4 ms·
As an example: Some EU government could force people to turn on side-loading to install an app that's needed if you want to access public services. The app coul
by hedora 3y ago
As an example: Some EU government could force people to turn on side-loading to install an app that's needed if you want to access public services. The app could bypass your phone's privacy protections, and feed the data back to the local government.
In the US, if Android side-loading were more common, we'd already have this, except that companies would require it.
In the EU, they'd probably crack down on companies that tried to do this. However, although it's technically illegal for governments to do such things, apparently most governments routinely break the anti-mass-surveillance laws.
On iOS, Apple has banned many bad actors for such shenanigans (although they still allow spyware from large companies like meta and google).
- cruano 3y ago> The app could bypass your phone's privacy protections iOS != App Store
- astrange 3y agoYou can definitely bypass iOS security if you can install your own apps on there with any entitlements the developer wants. It's not that secure.
- throw10920 3y agoTell me, which entitlement exactly allows you to bypass iOS security?
- astrange 3y agoRead-write access to / is a good one. Anything with "private" in the name.
- throw10920 3y agoJust don't give those entitlements to unvetted apps, then - or require that the user solve a tricky coding challenge before they unlock the ability to grant those. It's not hard.
- hedora 3y agoI think that would be in violation of court order Apple needs to comply with. For instance, they could (probably correctly) say that overriding the default web browser breaks security properties. The whole point is that the EU wants to take away Apple's ability to vet apps, since that's created an anti-competitive situation.
- throw10920 3y agoI guess that's a case of the EU's regulation having negative effects on security, then! However, this doesn't have any bearing on the argument that user freedom doesn't significantly compromise security - this just shows that the EU made a bad law.