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Google has a secret browser hidden inside the settings

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Re: Google has a secret browser hidden inside the settings

#31

Post by berkes »

londons_explore wrote: post #3

Is this different than any other embedded webview? Doesn't nearly every app somewhere have an embedded webview somewhere for things like "view privacy policy", where it is often much easier to display html than sending the whole privacy policy to your app developer?

Can you visit arbitrary websites using such webviews? I never managed to.

And IIRC it's rather difficult to set up a webview that allows multiple domains or URLs (but I'm no android dev, and the last time I had to fiddle with this, was years ago)

Re: Google has a secret browser hidden inside the settings

#33

Post by lucideer »

blagie wrote: post #10

Google's increasingly cavalier attitude towards security is concerning: 1) Kids WILL use this to bypass parental / school controls as soon as they learn about it 2) In some contexts (especially as high-stakes test settings, but also some military/prison/finance/medical/legal/etc. settings) this IS a direct security risk 3) Given the embedded browser is not secure, if a lot of kids do this, it WILL lead to someone exp…

> Google's increasingly cavalier attitude towards security is concerning:

> [3 bullet points unrelated to security]

Security is a field related to protecting device-users from malicious actors. Your 3 examples all fall broadly under parental-controls, which are about controlling & monitoring a user's use & access of their device - a scenario within whichc the user is the adversary, not external actors. That may be an important or necessary measure in some contexts but classifying it as "security" is misleading.

Re: Google has a secret browser hidden inside the settings

#34

Post by newaccount74 »

jeroenhd wrote: post #21
hobs wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a child is powerful enough to start taking control from you it might be time to start giving it away.

It should be noted that once this technique makes it to the playground, every kid will learn about the magic taps that make the web available, including kids that aren't ready yet. Obviously, parents using parental control will have questions what their kids are doing for hours in the Google Settings app every day, but every kid will probably get that day or week of free browsing until their parents get suspicious. T…

I suspect my kid found a way to use Spotify to browse the web, because he seems to use it all day and when I ask him what he listens to he just says "stuff".

Re: Google has a secret browser hidden inside the settings

#35

Post by elric »

blagie wrote: post #10

Google's increasingly cavalier attitude towards security is concerning: 1) Kids WILL use this to bypass parental / school controls as soon as they learn about it 2) In some contexts (especially as high-stakes test settings, but also some military/prison/finance/medical/legal/etc. settings) this IS a direct security risk 3) Given the embedded browser is not secure, if a lot of kids do this, it WILL lead to someone exp…

As someone who remembers being a child, I'm glad there are still ways around parental controls. Kids are going to break rules, and that's fine. Making arbitrary rules unbreakable has always seemed iffy to me...

Re: Google has a secret browser hidden inside the settings

#36

Post by alufers »

andreasha wrote: post #2

TIL mobile JavaScript console https://eruda.liriliri.io/

There even is a "remote version" of this by the same person: https://github.com/liriliri/chii

By using it you can open the devtools on another computer and all the information is synchronized over WebSockets. I used it once to debug an issue on a customers machine.

Re: Google has a secret browser hidden inside the settings

#38

Post by Angostura »

lucideer wrote: post #33
blagie wrote: post #10

Google's increasingly cavalier attitude towards security is concerning: 1) Kids WILL use this to bypass parental / school controls as soon as they learn about it 2) In some contexts (especially as high-stakes test settings, but also some military/prison/finance/medical/legal/etc. settings) this IS a direct security risk 3) Given the embedded browser is not secure, if a lot of kids do this, it WILL lead to someone exp…

> Google's increasingly cavalier attitude towards security is concerning: > [3 bullet points unrelated to security] Security is a field related to protecting device-users from malicious actors. Your 3 examples all fall broadly under parental-controls, which are about controlling & monitoring a user's use & access of their device - a scenario within whichc the user is the adversary, not external actors. That may be an…

> Security is a field related to protecting device-users from malicious actors.

You know - sometimes, just sometimes - it is also to do with protecting organisations from careless or malicious users. The three points are related to security, even it couched in terms of parents/children

Re: Google has a secret browser hidden inside the settings

#39

Post by Tyr42 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #23
londons_explore wrote: post #3

Is this different than any other embedded webview? Doesn't nearly every app somewhere have an embedded webview somewhere for things like "view privacy policy", where it is often much easier to display html than sending the whole privacy policy to your app developer?

Do normal embedded webviews also bypass parental controls? If so, that seems like a massive issue.

Normally they are fixed to one domain.

Re: Google has a secret browser hidden inside the settings

#40

Post by jabradoodle »

inetknght wrote: post #30
blagie wrote: post #10

Google's increasingly cavalier attitude towards security is concerning: 1) Kids WILL use this to bypass parental / school controls as soon as they learn about it 2) In some contexts (especially as high-stakes test settings, but also some military/prison/finance/medical/legal/etc. settings) this IS a direct security risk 3) Given the embedded browser is not secure, if a lot of kids do this, it WILL lead to someone exp…

> 1) Kids WILL use this to bypass parental / school controls as soon as they learn about it Good. Parental/school controls don't belong on the device. They belong on whatever the device connects to. That would be parental/school networks. If you don't want your kids to connect to things then don't let your kids have devices that connect to things. > 2) In some contexts (especially as high-stakes test settings, but al…

How would network restrictions help, there is WiFi at friends houses / everywhere.

> There's nothing in that statement that relates specifically to kids.

Most adults probably don't have parental controls on their phone...

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