Why not just use the Wikipedia website?
Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions
11–20 of 43 posts
Re: Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions
#12Why not just use the Wikipedia website?
Ya I thought almost everyone used the mobile site to the point that the Wiki app is almost unspoken of.
Re: Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions
#13Why not just use the Wikipedia website?
Ya I thought almost everyone used the mobile site to the point that the Wiki app is almost unspoken of.
The app actually has a bunch of neat features: really nice typography, material design, offline articles, article preview cards. Just try it out, I found it to be a good experience.
Also, the Android version has half a million ratings so you can't really say it's unheard of.
See also: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team/Why_apps
Re: Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions
#14This reads to me as an overreaction. Sure, it's important to be vigilant about the permissions you give apps, but it's also important to understand the underlying OS and permission layers. TLDR: If you're concerned about your privacy, upgrade to Android 6.0 There's nothing wrong with Wikipedia letting you manage your Wikipedia account using the app. They're using the Account Manager API, which is the right way to app…
Also, since the code is open sourced ( https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-android-wikipedia ), I guess they get the benefit of the doubt?
Exactly. Their explanation for requesting the permission looks reasonable, and the source code confirms that they aren't using it for anything else. Wikimedia did nothing wrong here, and OP is getting worked up over nothing. If he wants better assurances, he should use a better phone.
Re: Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions
#15Urgh, I am so over permissions.
I don't mind if my app accesses geo as long as it doesn't exfiltrate. In a perfect world, only a small subset of an app's data should leave the device.
This ends up being pretty hard to do generically. If a geofence event triggers a network call, has geo information been exfiltrated?
As things are, I don't feel like I'm past having to trust the app author.
Re: Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions
#16This reads to me as an overreaction. Sure, it's important to be vigilant about the permissions you give apps, but it's also important to understand the underlying OS and permission layers. TLDR: If you're concerned about your privacy, upgrade to Android 6.0 There's nothing wrong with Wikipedia letting you manage your Wikipedia account using the app. They're using the Account Manager API, which is the right way to app…
Less than 5% of phones currently run Android 6.x. I don't really think that's a fair "requirement" to give to people, given that many people are otherwise prevented from getting a Marshmallow update not because of the age or model of their phones, but because the carrier has prevented it.
If someone was truly that concerned, they'd make the choice to buy a Nexus device for that protection rather than embrace a 3rd party device with manufacturer and carrier crud.
Re: Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions
#17This reads to me as an overreaction. Sure, it's important to be vigilant about the permissions you give apps, but it's also important to understand the underlying OS and permission layers. TLDR: If you're concerned about your privacy, upgrade to Android 6.0 There's nothing wrong with Wikipedia letting you manage your Wikipedia account using the app. They're using the Account Manager API, which is the right way to app…
Less than 5% of phones currently run Android 6.x. I don't really think that's a fair "requirement" to give to people, given that many people are otherwise prevented from getting a Marshmallow update not because of the age or model of their phones, but because the carrier has prevented it.
It has nothing to do with fairness. The Android permission model prior to 6.0 was terrible. If you care about this stuff, then you'll want to use 6.0 or newer (or a non-Android phone with similar capabilities). It may not be fair that the phone you bought recently can't upgrade to 6.0 because Android OEMs are terrible, but the facts remain.
Re: Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions
#18This reads to me as an overreaction. Sure, it's important to be vigilant about the permissions you give apps, but it's also important to understand the underlying OS and permission layers. TLDR: If you're concerned about your privacy, upgrade to Android 6.0 There's nothing wrong with Wikipedia letting you manage your Wikipedia account using the app. They're using the Account Manager API, which is the right way to app…
Also, since the code is open sourced ( https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-android-wikipedia ), I guess they get the benefit of the doubt?
OpenSSL was open sourced. That worked out real well.
It's not being open sourced that leads to secure, well-behaved software.
It's being well-behaved, secure software. Which, among other properties, means following the principles of least privilege and least capability. See the OpenBSD project for more on that philosophy.
Re: Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions
#19This reads to me as an overreaction. Sure, it's important to be vigilant about the permissions you give apps, but it's also important to understand the underlying OS and permission layers. TLDR: If you're concerned about your privacy, upgrade to Android 6.0 There's nothing wrong with Wikipedia letting you manage your Wikipedia account using the app. They're using the Account Manager API, which is the right way to app…
TL;DR: Many Android devices don't have the option for arbitrarily upgrading at the user's option. You're limited to OS updates if and when your vendor can be arsed to get around to it.
The versions of Android on which this permission are required are precisely those on which it's a security issue. Ergo: don't use the permission.
Wikipedia's app describes what their intent is. Last time I checked, a large number of software security bugs were the result not of intent but poor execution. Again, applying principle of least privilege avoids this.
You yourself admit this is a dangerous permission.
More generally, there's a whole mess of problems with Android, its security and permissions system, and its app store. I've addressed those in earlier posts to G+, with the upshot being that Google really need to radically re-think where they're going with this and what they want it to be.
I find some attributes of Android hardware compelling. I find the actual environment to be rather a complete clusterfuck.
Last I checked, Google had registered something over 3 billion Android user identities. Relying on that large a population to 1) trust individual software authors with 2) no specific code of conduct or review process and 3) have a high level of familiarity with permissions systems, architectures, and peculiarities of specific releases strikes me as a good working definition of "unreasonable expectations".
Re: Wikipedia Android app now requests identity permissions
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Less than 5% of phones currently run Android 6.x. I don't really think that's a fair "requirement" to give to people, given that many people are otherwise prevented from getting a Marshmallow update not because of the age or model of their phones, but because the carrier has prevented it.
then we get into the whole "at what point do we stop supporting windows xp for real this time guys" argument though..
For Google Chrome the answer is: April 19