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Thank you for working on this problem space. Solutions are sorely needed. I am a current NetGuard user, and, at least on a non-rooted device, there is a discla
by T3OU-736 4y ago
Thank you for working on this problem space. Solutions are sorely needed.
I am a current NetGuard user, and, at least on a non-rooted device, there is a disclaimer that apps which use Google Play services for their data transfers cannot be individually blocked. Is this a problem to which you have managed to find a solution?
- ignoramous 4y agoThanks for your kind words. > ...there is a disclaimer that apps which use Google Play services for their data transfers cannot be individually blocked. Well, inter-process communication (IPC) in Android is such that, a firewalled app can still ask another unblocked app to do its biding. This isn't an Android thing but rather a limitation for any multi-tasking OS that has mechanisms for IPC (pretty much establishing the need for MicroVMs, Containers, Jailers and what not). In Google Play services (GPS) case, of course, the firewalled app can communicate with it and ask it to fetch notifications and such on the app's behalf, and this would succeed. This isn't a firewall leak, because from the firewall's point of view (which isn't a jailer), if GPS isn't firewalled, then its connections are allowed, regardless of whichever app it is connecting on behalf of. > Is this a problem to which you have managed to find a solution? A network firewall cannot solve for this unless it MiTMs GPS traffic (which isn't straight-forward on Android since Android supports certificate-pinning). What I'd do instead is either disable or force stop apps I don't use. And the ones I use but want firewalled, I accept that there are IPC mechanisms which provide escape hatches for the app. And short of the OS itself implementing mitigations, there isn't much that a userspace app can do.