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How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

timmarinin.net

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Re: How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

#321

Post by TeMPOraL »

Reading between the lines:

Oh, so you can take screenshots of the content that tries to avoid it if you do it mid-switch?

If it's reliable and WONTFIX, that's almost enough to get me to switch away from Android.

Screenshot taking prevention is harmful and should not have ever been allowed to become a platform-level feature in the first place. Because if there's one rule of platform/client interaction, is that if you add a feature that can be abused against customers for stupid reasons, it will be. There's a number of apps I have on my Android phone that block screenshots for dubious reasons, that can be maaaybe charitably explained by calling them "growth hacking pretending to be a security feature", but in some cases even that's a stretch.

This feature should never have existed in the first place.

(At least Bluesky is open about it, both by being Open Source and calling out the "growth hack" by name in source code.)

Re: How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

#322

Post by voidUpdate »

wraptile wrote: post #290

This is why pocket computers are still so unserious. My programs should not be aware let alone respond to my administrative actions like screenshots.

They don't respond to it. It simply says "this button is part of sensitive content", and the OS itself hides the sensitive content, revealing the image below it

Re: How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

#323

Post by broodbucket »

qurren wrote: post #296
hod6654 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS doesn't allow for it. You'd need a rooted device to bypass screenshot blocking

Well damn, I would have thought rooting would have been a basic feature of GrapheneOS. At least it's open source, so maybe one can add root access and screenshot blocking to it.

GrapheneOS is concerned with security more than anything else, to which rooting is completely counterproductive

Re: How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

#324

Post by TeMPOraL »

blauditore wrote: post #319
jjcm wrote: post #49

If it's between this and a perpetual logo, I'll take this any day. I actually really like this approach. The action button isn't relevant in this context, and it doesn't occlude the content. There's certainly situations where you wouldn't want this (ie if you're developing the app and you want to redesign starting from a screenshot), but for the average user I think this isn't overly hostile. I understand that people…

I actually hate that apps are allowed to blank out content on screenshots, and this can't be disabled. There are apps completely mis-using it, e.g. mobile payment apps which hardly show any sensitive data in most cases, but now I can't share e.g. infos on screen with someone else easily. It's a classic case of someone discovering a feature and thinking "hell yeah, so much security" without understanding or caring abo…

> I've yet to see someone saying "oh, I'm so glad my screenshot was blacked-out because I didn't realize I was in a banking app". It feels patronizing.

Yes, this. Payment apps, government apps, IM communications.

The other day I almost rooted my phone in anger trying to get around this, before pausing and realizing that this would only cause even more problems with those apps, thanks to remote attestation "features".

My favorite recent case, I almost locked myself out of mobile government services when changing phones recently[0], and it would've made for a stellar bug report showing when "fail safe" design can easily become "fail deadly"[1], with UI view of access and invalidation history clearly showing the timeline of a problem... if only I could take a screenshot of it. But I can't, because "much sekhurity".

--

[0] - Well, it's not really that big of a deal. With government services, there's always a way back. Might involve walking to a local civil affairs office or, worst case, a police station or a notary, but there is a way back. Big cloud services, on the other hand...

[1] - Invalidating a certificate prior to issuing a new one sounds like a good security idea, but in the real world fails critically if the two operations aren't an atomic group. In my case, issuing a new certificate failed, and I ended up walking around for half a day with old one invalidated and not even knowing it.

Re: How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

#325

Post by TeMPOraL »

subjectleft wrote: post #313
jjcm wrote: post #49

If it's between this and a perpetual logo, I'll take this any day. I actually really like this approach. The action button isn't relevant in this context, and it doesn't occlude the content. There's certainly situations where you wouldn't want this (ie if you're developing the app and you want to redesign starting from a screenshot), but for the average user I think this isn't overly hostile. I understand that people…

It is strange how this spawned a 100+ comments discussion on HN.

It's not about the logo. It's about abusing a platform feature that arguably shouldn't exist in the first place.

Re: How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

#327

Post by TeMPOraL »

monegator wrote: post #307
CrimsonRain wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to take a screen shot of the transaction I just did. Can't because some ahole decided for me that it's too sensitive information and blacks out the whole screen. this API is stupid without control in settings of the os

you don't have a share button tha generates a PDF and shares it with whomever?

Often, you don't, because the same developers of the bank app decided it's an unnecessary power user feature that doesn't fit in the MVP or something.

Or, even if they add it, there's no way to save the file, only to "share" it, which 99% of the times isn't what I want, and I'm frankly tired of routing through the mail app as a workaround. At this point, at least on Android side, there exist apps whose sole purpose is to be a share target and dump the information to file (and being apps on an app store, chances are top 10 are just thinly veiled malware).

Re: How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

#328

Post by clort »

chongli wrote: post #226
daleswanson wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use KeepassXC and Syncthing. It's not a single password manager doing both the managing and syncing, but it works very well, and I sync between phone/laptop/desktop without any third parties.

Do they work on iOS?

Keepass database is an openly documented format, and there are several apps available on iOS that use it and can store the database in your iCloud (ie syncthing is not required, unless you need to sync to non-iOS devices)

Just search for keepass in the app store (Keepassium, KeePass Touch, Strongbox, ...)

Re: How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

#329

Post by alibarber »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #298
MBCook wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exists for a very good reason. It’s so if an app is showing a password or bank account number or other piece of sensitive information it doesn’t accidentally end up in a screenshot. I think there are other places sensitive information won’t show. Bluesky, and apparently others, are abusing the functionality for advertising purposes. I think it’s a good thing it’s there. This functionality should be easy for apps…

OTOH, I might very well want to take a screenshot of my own bank details, transactions, or other sensitive information. It's annoying that my information is being protected from myself.

You might have amazing operational security but lots of other people don't, and they make noise, which means governments write laws meaning that banks have to refund them for fraud.

So as much as a bank might agree with your stance on freedom of compute - they probably don't want to pay for it with actual money.

Re: How Bluesky draws its logo on screenshots

#330

Post by TeMPOraL »

jvuygbbkuurx wrote: post #261
MBCook wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This exists for a very good reason. It’s so if an app is showing a password or bank account number or other piece of sensitive information it doesn’t accidentally end up in a screenshot. I think there are other places sensitive information won’t show. Bluesky, and apparently others, are abusing the functionality for advertising purposes. I think it’s a good thing it’s there. This functionality should be easy for apps…

If it's to prevent accidents, it should just prompt user to confirm saving the screenshot with sensitive information. As it is, it is just an annoyance that requires you to do stupid workarounds like taking a photo of your screen. Imagine if a password manager didn't allow you to copy the password since you might accidentally paste it somewhere incorrect.

> Imagine if a password manager didn't allow you to copy the password since you might accidentally paste it somewhere incorrect.

... have you heard of passkeys?

Yes, it's as stupid as it sounds. And works about as well.

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