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> For a screen saver. A privacy policy. For a screen saver. The point is that it is obvious to you. It's not obvious to your users. That's what the privacy pol

> For a screen saver. A privacy policy. For a screen saver. The point is that it is obvious to you. It's not obvious to your users. That's what the privacy policy helps with. An app of any kind can be doing more than you may think. There are many things to complain about with Google. This isn't one of them.

GauntletWizard 2y ago
Many, many pieces of malware were distributed as windows .scr files. Some were just viruses abusing the extension. A ton were bonzi-buddy-esque data-harvesters where users were encouraged by advertising to install "Free cute and funny screensavers!" (many were literally just oneko+malware). Oh, and the part about location data is blatantly untrue, because one of the options on mapscroller is "Current City".
- eesmith 2y ago
  Where do you see that option? I don't see "Current City" in the source, and the documentation only says: > "Random‐city" means to select from a built‐in list of several hundred major cities. This is the default. > Otherwise, this must be a latitude/longitude pair, as floats. Furthermore, hacks/glx/mapscroller.c says: * Network access and management of the image file cache happens in the * mapscroller.pl helper program, since doing https from C code is untenable. * Sadly, this division of labor means that this program won't work on iOS or * Android.
spondylosaurus 2y ago
You know how we always hear about basic flashlight apps that get used to run advertising click farms in the background, or Flappy Bird knockoffs that collect detailed location data and have access to your photo gallery? I'm with you on this one. In a perfect world it would be evident that a simple little app isn't doing anything nefarious, but... clearly even a screensaver app can be a front for some nasty shit. Making your good intentions explicit can only help!
- WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
  > You know how we always hear about basic flashlight apps that get used to run advertising click farms in the background, or Flappy Bird knockoffs that collect detailed location data and have access to your photo gallery? But they would sure not be lying in their privacy policy, right?
  - spondylosaurus 2y ago
    Ha, good point. I'd actually be curious whether those apps had (bogus) privacy policies or just went without altogether.
deleted 2y ago
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GauntletWizard 2y ago

Many, many pieces of malware were distributed as windows .scr files. Some were just viruses abusing the extension. A ton were bonzi-buddy-esque data-harvesters where users were encouraged by advertising to install "Free cute and funny screensavers!" (many were literally just oneko+malware). Oh, and the part about location data is blatantly untrue, because one of the options on mapscroller is "Current City".

eesmith 2y ago
Where do you see that option? I don't see "Current City" in the source, and the documentation only says: > "Random‐city" means to select from a built‐in list of several hundred major cities. This is the default. > Otherwise, this must be a latitude/longitude pair, as floats. Furthermore, hacks/glx/mapscroller.c says: * Network access and management of the image file cache happens in the * mapscroller.pl helper program, since doing https from C code is untenable. * Sadly, this division of labor means that this program won't work on iOS or * Android.

spondylosaurus 2y ago

You know how we always hear about basic flashlight apps that get used to run advertising click farms in the background, or Flappy Bird knockoffs that collect detailed location data and have access to your photo gallery? I'm with you on this one. In a perfect world it would be evident that a simple little app isn't doing anything nefarious, but... clearly even a screensaver app can be a front for some nasty shit. Making your good intentions explicit can only help!

WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
> You know how we always hear about basic flashlight apps that get used to run advertising click farms in the background, or Flappy Bird knockoffs that collect detailed location data and have access to your photo gallery? But they would sure not be lying in their privacy policy, right?
- spondylosaurus 2y ago
  Ha, good point. I'd actually be curious whether those apps had (bogus) privacy policies or just went without altogether.

deleted 2y ago

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