>On a side note, it has also read my contacts list 6 times, my call log 43 times and received 6 SMS/MMS messages.
That's pretty alarming and seems to imply that this is not one small keyboard-related bug but rather a larger problem.
Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day
151–160 of 168 posts
Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day
#152Hey guys. Just thought I'd pop in here to mention an alternative to installing Cyanogenmod or blocking all internet activity with a firewall.
I found XPrivacy while looking for interesting xposed modules to install. It's like Privacy Guard but better:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/xposed/modules/mod-xprivacy-...
All you need to do is root your phone and install the xposed framework on your existing ROM. :)
Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is within my right to say that if you won't give me location information for ad targeting, you can not use my app I disagree. That question is exactly what we're discussing here. What you just said clashes with what you said earlier: > Apps are guests in the user's back yard, not the other way around. Either a developer is able to enforce their desired "TOS" on the user's device, or they cannot. I am on the side…
That doesn't clash at all. It's maximal freedom on both sides - you decide under what terms the developer's program runs. If the developer doesn't like those terms, the app doesn't run. Either the user accepts the developers desired TOS on their device, and they get to run the app, or they do not. I'd go a lower level than the legal contract. If the app says it wants X to run, and you deny X, the app is under no obli…
As soon as it is on your device, it is no longer the developer's program, but your copy.
Ownership (as opposed to renting) enables distributed rights instead of centrally-granted privileges. Hoping that competition between centralized privilege-granters will compensate for a lack of true rights is an error based in the fallacy of efficient markets.
In reality, competition/enforcement is not perfect and defaults matter. To expand on the example I just gave, Honda could indeed require me to sign a contract saying I will not use the car to drive to a Toyota dealer. But with no way of stopping me, their only recourse is to exert resources bringing me to court. To be motivated to do so, they must be actually suffering real harm rather than a mere general desire of trying to prevent competition. So ridiculous ideas like that end up laughable non-starters rather than ever present niggling restrictions that are too numerous to fight.
Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not constraining the behavior of the user's device, it's constraining the functionality of the app. If an app needs certain permissions to function, and the user denies those permissions, why should the app be forced to run with falsified data? Imagine that the use case is not ad targeting, but rather emergency weather broadcasts based on your location. Do we still want the app to receive randomized data?
Responding to the response inline: I'm not sure denying an app permission to use your data is the same as explicitly choosing to provide that app with randomized data. If you want to ensure that the system is only doing what the user explicitly chose to do , you need to provide prompts that let the user explicitly choose to provide randomized data. And at that point, we're probably better off just returning nothing.
It's not really hard.. one choice with a multitude of options:
Choose Level of Location Access:
1. Full access (exact location)
2. Nearest [major intersection, city, state]
3. Fixed location [home, work, present location, choose from map]
4. Random walk [choose area from map]
5. Ask me every time
6. Deny
Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't clash at all. It's maximal freedom on both sides - you decide under what terms the developer's program runs. If the developer doesn't like those terms, the app doesn't run. Either the user accepts the developers desired TOS on their device, and they get to run the app, or they do not. I'd go a lower level than the legal contract. If the app says it wants X to run, and you deny X, the app is under no obli…
As soon as it is on your device, it is no longer the developer's program, but your copy. Ownership (as opposed to renting) enables distributed rights instead of centrally-granted privileges. Hoping that competition between centralized privilege-granters will compensate for a lack of true rights is an error based in the fallacy of efficient markets. In reality, competition/enforcement is not perfect and defaults matte…
Which is fine and dandy, just don't expect Google's or the developer's help to do so. I'll say it again - if one of the terms I license (sell a license) my app under is that it must have location data, you are entitled to either provide that data or not use the app.
Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it was successful it would drain your battery, failed attempts should cost almost nothing so this fits with the bug theory.
That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Accessing GPS every 20 secs just can't be what they had in mind when they implemented it. (not even in case it fails, because it would prevent the CPU from going into deep sleep, which saves battery) What I believe is happening: The developers of Swype didn't test for that error, because Google Play filters the app for all devices that don't have GPS, so the device is expe…
This is a problem with a lot of the enhancements that custom ROMs provide on Android. They break the API contract a developer has with the SDK and unexpected things happen. It's the reason all these ROMs aren't allowed to ship with Google Apps installed -- they fail the compatibility test. Most developer don't bother to investigate these issues and work around it because they're rarely documented and hard to discover.
Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day
#157Every time I see something like this come up, it really makes me wonder how many other apps out there are doing the same thing and getting away with it. Unless you root your phone and use something like the mentioned android firewall, or go whole-hog and install Cyanogenmod, what chance do you have to guard against this? I assume ios users are likely in the same boat, but with even less chance of recourse.
If you don't 0wn your phone, you don't own your phone.
Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day
#158Actually, to me it sounds like a bug with Swype when location access is blocked. The users in the thread with the large amount of requests all have the location permission blocked. Other users with Privacy Guard installed as well (so they can see the amount of location requests) who have not blocked location access report that it only made the request once. So it just sounds like if it fails the initial request it co…
And then they wonder why there is no official support for permission blocking... Everything breaks when you play with this.
Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you provide random dummy data for a Contact List permission without a) running the risk of crashing the app, or b) making it obvious to the app that it's receiving dummy data? Is android supposed to return a well structured list of fake names and emails? Would instagram show me a list of made up names and user id's if I faked my contacts?
If Android has a way of faking location data, I don't see why a contact list would be any different: https://developer.android.com/training/location/location-tes...
Considerably different. Mock location data simply provides the location you want over ADB. It is a supplied value.
Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "App Ops" settings that they accidentally released seems evident enough that the feature is forthcoming. Am I missing something?
No it just means that there is permissions infrastructure not that they intend to make it available. What would show Google working actively would be to modify APIs or provide solid guidelines for developers to ensure that arbitrarily closed permissions didn't cause an app to crash or freeze. Making app privacy a high priority for future Android development would be clearly working towards it. Having a hidden privacy…
Multiple user account had a similar pre-release. It wasn't initially meant to be seen, but the crafty users a lot of Android developers are, we figured out how to start using it. A future update of Android made it a regular feature. Same with Apps2SD, although the community design wouldn't work for most users, the Android saw value in the project and came up with a solution that was more user friendly.
I wouldn't be surprised if Android v.next had this feature built-in, but it might require a newer API version.