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When an app asks for permissions, it should have a “feed fake data” option

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Re: When an app asks for permissions, it should have a “feed fake data” option

#201

Post by 23B1 »

rcstank wrote: post #73
johnwheeler wrote: post #61

Unpopular opinion: No, it shouldn’t. That would be unethical. Aggregating cohorts of data to determine what you might or might not like to buy, and vigorously safeguarding that data since you know it will cost your business billions in market cap if it is exposed is far more reasonable. Yours is just a passive aggressive way to “ruin Facebook”. If you want to ruin Facebook, push for legislation. Do it the right way.

Legislation will just hurt the little guys trying to start up. Once so much red tape is involved, it’s very difficult for innovation and competition.

It's unclear to me how the inability to hoover up data and exploit users' privacy would prevent someone from creating an innovative experience.

Re: When an app asks for permissions, it should have a “feed fake data” option

#203

Post by ineedasername »

That doesn’t seem like a good idea unless your goal is to burn down the current paradigm. And I’ll grant some people have arguments for doing so, but this doesn’t seem a productive way to go about it.

Either advocate for tearing the status quo out by its roots, hopefully with some inclination of what to put in its place lest something worse grow instead. Or demand transparent control w/ easily revocable consent ( or something along those lines.) Maximizing chaos and distrust and belligerent behavior beyond the already intolerable levels isn’t going to get a net improvement in things anytime soon.

Re: When an app asks for permissions, it should have a “feed fake data” option

#205

Post by enachtry »

Am opinion so naive it's harmful.

Google will NEVER harm itself by supporting fake data feeds. The only reason G exists at all is because they can exploit the data they harvest from you. If you're given the power to poison that data Google implodes and the whole Android platform becomes extremely unattractive to other massive companies that live off of leeching your private data one way or another.

Yes, an OS built first & foremost for its users/customers would have LOTS of options like that. A mobile web browser built the same would support plugins from day 1. Etc. Etc.

But Android, Chrome, Windows 10+, iOS are ABSOLUTELY not built for their users. They're built as vehicles that enable other services from a slew of big names and it's essential for these platforms to ensure users are NOT given the power to fight against those services.

Re: When an app asks for permissions, it should have a “feed fake data” option

#206

Post by kubik369 »

I am surprised no top comment mentions this — on iOS, you cannot distinguish if you were granted a permission or not. As an example, if an app asks you for access to your photos, it will always get an array. The trick is that when you deny this permission, the array will be empty, so you cannot know if the user simply has an empty library or if he denied you access. I like it, simple and elegant.

Naturally, in the case of photos, you can use a heuristic, because basically everyone will have at least some pictures. However, in the case of other types of data, say, health data, it is not so clearcut.

Re: When an app asks for permissions, it should have a “feed fake data” option

#207

Post by gigel82 »

I was mulling the idea of building a "garbage telemetry producer" thing for Windows. It's a losing battle trying to keep up with new endpoints to block more and more often, and I imagine it's easier for folks to build and run a small program that constantly pushes out telemetry events.

If we poison the data maybe Microsoft will realize providing a true "all telemetry off" option would be easier (and cheaper for their bandwidth and storage budgets).

Re: When an app asks for permissions, it should have a “feed fake data” option

#208

Post by AmericanChopper »

dagmx wrote: post #184
AmericanChopper wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which doesn’t prevent you from taking screenshots… (and doesn’t make it especially difficult to just capture the whole stream either) This whole screenshot point is silly to begin with, because screenshots aren’t a form of piracy or copyright infringement.

It prevents you from taking high resolution recordings , whether they’re screenshots or video. You either take a low resolution capture or the DRM layer prevents content from being displayed when recording. The legality of the subject is not something I’m talking about. You just asked for examples and I provided them.

For starters, it does nothing at all to prevent taking screen shots. Which is what this thread is about.

As for high quality video capture, it is trivially easy to do. How do you think high quality copies of Netflix-only content ends up on the pirate bay they same day it comes out?

Re: When an app asks for permissions, it should have a “feed fake data” option

#209

Post by labcomputer »

lldb wrote: post #161
ryandrake wrote: post #27

I’m all for the “fake data” idea, but also: Apps should be required to gracefully handle the cases where users deny permission to access real data. I know last time I developed for iOS, it was Apple’s policy that apps cannot punish users or exit() the app in retaliation for them denying a permission. Apps must gracefully handle it and continue running. Also, and this was even longer ago, apps could not require users…

Worst offender is google photos on iOS - you can’t even open the app without giving it all photos access. Selected photos doesn’t count. Even just to view photos already saved in the cloud.

Almost as bad is the FLIR app. You have to give it permission to view all photos, or else it won't let you save a photo. iOS specifically has an API that allows saving photos without photo access.

Re: When an app asks for permissions, it should have a “feed fake data” option

#210

Post by gigel82 »

Misdicorl wrote: post #155

Similarly, I'd like all the scam emails to be auto responded to with fake data rather than black holed

I'd prefer to have an option for the provider to send a genuine "invalid recipient" (554) auto-reply for addresses we mark as spam.
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