6 ms·

There needs to be two lists of contacts. One which I allow to be shared with apps And another which are my contacts I use with my dialer. People don't need th

by Jonnax 5y ago

There needs to be two lists of contacts. One which I allow to be shared with apps And another which are my contacts I use with my dialer. People don't need their messenger apps knowing the phone number of their doctor

jannes 5y ago
An alternative would be to make it similar to the iOS photo gallery permissions: When an app requests permission to all photos the user gets the option to share only a subset of photos with the app. (This subset can be different for each app.)
- furyg3 5y ago
  While I agree with you, the current way this functionality works is really terrible.
  - ratww 5y ago
    It's indeed terrible in Apps that reimplement the photo selecting feature, but in simpler Apps that just use the default picker it works quite well and it is transparent. Popular apps like WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, etc, could just fall back to the default picker when full access is not available.
  - h0h0h0h0111 5y ago
    Agree - it's a great concept but seems to involve an inordinate number of clicks (touches?) all over the screen
tgv 5y ago
Or the number of the VD clinic, or the number of the an oncology ward, or the number of the pawnbroker, ...
hansel_der 5y ago
on ios if one does not grant addressbook permission for the app: * telegram uses an "internal" contact list for which one can add contacts via the desktop client and then works as expected. * whatsapp let's the user freely initiate contact by phone numbers, but then only shows the number (no name). don't know about signal.
- strogonoff 5y ago
  WhatsApp on iOS cripples user experience without access to OS contact list. You cannot create groups, and cannot initiate a chat with anyone, even by phone number. It works if someone else messages you first or adds you to a group.
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    https://wa.me/phonenumber https://wa.me/phonenumber Very intuitive, I know.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      For people as confused as I was about the above link - after spending 5 minutes trying to figure out why visiting it gives me a 404 page, I eventually got out my phone and tried pushing that link to Android activity system, and then I discovered: it's meant to be wa.me/[an actual phone number goes here] - like wa.me/12345678912345. Not great indeed.
      - ratww 5y ago
        If you type https://wa.me/your_own_phone_number https://wa.me/your_own_phone_number (replace your_own_phone_number with your number) you can get into a chat with yourself. Useful for misanthropes, introverts, or for having a place to store information.
    - MauranKilom 5y ago
      404 for me.
itg 5y ago
I don't know about other Android phones, but Samsung has a Secure Folder with a separate list of Contacts.
de6u99er 5y ago
It would be much smarter if your contacts could chose to allow you to share or not share their details.
- MrDresden 5y ago
  While I agree with the sentiment, I am not so sure how well this could be implemented in practice. I feel it would rather be better to disconnect the more static portions of a contact (in this case the phone number) from the contact on the chat network, and use something a bit more transient. Like an email address. And while yes, primary email addresses are even more static to our identity then phone numbers, having the option of using a single address for each chat network would disconnect this contact graph somewhat. Going further, if each platform (iOS/Android) would have a more granular portions of the contact queryable rather than handing over the whole contact, the applications could simply just request the "chat network identity" portion of the contact (never to receive the phone number, country, home address etc etc)
spitfire 5y ago
In time I expect all OSes (mobile and desktop) will provide a "give false data" option. So Sandboxed+false inputs, sort of a digital Descartes deceiver. Because you know the slimy app developers will refuse to work if you don't hand over your full contact list. and people will just accept that. So the end game is a completely adversarial relationship, even on your own device.
- GrinningFool 5y ago
  > In time I expect all OSes (mobile and desktop) How much time? This has been a thing in one form or another since j2me. Some j2me platforms actually supported this kind of behavior, but that was all lost once Android and iOS came along. Same with fine-grained permissions over network access (eg, user having complete control over what networks/etc an app can access). We /had/ all of this in the days of BlackBerry, and lost it. Nobody wants to give it back now.
  - spitfire 5y ago
    That's a good question. We know exactly what technical solutions are needed to counter this adversarial activity. What social tipping point needs to happen for those to be implemented? How can we lower the social bar for that to happen? I have no clue. I'm almost always wrong on the social side of things.
  - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
    I didn't know that (Blackberry). I would like to know about it, if you have any links.
    - GrinningFool 5y ago
      All current info is about BB os 10, which did not provide this policy; but I can attest to it as a former owner and app developer for their their java-based OS (through 7.1). Whenever an application attempted to access a network, you would be given a prompt to approve/always approve/deny; and you had pretty fine-grained controls beyond that. This link has some screenshots and gives an idea of the capabilities. Adblock recommended: https://crackberry.com/blackberry-101-application-permissions https://crackberry.com/blackberry-101-application-permission...
rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
Don't forget that on Android, Google will sync all contacts with their servers without asking the user to install an application (the Play Store have access to all contacts and will sync them with the Google account when logging into the Play Store... which is inevitable on Android). The protection must be set higher up (the law, I guess) since the operating system has become spyware.
- canada_dry 5y ago
  To that point, I find it entirely un-amusing that Google is presenting me with a notification on my phone that says: "Account action required: add your birthday" %@$# A piece of info they very likely can derive, but would really appreciate if I'd help them out and confirm it. Screw them.

by Jonnax 5y ago

jannes 5y ago

An alternative would be to make it similar to the iOS photo gallery permissions: When an app requests permission to all photos the user gets the option to share only a subset of photos with the app. (This subset can be different for each app.)

furyg3 5y ago
While I agree with you, the current way this functionality works is really terrible.
- ratww 5y ago
  It's indeed terrible in Apps that reimplement the photo selecting feature, but in simpler Apps that just use the default picker it works quite well and it is transparent. Popular apps like WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, etc, could just fall back to the default picker when full access is not available.
- h0h0h0h0111 5y ago
  Agree - it's a great concept but seems to involve an inordinate number of clicks (touches?) all over the screen

tgv 5y ago

Or the number of the VD clinic, or the number of the an oncology ward, or the number of the pawnbroker, ...

hansel_der 5y ago

on ios if one does not grant addressbook permission for the app: * telegram uses an "internal" contact list for which one can add contacts via the desktop client and then works as expected. * whatsapp let's the user freely initiate contact by phone numbers, but then only shows the number (no name). don't know about signal.

strogonoff 5y ago
WhatsApp on iOS cripples user experience without access to OS contact list. You cannot create groups, and cannot initiate a chat with anyone, even by phone number. It works if someone else messages you first or adds you to a group.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  https://wa.me/phonenumber https://wa.me/phonenumber Very intuitive, I know.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    For people as confused as I was about the above link - after spending 5 minutes trying to figure out why visiting it gives me a 404 page, I eventually got out my phone and tried pushing that link to Android activity system, and then I discovered: it's meant to be wa.me/[an actual phone number goes here] - like wa.me/12345678912345. Not great indeed.
    - ratww 5y ago
      If you type https://wa.me/your_own_phone_number https://wa.me/your_own_phone_number (replace your_own_phone_number with your number) you can get into a chat with yourself. Useful for misanthropes, introverts, or for having a place to store information.
  - MauranKilom 5y ago
    404 for me.

itg 5y ago

I don't know about other Android phones, but Samsung has a Secure Folder with a separate list of Contacts.

de6u99er 5y ago

It would be much smarter if your contacts could chose to allow you to share or not share their details.

MrDresden 5y ago
While I agree with the sentiment, I am not so sure how well this could be implemented in practice. I feel it would rather be better to disconnect the more static portions of a contact (in this case the phone number) from the contact on the chat network, and use something a bit more transient. Like an email address. And while yes, primary email addresses are even more static to our identity then phone numbers, having the option of using a single address for each chat network would disconnect this contact graph somewhat. Going further, if each platform (iOS/Android) would have a more granular portions of the contact queryable rather than handing over the whole contact, the applications could simply just request the "chat network identity" portion of the contact (never to receive the phone number, country, home address etc etc)

spitfire 5y ago

In time I expect all OSes (mobile and desktop) will provide a "give false data" option. So Sandboxed+false inputs, sort of a digital Descartes deceiver. Because you know the slimy app developers will refuse to work if you don't hand over your full contact list. and people will just accept that. So the end game is a completely adversarial relationship, even on your own device.

GrinningFool 5y ago
> In time I expect all OSes (mobile and desktop) How much time? This has been a thing in one form or another since j2me. Some j2me platforms actually supported this kind of behavior, but that was all lost once Android and iOS came along. Same with fine-grained permissions over network access (eg, user having complete control over what networks/etc an app can access). We /had/ all of this in the days of BlackBerry, and lost it. Nobody wants to give it back now.
- spitfire 5y ago
  That's a good question. We know exactly what technical solutions are needed to counter this adversarial activity. What social tipping point needs to happen for those to be implemented? How can we lower the social bar for that to happen? I have no clue. I'm almost always wrong on the social side of things.
- AshamedCaptain 5y ago
  I didn't know that (Blackberry). I would like to know about it, if you have any links.
  - GrinningFool 5y ago
    All current info is about BB os 10, which did not provide this policy; but I can attest to it as a former owner and app developer for their their java-based OS (through 7.1). Whenever an application attempted to access a network, you would be given a prompt to approve/always approve/deny; and you had pretty fine-grained controls beyond that. This link has some screenshots and gives an idea of the capabilities. Adblock recommended: https://crackberry.com/blackberry-101-application-permissions https://crackberry.com/blackberry-101-application-permission...

rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago

Don't forget that on Android, Google will sync all contacts with their servers without asking the user to install an application (the Play Store have access to all contacts and will sync them with the Google account when logging into the Play Store... which is inevitable on Android). The protection must be set higher up (the law, I guess) since the operating system has become spyware.

canada_dry 5y ago
To that point, I find it entirely un-amusing that Google is presenting me with a notification on my phone that says: "Account action required: add your birthday" %@$# A piece of info they very likely can derive, but would really appreciate if I'd help them out and confirm it. Screw them.