to make. Any data coming into your application should be assumed to be malicious. This would be the same as a server just accepting any data made to its API calls without any validation.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#480

Post by NateEag »

mdoms wrote: post #321
ajross wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time for one of these again. So... having read through their marketing material, this is an on-device tool that opens up what appears to be most of the Android application API to at least the user of the device, and potentially to any Droidscript applications they grab from other sources, and... maybe to other apps on the device? It's not clear from a quick read how extensive the runtime control is. So just right out…

> So... having read through their marketing material, this is an on-device tool that opens up what appears to be most of the Android application API to at least the user of the device, and potentially to any Droidscript applications they grab from other sources, and... maybe to other apps on the device? It's not clear from a quick read how extensive the runtime control is. When did we collectively decide that program…

Some of us realised that end users don't want to program and that they can be better protected from themselves by only allowing execution of arbitrary code when they explicitly say they want it.
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