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What's wrong with using Google Play Services? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume it has to do with message notifications. So, by using GCM, Signal would be
by JustSomeNobody 8y ago
What's wrong with using Google Play Services?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I assume it has to do with message notifications. So, by using GCM, Signal would be leaking some metadata about when and who, etc. I assume. But wouldn't someone be able to get that same information from your ISP (with a little more work)?
You're losing the benefits of longer battery life for basically nothing.
Security isn't absolute. I don't know why this blogger has the attitude that there is such a thing.
- jhasse 8y agoIt allows Google to easily circumvent any end-to-end encryption since it's a rootkit.
- JustSomeNobody 8y agoHow? What mechanism? Does it access the plain text from the keyboard before the app encrypts it?
- jhasse 8y agoIt could do that.
- Tomte 8y agoGoogle certainly doesn‘t need the Play services to do that. If you assume Google to be malicious in that way, no app on your Android phone can be secure.
- jhasse 8y agoSure, but the Play services make it A LOT easier for them.
- mjg59 8y agoHow? (I work for Google, I don't work on Android)
- jhasse 8y agoThe Play services run as root IIRC and listen to commands from Google's servers (e.g. to push updates to the devices). Even if they don't have enough priveleges to intercept the keyboard, Google has all the signing keys to replace system apps that do.
- mjg59 8y agoThe full set of Android processes running as root on my Pixel 2 is https://pastebin.com/sTtQVz3m https://pastebin.com/sTtQVz3m - which of these is from Play Services? I think that in most cases the system services that are in a position to interfere with the keyboard in any way are provided by the phone manufacturer rather than Google - obviously if you're running gBoard then Google has control over that, but I'm not aware of any way that Google fundamentally has control over the other frameworks that the keyboard interacts with (but, again, I don't work on Android - I'd love a more definitive answer on this)