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XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

chaos.social

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Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#2

Post by saurik »

It really sucks that these privacy policies Google requires everyone to have also have to be hosted on a normal website. This means the privacy policy can change on a whim, and it means you can't read them until after you have already sent your IP address to the developer (as part of connecting to their website).

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#3

Post by metadat »

saurik wrote: post #2

It really sucks that these privacy policies Google requires everyone to have also have to be hosted on a normal website. This means the privacy policy can change on a whim, and it means you can't read them until after you have already sent your IP address to the developer (as part of connecting to their website).

What is the value of the developer potentially knowing your IP address? They receive (1) a signal you were potentially interested and (2) can use GeoIP to learn your approximate location. This doesn't seem particularly valuable or egregious, what am I missing?

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#4

Post by Ologn »

I had a small role in helping Jamie port XScreenSaver to Android. It was fun working with someone whose writings I have been reading for thirty years or so, and I learned a lot from him (like the difference between HAVE and USE in C, or how to architect and run a project).

Patches are always welcome! Jamie (and/or other helpers) ported things like X11/Xlib to OpenGL, and then OpenGL to OpenGLES for iOS and Android. Jamie and so forth ported some of X11/Xlib's XFillPolygon to OpenGL - like for Convex shapes, and I did the Nonconvex shapes part, but we still didn't do Complex shapes yet. Lots of stuff like that outstanding (also it is still using GCC and make for the NDK, although Android has moved more towards LLVM/Clang and CMake).

Lots of interesting stuff and the code is open/free. As I said, patches always welcome, especially on the Android (and iOS) front.

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#6

Post by kccqzy »

I don't get this complaint. Of course I expect to find a privacy policy. And of course you can choose to write it in an unconventional way. Saying no data sent out of your device is a privacy policy. Saying it in a fancy way that contrasts between this app and something else is also a privacy policy.

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#7

Post by saurik »

metadat wrote: post #3
saurik wrote: post #2

It really sucks that these privacy policies Google requires everyone to have also have to be hosted on a normal website. This means the privacy policy can change on a whim, and it means you can't read them until after you have already sent your IP address to the developer (as part of connecting to their website).

What is the value of the developer potentially knowing your IP address? They receive (1) a signal you were potentially interested and (2) can use GeoIP to learn your approximate location. This doesn't seem particularly valuable or egregious, what am I missing?

Until after you read the privacy policy, you can't know what they intend to do with that information. As a trivial example, they might be handing IP address information to third-parties--hell: the website itself might be hosted by a third-party (or might be behind a CDN provided by a third-party) or use frameworks/fonts hosted by third-parties, even if it isn't as ostentatious as "the website this policy is hosted on has a tracking pixel / login button / ad on it from a third-party"--who can then correlate that IP address with accesses to other websites. Really, depending on your Internet provider, your IP address should be thought of as a direct personal identifier; in my case, I use a residential cable service, so my IP address only changes about once a year, making it trivial to correlate what I do across sites.

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#8

Post by forgotmypw17 »

metadat wrote: post #3
saurik wrote: post #2

It really sucks that these privacy policies Google requires everyone to have also have to be hosted on a normal website. This means the privacy policy can change on a whim, and it means you can't read them until after you have already sent your IP address to the developer (as part of connecting to their website).

What is the value of the developer potentially knowing your IP address? They receive (1) a signal you were potentially interested and (2) can use GeoIP to learn your approximate location. This doesn't seem particularly valuable or egregious, what am I missing?

In the security space, there are often modes that you can't think of ahead of time that become accessible through chaining a series of seemingly benign access modes. But here are some ideas:

GeoIP location is a real threat, sometimes you can get very precise. Cross-referencing with other services is another threat. It can also help with other targeted attacks, like phishing and exploit attempts. It can aid ISP and other types of surveillance.

Re: XScreenSaver is available on Android. Google requires a privacy policy

#9

Post by atum47 »

I had to rewrite my Google privacy policy at least 4 times before they accepted it.

This is the current accepted one: https://victorribeiro.com/privacy_policy.html (i copied from somewhere else and changed it).

This is the one they rejected: https://victorribeiro.com/privacy_policy.txt

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