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Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

gultsch.social

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Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#141

Post by causi »

ravenstine wrote: post #76
causi wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of bullshit is why I'm done buying devices I can't root.

I've found that as long as the bootloader can be unlocked and I can install a custom ROM, there's virtually no reason to obtain root. GrapheneOS is good enough on its own that I've had no desire to use root.

Some things are difficult to do without root depending on the ROM. Accessing displays' highest brightness mode at will, using a file manager that can actually see and manipulate every file on the device, using custom gesture utilities, altering over-underscan settings, undervolting the SoC, etc.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#142

Post by CorrectHorseBat »

ensignavenger wrote: post #130
clucas wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting, I didn't know Chrome did this. But it doesn't back up the claim that "[i]f you have media or backup drives [Chrome] just constantly adds wear to them." Does anyone have anything on that?

As pointed out above, Chrome no longer does this... but adding wear is a natural consequence of any hard drive scanning process. SSDs are rated for a certain number of read/write cycles, and every time a block is read, it adds wear. Even spinning rust wears out eventually. Not knowing any details about how often Chrome did this, it is hard to say just how significant this wear would be compared to other normal uses o…

> SSDs are rated for a certain number of read/write cycles, and every time a block is read, it adds wear.

Only write cycles cause wear, read cycles don't cause any meaningful wear.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#144

Post by marcosdumay »

alias_neo wrote: post #132
echelon wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Apple need to be regulated and have their "oversight" of what software can be deployed to mobile devices removed. Google and Apple's role is to defend users. This nanny state solution is not the only way to accomplish that, and in fact, they only do this to extract as much value as possible from the marketplace.

I fear that battle is lost; as we can see with Apple's response to EU regulation, it'll be all malicious-compliance, and even without that, the sheer scale of the status-quo means the chances of any alternative gaining traction is all but lost. An alternative app store gripping the mass-market is unlikely; a new entrant into the Android-iOS duopoly is unlikely, Google/Apple actually giving a shit about the apps and d…

What works is splitting the monopolies up. The entity that licenses Android should not also sell applications, and the other way around.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#146

Post by clucas »

ensignavenger wrote: post #130
clucas wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting, I didn't know Chrome did this. But it doesn't back up the claim that "[i]f you have media or backup drives [Chrome] just constantly adds wear to them." Does anyone have anything on that?

As pointed out above, Chrome no longer does this... but adding wear is a natural consequence of any hard drive scanning process. SSDs are rated for a certain number of read/write cycles, and every time a block is read, it adds wear. Even spinning rust wears out eventually. Not knowing any details about how often Chrome did this, it is hard to say just how significant this wear would be compared to other normal uses o…

Right, I understand about wear, but my point is that the behavior described in the links doesn't indicate that Chrome was scanning backup or media drives - only things like the registry, files directly related to Chrome, etc. If I have a drive with a bunch of random files on it, Chrome wasn't scanning those, was it?

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#147

Post by polynomial »

mrighele wrote: post #113
blue_cadet_3 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree that this is the reason. I have an app in the Play store and starting in June I have to get a D-U-N-S number, have a phone & email for users to contact me, a phone & email for Google to contact me and documents to verify my identity and my business.

Since there are also Google apps on the store, does it means that we will finally have a phone and an email to contact Google ? :-)

Rules for thee, etc.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#148

Post by ndr »

alias_neo wrote: post #139
ndr wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know none of your sdk/deps doesn't either?

I work for the kind of employer, who has the kind of customers who won't allow us to leave this sort of thing up to chance. I can't be more specific, as I'm not authorised to speak on behalf of, or represent my employer; my words/opinions are my own etc. We know, because we have to know.

I didn't mean it was up to chance, it is technically quite hard to keep in check.

At most places the most serious bit is some sort of compliance checks with vendors. And while that might carry legal consequences it's technically a pinky-promise. Nothing in the system enforces it in any way.

Unless one does some technical analysis on every version of every deps one uses, a dep (maybe via one of its deps) can get compromised and how/when will anyone notice it?

It is a technical challenge, and almost impossible for small devs. If you have a process in place to tackle this I'd love to learn about it, even if it has to stay in general terms.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#149

Post by charcircuit »

exe34 wrote: post #41
nonrandomstring wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fake security is a big problem to those of us who are concerned with real security. Mischievous and dishonest use of "security" as an cover by policy bullies, profiteers and other gangsters is as much a threat as worms, viruses, zero-days, phishing scams, data leaks all other kinds of actual security problem. Not least because it weakens rational expectations and evaluations of security and substitutes blind trust in…

You have to realise when a large tech company says "security", they mean their security from your attempts to defend yourself. E.g. most of the locking down of devices isn't to make it harder for attackers who want your data (which would defeat their own objectives) but to keep things like DRM keys from you.

>they mean their security from your attempts to defend yourself

No, they don't. They are protecting against malicous actors or at the most buggy software doing bad things on accident.

>most of the locking down of devices isn't to make it harder for attackers who want your data

Advances in this area definitely has been happening. The move to apps getting their own sandbox and having to be explicitly granted permission to access files outside the sandbox definitely helps against this. No longer can malware just read and upload all of one's browser history and malware. Even if an attacker got physical access to the device they would not be able to just dump what's stored either due to encryption.

>to keep things like DRM keys from you

This should be pretty self explanatory, but of the security of DRM keys is bad then attackers can dump unprotected versions of the content which is against what creators that have elected for DRM want to have happen with their works.

Re: Google has removed Conversations_im from the Play Store

#150

Post by petters »

bertman wrote: post #2

Developer: "Google has just removed #Conversations_im from the Play Store because they think we are uploading the user’s contact list. We don’t." and "To be clear: They didn’t just reject an update. They outright removed the app entirely. Otherwise my plan B would have been to remove the contacts permission which is used to display the name and profile picture locally if the XMPP address matches an entry in the users…

I wonder why Truecaller is allowed then?

It builds a database of users’ contacts. Probably in violation of GDPR but they have a constitutional exception for that in Sweden (“utgivningsbevis”).

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