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> Screenshots are always available Unfortunately not, certainly not on mobile. I don't know if this is the case on iPhone, but on Android some apps make it rea
by FartyMcFarter 4y ago
> Screenshots are always available
Unfortunately not, certainly not on mobile. I don't know if this is the case on iPhone, but on Android some apps make it really hard or impossible to screenshot them.
I think in recent Android versions they can even prevent the screen from getting mirrored to a connected PC / other casting device.
- baxtr 4y agoSuper easy on iOS.
- FartyMcFarter 4y agoDo you mean super easy to take a screenshot of any app, or super easy for apps to prevent that?
- spoiler 4y agoEven on Windows and Mac (don't know about Linux) when browsing, you sometimes can't take screenshot of a portion on the website (only seen this with videos, though). We are not allowed to take a screenshot on a device we own, for content we paid for. What a world.
- pram 4y agoI think it's called HDCP? When you take a screenshot of a paid movie in Apple TV or something it's just a black box.
- alwayslikethis 4y agoIt's DRM. I refuse to deal with any company that tries to push this BS on us.
- WhyNotHugo 4y agoThis smells like DRM to me, an it's not a thing on Linux (thankfully). You'd probably have to install DRM yourself for this to be a thing. Note: I mean Digital Restrictions Management[1] here, not Direct Rendering Manager[2]. [1]: https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ [2]: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.4/gpu/introduction.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.4/gpu/introduction.html
- Mindwipe 4y ago> This smells like DRM to me, an it's not a thing on Linux (thankfully). You'd probably have to install DRM yourself for this to be a thing. That is also the reason why Linux doesn't (and likely never will) get served high resolution content by any significant paid service however.
- hnbad 4y agoI think this has to do with the content in question being rendered on the GPU separately from the website itself. Historically I recall this being an issue with all forms of video display in some browsers but at this point (with website rendering generally being at least in part GPU accelerated) it shouldn't be an issue I think unless for some reason the browser is set up to use software rendering for the website itself. I do faintly recall not being able to see video player content in screenshots taken on Ubuntu (but the player itself could take snapshots just fine) because of a divide like this some years ago.
- barbazoo 4y agoI have never experienced that on any device, do you have an example?
- contravariant 4y agoI still find it weird that this has no override. I can vaguely understand the security concern, but it's my device, running my OS, why can't I make a simple screenshot?
- lathiat 4y agoProbably because it’s also tied in with DRM video decoding / HDCP where the prevailing opinion of those bodies is that it very much isn’t your device.
- WhyNotHugo 4y agoA banking app an Android showed multiple obscure error messages when trying to log in and reporting the error was a PITA because they forbid screenshots. I know sharing a screenshot of my bank statement is a bad idea, but forbidding it completely is a ridiculous extreme.
- Mindwipe 4y agoFWIW the concern here isn't you taking a screenshot, it's that an illicit app in the background is screen recording your phone and sending it off.
- yencabulator 4y agoWell prevent that then. That's undesirable outside of banking apps. (On Android, you can only get into that swamp by opting in to "accessibility" features, which specifically need access to screen contents.)
- Mindwipe 4y agoYou prevent that by stopping any software in userland from being able to access the video path, which is an all or nothing thing. Accessibility is only required if the app doesn't have system permissions, or if it's not carried out a privilege escalation. Though granted a privilege escalation might also be able to gain root to turn off setting a secure surface too (that's not enough to get past Widevine if that's been used but banks generally are not).
- danbruc 4y agoWith some loss of fidelity, convenience and reaction time, you can always just point a camera at the screen. If no other device is available, a mirror might help.
- saurik 4y agoA mirror doesn't help as you can't simultaneously take a photo and be in a different non-camera app looking at something.
- danbruc 4y agoI think my phone will take a photo without bringing up the camera app UI with a certain button combination. But I am not sure if I could make this use the front camera. EDIT: I stand corrected, the button combination does not work when the phone is unlocked and it always uses the rear camera. But I guess at least in principle one could build this.
- WhyNotHugo 4y agoIt's not the case on iOS. On iOS applications can't prevent screenshots -- though applications are notified when you take a screenshot. I briefly used Android and the fact that applications can prevent screenshots is a horrible decision, closer to DRM than to a user-centric design.
- latexr 4y ago> On iOS applications can't prevent screenshots Maybe not, but it’s all the same if they can make the screenshot useless. Using Netflix as an example: when you take a screenshot video controls will be visible, but the content behind them won’t be.
- azinman2 4y agoDRM’d video is the one exception.
- hnbad 4y agoThe silliest example of this I've seen is "private browsing" mode not allowing screenshots. The point of the mode for me and everyone I know is to have isolated browser sessions for the websites I visit and not have the browser add them to my browsing history. Not to shield what I'm seeing from the OS itself when I try to disclose it.
- realitysballs 4y agoIphone can always screenshot , no restrictions there.