Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

voys.co.za

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 296 posts

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#41

Post by shadowgovt »

Interesting (and disquieting). I can see this from Google's standpoint also... I don't expect them to shoulder the cost of interpreting a binary blob by decompiling it, so they're left with the problem that the trust calculus is that they're observing a user doing something with very sensitive user information in a binary blob they can't introspect.

Hypothetically, one possible workaround (that definitely wouldn't work for all companies and requires more trust of Google than many will be comfortable with) would be to offer a feature where the package uploaded to Google for hosting on the Play Store includes source code and they compile it to native... But then you have the problem that a company will have to exfiltrate source code to a third party (even though the third party is the one with total control over their app's existence in the largest Android store).

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#43

Post by dwaite »

MaxikCZ wrote: post #25
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #10

> Analytics cookies are installed on this website to enhance your browsing experience. Such cookies are only used to optimise this website’s performance and enhance user experience. It is not possible to disable analytics cookies on this website. Now that's just a lie and you know it. Is this legal?

IIRC: At least in Europe, they needn't ask for essential cookies. They need to ask for cookies used for tracking, profiling, fingerprinting and consent to share collected info with third parties. The rules also state that the path to reject those cookies must be as easy as it is to accept them, so if they have "accept all" button, they are required to also provide "reject all" button, that has similar visibility and…

> The rules also state that the path to reject those cookies must be as easy as it is to accept them, so if they have "accept all" button, they are required to also provide "reject all" button, that has similar visibility and accessibility to the "accept" button.

The rules also say that you have to be able to _withdraw_ your consent as easily as you provided it, which IMHO 99% of cookie banners fail to provide for.

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#44

Post by avisser »

londons_explore wrote: post #32
thebeardisred wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't doubt that you never give apps access to your contacts, how many apps do you use as _dialers_?

iOS doesn't even let you change the dialer.

I have Google voice on my iPhone. Google voice calls show up in my "Recents" in the Phone app. When I click them, the call is started in Google Voice.

That feels like changing the dialer, even if it's technically not.

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#45

Post by acdha »

Andrex wrote: post #29
squarefoot wrote: post #9

The mobile ecosystem has been built with the sole intent of milking users through targeted advertising, media consumption and unnecessary services subscription, so I find normal that corporations behind the OSes fight hard to maintain the platform as closed as possible (proprietary or seemingly open OSes, closed drivers, locked bootloaders etc). Their deepest fear is seeing their ecosystem conquered by Open Source, o…

Oh man, you should have seen the mobile sphere before Android...

Before iOS, to be fair. Touchscreens got the attention but the use of the iPod’s popularity to negotiate a non-terrible cellular market was equally transformative. The carriers used to charge something on the order of $50k each to be listed in their app stores and their percentage of revenue was high and negotiated based on your perceived ability to pay: we had several clients bail on J2ME projects because they were being asked to take home less than half of each sale and making 6-7 figure minimum profit commitments to each carrier! The sales person would look at their total corporate revenue to base their first offer on, and they were not quick to negotiate down to our actual budget.

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#46

Post by asdff »

secretsatan wrote: post #40

I kinda sorta see google’s side. There are just too many shady operators out there who will swear blind they’re completely honest, and maybe they are, but they also employed a third party to write code or maybe just imported a 3rd party lib (i am in no way saying this is the case) As to, why don’t they look at the code? bugger that being standard practise, i’m not handing over my code to google or apple. Even if they…

At the same time, why not just release at least one phone that is developer friendly? People can handle it. All these issues are present on computers that are able to run unsigned code, have sensitive personal info stored on them, etc. Yet the sky is not falling with all this going on with everyone's computer on earth, like how people fear the sky will fall if we opened up the mobile phone.

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#47

Post by jtvjan »

asdff wrote: post #46
secretsatan wrote: post #40

I kinda sorta see google’s side. There are just too many shady operators out there who will swear blind they’re completely honest, and maybe they are, but they also employed a third party to write code or maybe just imported a 3rd party lib (i am in no way saying this is the case) As to, why don’t they look at the code? bugger that being standard practise, i’m not handing over my code to google or apple. Even if they…

At the same time, why not just release at least one phone that is developer friendly? People can handle it. All these issues are present on computers that are able to run unsigned code, have sensitive personal info stored on them, etc. Yet the sky is not falling with all this going on with everyone's computer on earth, like how people fear the sky will fall if we opened up the mobile phone.

It's easy to install unsigned apps on Android, but not being on the Play Store severely limits your reach, since many people only check there for apps instead of searching on the open web.

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#48

Post by secretsatan »

asdff wrote: post #46
secretsatan wrote: post #40

I kinda sorta see google’s side. There are just too many shady operators out there who will swear blind they’re completely honest, and maybe they are, but they also employed a third party to write code or maybe just imported a 3rd party lib (i am in no way saying this is the case) As to, why don’t they look at the code? bugger that being standard practise, i’m not handing over my code to google or apple. Even if they…

At the same time, why not just release at least one phone that is developer friendly? People can handle it. All these issues are present on computers that are able to run unsigned code, have sensitive personal info stored on them, etc. Yet the sky is not falling with all this going on with everyone's computer on earth, like how people fear the sky will fall if we opened up the mobile phone.

They keep making them but they keep failing, because people want phones that work without needing a computer science degree to understand what is safe and what isn’t.

And myself being an apple guy with a dev account, i can install pretty much what i want

Post reply on HN