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Google announces Android for Work

googleforwork.blogspot.com

31–40 of 174 posts

Re: Google announces Android for Work

#31

I suggest that anyone considering sharing a personal device with work activity (other than basic phone calls and messaging, e.g. "I'll be in late") think twice. Comes a security concern or conflict, someone's probably going to want access to the whole thing. If you want me to do "your work" on a phone -- particularly as an employee as opposed to as an independent contractor utilizing their own resources as defined in…

Would secure-wiping the phone if involved in a legal discovery process be considered destruction of evidence?

Does your advice apply when you're only using, say Exchange, as your only entry point (e.g. on iOS devices?) - in this case, all discovery can be done server-side.

I find it hard pressed to think this issue hasn't been covered more rigorously.

Re: Google announces Android for Work

#32

> a dedicated work profile that isolates and protects work data Oh wow, can this be used to just create a separate profile for every app? That way I can run Uber or Line without giving them every permission to everything? This is the biggest reason I do not install apps. Every "famous" app requests so many permissions it's just stupid. And not to mention the weirdness of some of them, like "WiFi Device Information".…

CyanogenMod's Privacy Guard is useful for dealing with this situation. There is a setting to enable it by default on newly installed apps. No matter what permissions the app says it requires, you are prompted when it actually requests them and can deny them at will or permanently.

Re: Google announces Android for Work

#33

I suggest that anyone considering sharing a personal device with work activity (other than basic phone calls and messaging, e.g. "I'll be in late") think twice. Comes a security concern or conflict, someone's probably going to want access to the whole thing. If you want me to do "your work" on a phone -- particularly as an employee as opposed to as an independent contractor utilizing their own resources as defined in…

This is right, theoretically, but I'd love to see the stats on how many people carry two phones everywhere. It's either BYOD or someone using COPE for personal stuff. Not sure which is worse.

Re: Google announces Android for Work

#34

> a dedicated work profile that isolates and protects work data Oh wow, can this be used to just create a separate profile for every app? That way I can run Uber or Line without giving them every permission to everything? This is the biggest reason I do not install apps. Every "famous" app requests so many permissions it's just stupid. And not to mention the weirdness of some of them, like "WiFi Device Information".…

This is more targeted for people who have an enterprise domain (Google Apps for Work, Blackberry, Citrix, etc.)

That said, if you want to create a separate profile for Uber or Line, you can already do so on Android 5.0 and above: https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/2865483?hl=en&ref_to...

Re: Google announces Android for Work

#35
post #7

I tried to find any info about license or repos and couldn't find anything. Unlike Samsung's Knox, which is FOSS, how can this be even remotely secure if it is closed source? Seems that Google is full on the "Extinguish" phase with Android. edit: amazing that I'm being downvoted for stating facts yet nobody replies to me.

[deleted]

Re: Google announces Android for Work

#36
post #16
post #9

So we're all going to code, write, etc. on four inch screens? Seriously why hasn't someone made a smart phone that "transforms" into a larger screen form factor when connected to a monitor? I could see Android phones doing this. I could never imagine iOS doing it-- Apple would never cannibalize Mac like that, and iOS is too jailed for anything "real." Of course apps would have to support it. But those that didn't cou…

> Seriously why hasn't someone made a smart phone that "transforms" into a larger screen form factor when connected to a monitor? It has been done repeatedly. Motorola and Ubuntu come to mind. Both were failures. I don't want my phone to turn into a desktop. Desktops are all about muscle, massive storage, gigabit connections, etc. Phones are about saving battery life.

Desktops don't mean any of those things, crappy old computers with none of your characteristics are very common.

Technology has improved significantly in the 3 - 4 years since Motorola made theirs, and Ubuntu's failed as a crowdsourcing campaign. Nothing has been proven.

Re: Google announces Android for Work

#37

Will this allow deployment to a rooted phone? If it does, then it will be possible for a third party to read the stored data.

Not if it is encrypted.

If your device is rooted, and by that I mean real rooted (bypassing SELinux), then it can get the encryption keys as at some point the data needs to be decrypted and viewable by you.

Re: Google announces Android for Work

#38

I suggest that anyone considering sharing a personal device with work activity (other than basic phone calls and messaging, e.g. "I'll be in late") think twice. Comes a security concern or conflict, someone's probably going to want access to the whole thing. If you want me to do "your work" on a phone -- particularly as an employee as opposed to as an independent contractor utilizing their own resources as defined in…

This is right, theoretically, but I'd love to see the stats on how many people carry two phones everywhere. It's either BYOD or someone using COPE for personal stuff. Not sure which is worse.

I've worked in several places where this was the norm. More than one work-supplied phones on occasion, too.

Re: Google announces Android for Work

#39
post #2

Looks like blackberry balance was ahead of the curve on this one

Blackberry was ahead of the curve on many things, they just sat on those advantages and never really responded to the changing market.

I don't mean to beat on Blackberry but I too thought of Blackberry when reading this. I had a different approach though. This was the sort of approach that Blackberry optimized to lock out any competition from the enterprise. Apple/iPhone was just soooo good that eventually IT departments had to capitulate and work with BYO devices. Things like the US government were the last to cave so you Obama had a blackberry for a long time. So Google _seems_ to be catering to that crowd with this but that's a ship that's kind of sailed. There might be a few stubborn outposts but if half my company (including the entire C suite) has an iOS device are we really going to get value out of implementing this Google stuff?

Re: Google announces Android for Work

#40

> a dedicated work profile that isolates and protects work data Oh wow, can this be used to just create a separate profile for every app? That way I can run Uber or Line without giving them every permission to everything? This is the biggest reason I do not install apps. Every "famous" app requests so many permissions it's just stupid. And not to mention the weirdness of some of them, like "WiFi Device Information".…

CyanogenMod's Privacy Guard is useful for dealing with this situation. There is a setting to enable it by default on newly installed apps. No matter what permissions the app says it requires, you are prompted when it actually requests them and can deny them at will or permanently.

When you deny them, roughly how often in your experience does this cause the app to crash or display an error?
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