3 ms·

You only need to put in the app an obscure functionality that makes use of the mic, and then explain what it is in the app description, for the 1% of people who

• logicallee 10y ago
  If Google were serious about granular permissions in Android it would allow you to choose from three options: "allow", "block", "pretend to allow" for every requested permission, where the third would be described as "Your app will be given permission but will not have actual access unless you grant it." Then later you could have a pop-up "This app is requesting access to your camera. You have previously chosen to give it fake access. (a black image.) this app is requesting camara access: allow access/block/pretend to allow?" likewise contacts, photos, whatever. There should be detailed places to put fake content to give apps, for example here are my fake contacts, here are my fake photos, here are wav files for my fake microphone feed. Some people have new phones and haven't sent SMS's yet, or have no contacts - how would an app know if this is the case? So fuck you, pinball gane app, the fuck you need to read my SMS and contacts and camera photos and need my microphone for. No, I just have a new phone and am in a quiet room :-D
  • dredmorbius 10y ago
    Google's Android permissions model, application ecosystem, and vendor partnerships are utterly and irredeemably broken.
    • PhantomGremlin 10y ago
      Not from the point of view of Google's business model.
      • dredmorbius 10y ago
        That problem can be fixed.
  • stakent 10y ago
    Looks like xprivacy.
  • majewsky 10y ago
    Didn't they add this to Marshmallow? So that if the app wants to access the camera roll, but you don't allow it, it just gets an empty list of images. (I might confuse this with iOS, though. Does someone have a source?)
    • schiffern 10y ago
      Unfortunately these OS level privacy countermeasures are trivial to circumvent. Instead of checking for [photo permission denied] or [camera permission denied], on supported OS versions the app can check for [empty image list] or [black camera image]. Then display the impenetrable wall, or disable the goodie, or lock out the content because it can't verify that there are N or fewer viewers, or...
      • logicallee 10y ago
        I addressed this explicitly: an advanced user could create fake contacts, take or upload fake photos (for example, I might not care about EXIF data), create fake SMS's. How should an app determine the difference between a user with a new phone with few or no SMS's, and a user who has chosen to fake a few or no SMS's? More to the point, the phone could simply generate fake content algorithmically, and these algorithms could change all the time. How would an app keep up? If it helps you think about it, at this point the phone is the bot and the App is the one trying to keep a bot from successfully using its API. Surely possible, but not "trivial".