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A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

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Re: A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

#151

Post by AnthonyMouse »

torstenvl wrote: post #134
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft was convicted of monopolizing the market for IBM-compatible PCs, i.e. not Macs. Which makes a lot of sense, because you couldn't run Windows on a Mac nor MacOS on PCs from the likes of Dell or IBM, and you couldn't run third party software for Macs on Windows or vice versa. By contrast, you could run various types of Unix on a Dell, and run Windows software on OS/2 or DOS software on DOS competitors other t…

This is utterly irrelevant. I don't know what point you're trying to make. It remains objectively inarguable that Apple does not have a platform monopoly on (ARM-compatible) smartphones the way Microsoft did on ("Intel-compatible") PCs.

Are Apple's phones compatible with other ARM smartphones? Can you install Android or LineageOS on one, or install Android apps on iOS, or get iOS apps through Google Play or the Epic Games store?

Re: A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

#152

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Itoldmyselfso wrote: post #143
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That looks like someone made a list of mostly features specific to GrapheneOS so they could make a chart where all of the other alternatives (including stock Android) are full of red boxes. Several of those are the opposite of security features, like SafetyNet support, which might be a convenience in some cases but it mostly makes it so you can't upgrade certain parts of the system to newer versions even when the old…

Or, far more playsibly, they added to the table features GrapheneOS has, but others don't. Here's the up-to-date comparison: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm As far as I know, there is no significant features other distros have that increase their privacy or security over what GOS has. I'm not entirely sure about the SafetyNet thing, but GOS is by far the most up-to-date to the AOSP out of these dis…

The point isn't that GrapheneOS is bad but rather that it doesn't imply there is anything wrong with LineageOS when it's still better than Android itself.

Moreover, some of the stuff with green boxes is still kind of a privacy fail. For example, with GNSS (i.e. GPS) your device calculates its location from the timing of radio broadcasts emitted by a network of satellites. It has extremely good privacy properties because your device is a passive radio receiver and neither the satellites nor anyone else know you're there when you use it. "Network-based location" can sometimes work when you're somewhere you can't hear the satellites, but now you have Google or someone else building a database of nearby wireless APs etc. in order to make it work, and in the process you're effectively uploading your location to them.

Re: A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

#153

Post by Certhas »

wqaatwt wrote: post #137
saubeidl wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the parliament isn't the government in a parliamentary democracy.

Yes, and? It forms the government and can dismiss it.

So this is typical of criticism of the EU democratic structure: It's just factually wrong. The EU Parliament can dismiss the commission. From Wikipedia:

"The Parliament also has the power to censure the Commission by a two-thirds majority which will force the resignation of the entire Commission from office. As with approval, this power has never been explicitly used, but when faced with such a vote, the Santer Commission then resigned of their own accord."

The fact that the whole democratic setup is highly complex is in itself a problem. But the concrete deficits people mention are never true or don't apply to other democracies either...

In practice the EU Parliament has been a lot more trouble for the executive than is typical in national bodies. The one valid point is that the parliament does not have the right to initiate legislation itself. That is unusual, but in practice many people who are actually close to political processes seem to say this is mostly symbolic, as national bodies can't really draft effective legislation without cooperation from the executive either... Stil definitely something I would love to see addressed.

Re: A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

#154

Post by Certhas »

wqaatwt wrote: post #126
saubeidl wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except the are a couple degrees of separation between the democracy part and in the running the EU institutions. That's what parliamentary democracy means, yes.

No, of course not... In parliamentary democracies the parliament is elected directly and is generally sovereign (optionally constrained by a constitution or some set of basic laws and powers delegated to regional governments and such). In no way does that describe the EU. It has no equivalent body. Its imitation “parliament” is extremely weak and barely has a say in who forms the closest EU has to a “government”.

The parliament approves and dismisses the commission.

In the last cycles the candidate who led the party who won the parliamentary elections became head of commission.

So this is just wrong. The EU parliament has more power than US Congress or the UK parliament in this respect.

Re: A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

#155

Post by ianbutler »

morshu9001 wrote: post #148
ianbutler wrote: post #47

I think this means we need to rely on web technologies more. PWAs are looking pretty good on mobile devices these days and you can publish any web app you want with no reviewing authority. The web has a bunch of crazy APIs now that let you build crazy things and for everything else you're a hosted server away somewhere that can run more complex jobs. I believe devices I own should let me do whatever I want with them…

PWAs are at the mercy of Gapple have always been handicapped in just the right places to not be viable vs installed apps. Most people don't even know how to install one.

Yeah but as I understand it Apple has become a lot more progressive on PWAs in the last few years. I’m under the impression theyre viable

Re: A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

#156

Post by Certhas »

wqaatwt wrote: post #121
Certhas wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is a parliamentary democracy. Von Der Leyen was proposed by the democratically elected heads of the member states. She was approved by the democratically elected parliament. The chancellor in Germany is also not directly elected by majority vote but by parliament. Its a reasonable criticism that the EU structures make democratic legitimisation very indirect, but that is at least partly a result of the EU being…

> The EU is a parliamentary democracy Except the are a couple degrees of separation between the democracy part and in the running the EU institutions. The EU parliament is also a very superficial imitation of a real parliament in a democratic state. It has very limited say in forming the “government” or decision making. > result of the EU being a club of sovereign democracies So either revert to it just being a trade…

It isn't working well by what standard?

Re: A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

#157

Post by torstenvl »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #151
torstenvl wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is utterly irrelevant. I don't know what point you're trying to make. It remains objectively inarguable that Apple does not have a platform monopoly on (ARM-compatible) smartphones the way Microsoft did on ("Intel-compatible") PCs.

Are Apple's phones compatible with other ARM smartphones? Can you install Android or LineageOS on one, or install Android apps on iOS, or get iOS apps through Google Play or the Epic Games store?

No. Also irrelevant.

Re: A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

#158

Post by AnthonyMouse »

torstenvl wrote: post #157
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Apple's phones compatible with other ARM smartphones? Can you install Android or LineageOS on one, or install Android apps on iOS, or get iOS apps through Google Play or the Epic Games store?

No. Also irrelevant.

It seems extremely relevant to the market definition that the alleged alternatives aren't actually substitutes for one another.

If you have a car that runs on diesel fuel and there is only one company that sells diesel fuel, it seems like you want to claim that it's irrelevant and isn't a monopoly because there is another company of the same size that sells gasoline. Is it not relevant that you can't actually use that in your car?

Re: A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

#159

Post by srcreigh »

ianbutler wrote: post #47

I think this means we need to rely on web technologies more. PWAs are looking pretty good on mobile devices these days and you can publish any web app you want with no reviewing authority. The web has a bunch of crazy APIs now that let you build crazy things and for everything else you're a hosted server away somewhere that can run more complex jobs. I believe devices I own should let me do whatever I want with them…

This is harmful speculation. Many PWA features are broken in small ways which add up. The caniuse database does not test that a PWA feature meets the spec and there is no better database. Nobody can say that PWAs are "looking good" without such testing.

Re: A theoretical way to circumvent Android developer verification

#160

Post by Itoldmyselfso »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #152
Itoldmyselfso wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, far more playsibly, they added to the table features GrapheneOS has, but others don't. Here's the up-to-date comparison: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm As far as I know, there is no significant features other distros have that increase their privacy or security over what GOS has. I'm not entirely sure about the SafetyNet thing, but GOS is by far the most up-to-date to the AOSP out of these dis…

The point isn't that GrapheneOS is bad but rather that it doesn't imply there is anything wrong with LineageOS when it's still better than Android itself. Moreover, some of the stuff with green boxes is still kind of a privacy fail. For example, with GNSS (i.e. GPS) your device calculates its location from the timing of radio broadcasts emitted by a network of satellites. It has extremely good privacy properties beca…

GOS developers have said on multiple occasions that they think LineageOS is worse for security than the stock OS on multiple devices, as it doesn't keep up with current privacy/security patches or provide all of the standard protections. The comparison also does bring up these faults. See also https://www.kuketz-blog.de/lineageos-weder-sicher-noch-daten...
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