Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

#71

Post by Nursie » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 1:38 PM UTC

bjackman wrote: post #68

Nursie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has this made it to mainline/release yet? I've been doing some ARM kernel support stuff for one of my devices, and DeviceTree isn't there even in 3.11.x (AFAICT) Previously you had a bit of boilerplate code that did much the same. Either way it doesn't actually solve the issue, because you still need the dts file, there's no hardware discovery . (ok that's a bit of a stretch, some of the busses and things like I2C ar…

http://www.linaro.org/linaro-blog/2011/08/15/enabling-device... The Linaro kernels ("Linaro Stable Kernel" is the keyphrase) boot from devicetrees (aka FDTs). Not sure how much of that is upstreamed, but devicetrees are pretty standard in the ARM world as far as I can tell. (Also, in general if you're doing Linux stuff on ARM, Linaro is the place to look for everything). Edit: actually, that link isn't very relevant…

I'm a debian kinda guy and have been playing with both debian and mainline kernels, and haven't come across it yet, it may be that the ARM maintainers keep it on a separate branch for now.

I'll investigate Linaro at some point, if that's more of a hotbed of ARM development.

Re: Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

#72

Post by Nursie » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 1:40 PM UTC

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #65

Nursie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has this made it to mainline/release yet? I've been doing some ARM kernel support stuff for one of my devices, and DeviceTree isn't there even in 3.11.x (AFAICT) Previously you had a bit of boilerplate code that did much the same. Either way it doesn't actually solve the issue, because you still need the dts file, there's no hardware discovery . (ok that's a bit of a stretch, some of the busses and things like I2C ar…

Here are the LWN articles on Device Tree from June/July. Not sure how things have changed: https://lwn.net/Articles/560523/ https://lwn.net/Articles/561462/

I'm not sure how things have changed yet either, and I certainly think Device Tree is an important step forward from each and every board having its own (mostly identical) code in the kernel tree.

But you do still need the dts, so while it makes device support easier, it doesn't solve the problem of discoverable hardware and you still need board specs etc, either from the original manufacturer or reverse engineered.

Re: Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

#73

Post by lifeisstillgood » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 1:45 PM UTC

If they put it back with next release, it was accidental.

If not, not.

Re: Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

#74

Post by Zigurd » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 1:46 PM UTC

This is very disappointing. I had hoped the release of App Ops as a hidden feature indicated that permissions would be user-revocable in a future release.

It isn't a burden to handle security exceptions.

Re: Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

#75

Post by Kequc » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 1:48 PM UTC

616c wrote: post #12

Whatever, fuck Google. If you are interest in doing this with Android, the autopatcher[0] does this for you on a whole series of ROMs on all versions of Android from 2.x-4.x, and has been doing so successfully for a while. There is a pretty active user community on XDA for the PDroid patchset as well.[1] [0] https://github.com/mateor/auto-patcher [1] http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1357056

> Whatever, fuck Google.

Well this is going to be productive.

I'm pretty sure Google isn't out to put all of its users through a meat grinder. For one thing people have been way off the handle about Google touching anything. At all. This article only mentions an accident that lasted one day. So it's "fuck Google" after everything, still, again I guess.

Re: Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

#76

Post by nimble » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 1:49 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #73

If they put it back with next release, it was accidental. If not, not.

They're claiming the release was accidental. Not the removal.

Re: Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

#77

Post by corresation » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 2:03 PM UTC

jackgavigan wrote: post #18

This is one area where iOS stands head and shoulders above Android. I used to run Cyanogenmod and I remember deciding to not upgrade the Facebook app because doing so would have required giving it a slew of permissions, including the ability to "directly call phone numbers". By contrast, in iOS, I can choose which apps have access to my location, contacts, etc. I know that Apple's track record when it comes to privac…

By contrast, in iOS, I can choose which apps have access to my location, contacts, etc.

Could you detail the "etc"? To my knowledge historically the only activity that triggered a permission confirmation was a precise location fix. Later, after a debacle with many apps siphoning and scurrilously offloading contact lists, contact access was added as a confirmation.

Android has very granular permissions, and iOS does not. If you don't like the requests of an app, the general option is not to install it. Such is exactly what I've done with a number of small vendor apps -- if you demand anything that you don't need, I don't install.

Of course on the flip side Android, be design, allows for much tighter integration and leveraging between apps and the OS, so there are more interesting opportunities, both for good and bad. But those, too, are covered under permissions.

Re: Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

#78

Post by hnha » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 2:03 PM UTC

wting wrote: post #14

If you have root you can still enable it with market apps.[0][1] However something like this needs to be integrated tightly like iOS and apps need to be aware they may not receive requested permissions. I still use App Ops in Kit Kat and it silently breaks apps all the time. Apps expect to be able request information (e.g. contact details) and crash or stall when they can't. In that respect, LBE Privacy Guard[2] was…

i really miss lbe security on Android 4. Weird how it was abandoned.

Re: Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

#79

Post by Zigurd » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 2:04 PM UTC

Jolla and/or Myriad could make some hay by adding a similar feature to the Android compatibility runtime used in Sailfish.

Re: Google Removes Vital Privacy Feature From Android, Claims Release Was Accidental

#80

Post by JangoSteve » Fri, Dec 13, 2013, 2:10 PM UTC

wting wrote: post #14

If you have root you can still enable it with market apps.[0][1] However something like this needs to be integrated tightly like iOS and apps need to be aware they may not receive requested permissions. I still use App Ops in Kit Kat and it silently breaks apps all the time. Apps expect to be able request information (e.g. contact details) and crash or stall when they can't. In that respect, LBE Privacy Guard[2] was…

You don't need root for that first app! I've been using it just fine without root. The description tells you what extra features you get with root, but you can handle the privacy issue without.