Google have declared Droidscript is malware • Hacker News Board

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#651

Post by _carbyau_ » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #356

StavrosK wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I am unable to give someone your money because you won't agree. It's not against the laws of physics, but I still can't do it. Google can do it, they just don't want to. Hell, they can even change their policies if they want, so they aren't really "unable".

> Well, I am unable to give someone your money because you won't agree. It's not against the laws of physics, but I still can't do it. If you tried hard enough, you could probably manage this.

Stainless Steel Rat comes to mind. :-)

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#652

Post by macksd » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 1:10 AM UTC

jldl805 wrote: post #438

veeti wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a safe assumption that the vast majority of people police deal with are criminals. And there's a lot of them. If they gave a detailed explanation of why they are under arrest it would mean a ton of additional work - which would create an unsustainable situation at this scale. But it's all good, Google is a private company™ and can do whatever they want®.

Actually Google is a public corporation, not a private company.

They mean private in the sense of private sector vs. public sector, not equity trading.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#653

Post by nelsonenzo » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 6:50 AM UTC

So, essentially AdSense is defined as malware by googles own definition. If you ship your app with it - malware - remove it, no longer malware.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#654

Post by asdfk-12 » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 7:16 AM UTC

What happened to google? Rhetorical

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#655

Post by greazy » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 1:47 PM UTC

Kliment wrote: post #603

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA: "Der Process", English "The Trial", is old enough so you can read it for free on the internet, e.g. on Project Gutenberg: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/7849 It's a really entertaining read. And yes, it perfectly matches this situation - right in the very first sentence already.

For German users who are blocked from Project Gutenberg, here is the original text (in German) http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Kafka,+Franz/Romane/Der+Proz...

Why is PG blocked in Germany?

> As a result of a German lawsuit, Project Gutenberg has blocked Germany from viewing the Gutenberg web site.

Oh...

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180306/03423339363/proje...

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#656

Post by zepto » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

TheRealPomax wrote: post #639

zepto wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can always either change or make an exception to the policy. A policy is just their way of doing things, written down. It’s not magic.

They can certainly change it, thus changing what they can do, in the future , but they can't make exceptions. A policy, written down, becomes a contract as far as the law's concerned. Contract changes are fine (provided all parties involved are then allowed to cancel the contract), but contract violation is not.

This isn’t accurate.

There are plenty of policies that state that they may be changed by one side or that exceptions may be made in cases where the wording doesn’t cover the intent.

The Apple store policy for example says this.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#657

Post by OkGoDoIt » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:17 PM UTC

dfabulich wrote: post #546

This article is big news, because it shows that Google will permanently yank your Android app if your website violates AdSense's secret fraud detector! If you're running Google AdSense ads and you have an Android app that you care about, take down the ads immediately and switch to another vendor. AdSense is the product where Google pays you for running banner ads; they can and frequently do kick people off of it for…

Maybe, but in this case they had advertising in the app which Google is claiming may have been fraudulent, and it seems everything ballooned out from there. There’s no indication that this has anything to do with advertising on their website.

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#658

Post by LocalH » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

IncRnd wrote: post #648

TheRealPomax wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure if you file the proper paperwork with google's legal department, you can get a copy of the exact text in question. The downside of business in the US: companies are by law required to make documents available on request, but they are in no way required to make that easy.

Getting the text of the policy isn't the whole issue. As you pointed out both the policy and method of verification need to exist, or there is ambiguity. Given the information in the article, you can't verify any of the traffic or actions that were supposed to break policy. After all Google wrote, "We understand that you may want to know more about the issues that we’ve detected. Because this information could be use…

Imagine if the justice system worked this way.

"We understand that you may want to know more about the crimes that we’ve detected. Because this information could be used to circumvent our proprietary policing system, we’re unable to provide defendants with information about alleged criminal activity."

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#659

Post by cannabis_sam » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #397

richardfey wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked all of your comment, but this passage in particular: > No, we need a Habeas Corpus for tech companies. If you are banned, you have to be told why. Make it a law. I don't care if it results in more spam. The whole ordeal seems like an attempt to educate app developers by whipping, where the victims have to guess what they did wrong.

Yes, and: Efficient markets require fair & impartial courts, tort, transparency, accountability. Etc.

.. and P=NP

Re: Google have declared Droidscript is malware

#660

Post by horsawlarway » Fri, Apr 30, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #394

horsawlarway wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but to be as blunt as possible - You don't own your iPhone. Full stop. You are renting it from Apple. They control what you run, when you run it, what you can install, what you can remove. By default, they're shipping you a device where you're literally not the root user. I can't possibly think of a clearer argument that you're renting, and entirely at the whim of Apple (which does have root access, and actuall…

Sure. No matter what your definition of "own" is -- I am saying, my car is already the same thing. The question is, do we have a good solution to enable the average user to own their device while also ensuring security and availability? We have two options with cars, either intentionally implement a security hole, or let the manufacturer "own" it. Because the other option -- tell the customer they're SOL when they lo…

This is a solved dilemma. Lets take the car - There's already a huge security hole: The car key.

That key disables all the security measures to stop the car from moving and lets the user drive it.

Why should the same key not also allow 3rd party parts to be installed, or disable any other security feature the user would like to disable?

The user has already been given a device the compromises the entire security system, why do you think they need to do anything as complex as store a private key (it's embedded in the physical key).

Same question for phones - The user's pin/password already removes essentially all functional security from the system. I'd add a requirement for a physical switch to be toggled in the case of the phone (a tiny toggle header, or a certain combination of presses on the available buttons should do just fine) to rule out network based access.

In general though, security measures added by the manufacturer always fail, because the user has to actually use the thing at some point.

So given we already have the hole, the only reasons I can come up with for continuing to forbid the owner of the device from actually owning it are

1. It adds cost to the product

2. It removes future revenue from the company (because that pesky owner might choose a cheaper repair shop if they actually own the device... however will the company maintain their monopoly on parts/service?!?!? Think of the children!)