6 ms·

> This seems historic. One of the core differentiators between iOS and Android that worked in Android's favor is now destroyed. How so? You are still able to s

by II2II 2y ago

> This seems historic. One of the core differentiators between iOS and Android that worked in Android's favor is now destroyed. How so? You are still able to sideload apps. The difference is that an app can detect if it has been sideloaded, and the app developer can decide how to respond to that. The decision to use that is on the developer and the user has the choice to move to other apps or succumb to using the Play Store in those cases. If anything, the article suggests that the actual erosion came about a year ago with other integrity check features, such as helping the developer figure out whether the app is being used on a rooted phone. Or with the increased difficulty in using customized versions of Android over the years.

caseyy 2y ago
I agree with you that in this limited sense it is okay. I was editing my comment to clarify my thoughts as you responded. Apologies.
matheusmoreira 2y ago
> The difference is that an app can detect if it has been sideloaded, and the app developer can decide how to respond to that. I don't want the app developer to have that power. The developer does not get to subvert my control. If I want to make the app believe it's running on a stock phone, that's what it should believe, and that's what it will believe. It's my machine. What the developer wants or doesn't want is completely irrelevant to me. Only what I want matters. They should count themselves lucky if I trust them enough to allow their software to run without poking at its innards to see what it's really doing. > The decision to use that is on the developer Every developer making apps for a proprietary app store will make the decision to use remote attestation. It's a power struggle. They want to own our computers.
- gr4vityWall 2y ago
  > their software despite the rhetoric of this world filled with DRM, I believe your copy of a program belongs to you. :)
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- danbruc 2y ago
  It is your machine and it is their software. Why do you think what you want is more important than what they want? You can decide not to run their software if you do not like what it does, if you decide to run it, it will do what they want it to do.
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    Because I own the machine that runs the code. It's that simple. Their code will do what I allow it to do. It's not really a "take it or leave it" deal. I have numerous options available to me. If those options aren't there, it means I don't own the machine. If they don't want others to "tamper" with their code, they should run it on their computers. Keep them safe and secure on their servers. Code that runs on our machines is and should be completely under our control. Anything that enables them to usurp this control from us is an attack on computing freedom and should be illegal.
  - franga2000 2y ago
    This "you decide to run their software" narrative is the same bullshit as the "just vote with you wallet" crap that even economists don't push anymore. I can choose between one of half a dozen banks, all of which have "integrity" anti-features. Some government and school apps also have them and you basically have to use them. What apps are doing these days is like if all the major grocery store chains decided you can only drive there using a BMW and said "just buy a BMW or shop somewhere else" to everyone that complained, ignoring the fact that 1) there's nowhere else to shop, 2) BMWs are expensive and 3) many people have needs that a BMW isn't suitable for.
    - matheusmoreira 2y ago
      It's just an "our way or the highway, take it or leave it" attitude from people with zero leverage over us. In fact we have a third choice: run their software anyway, and stop it from doing things we don't want it to do, whether they want it or not. We have numerous options available to us at all times. Because we own the computer. Adversarial interoperation. It should be our right, as the owners of the computers, to do this. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interopera...
- t0bia_s 2y ago
  You don't have to use apps that you don't like, do you? Use apps that respect your privacy and are open source. For example FairMail developer recommend to install app from github instead of PlayStore.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    I do, if I want to get the services that app gives me access to. Eg my bank's app gives me access to my bank. There are no open source bank apps that I am aware of, so switching banks doesn't help.
    - t0bia_s 2y ago
      Why do you need access to your bank from app? Isn't browser enough?
      - SAI_Peregrinus 2y ago
        Remote check deposit usually isn't available without an app. Probably other services as well.
        t0bia_s 2y ago
        It is avalible via web login. At least in mine bank.
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    I use free and open source software when I can. I use and contribute to open street maps. I use proton mail's open source software and have purchased a plan with SMTP included. I still gotta use WhatsApp though. In my country, to not have WhatsApp is to be ostracized. And there is no such thing as an open source WhatsApp client. They ban your number if you try. It's in the terms of service. I can't build a free software app to interface with my bank's systems either. I actually tried asking my banks about this once... How naive I was.
- em-bee 2y ago
  that is why i use Free Software and Open Source applications. quibbling about this detail (not your comment but the discussion as a whole) is not going to change the fact that only FOSS lets us own our computers ourselves.
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    Free software is a mirage. It's an illusion. I am committed to developing all of my projects as AGPLv3 free software. However, the fact that I even get to do this at all is something of a miracle. Governments don't generally allow non-engineers to erect big buildings. So why is it that we get to make software at home? Individuals developing software is a deeply subversive action. It heavily contributed to the democratization of cryptography. The publication of PGP source code as a book defeated the US government's attempt to keep the cryptography to itself. Someone writes a little software called bittorrent and it threatens to wipe out entire industries, wipe out entire classes of business model. Somebody invents a bitcoin thing and now US presidential candidates speak of strategic bitcoin reserves. Somebody invents stable diffusion... We're all living to see the aftermath of that. It's hard to describe just how powerful and subversive computers are. Computers can literally reshape society. It's all enabled by free computers. General purpose processors which run the code you input into them, no questions asked. And what we are witnessing here is the destruction of those free computers. For the sake of corporate interests. The computer is not free anymore. It only runs the code the corporation allows it to run. Because if it could run the set of all programs, it means it could run code that negatively impacts the corporation's profits. Their solution is to allow execution of the programs the corporations like and nothing else. Could be worse I guess. It might have been the government making that decision. Perhaps one day it will be. Software freedom is not the same thing as computing freedom. There cannot be free and open source software without free computers. Focusing on free software as a solution to this is missing the forest for the trees. There is no point whatsoever to free software which we can't run, free software which can't interface with the services we need, free software which gets us ostracized. Our free computers are being increasingly labeled as "untrusted" and excluded from networks and services. We need home computer fabrication technology so that we can make the computers themselves in our homes. Our own free hardware designs, one hundred percent free from their control, fabricated by ourselves. But more than anything, we need to enshrine computing freedom into actual law. It should be illegal for them to lock our computers down. It should be illegal for them to refuse to interoperate with non-locked down computers. Anything short of this means free software has no future.
raxxorraxor 2y ago
If they were serious with their security theatre, they would add an app permission if an app is allowed to check system status or not. Of course any shitty app could then disallow usage as well with the lack of permission. Helps with deciding what you can uninstall safely. Also, information about the root status can be exfiltrated by the app, which is a security concern.
Yizahi 2y ago
I'm pretty sure that Google itself will do it. So for example I've previously sideloaded Android Auto, because Google generously deemed it "unavailable" in my country, just like Apple Auto. And it worked fine for years, until Google integrated it in the OS and now the restriction is kinda moot, because OS is available in my region. If in the future I would by some hardware from Google (under Google brand) for example (I would not of course, but let's pretend), like some smart appliance or similar, and for sure it won't be available again. I would not be able to bypass this bs now.

by II2II 2y ago

caseyy 2y ago

I agree with you that in this limited sense it is okay. I was editing my comment to clarify my thoughts as you responded. Apologies.

matheusmoreira 2y ago

> The difference is that an app can detect if it has been sideloaded, and the app developer can decide how to respond to that. I don't want the app developer to have that power. The developer does not get to subvert my control. If I want to make the app believe it's running on a stock phone, that's what it should believe, and that's what it will believe. It's my machine. What the developer wants or doesn't want is completely irrelevant to me. Only what I want matters. They should count themselves lucky if I trust them enough to allow their software to run without poking at its innards to see what it's really doing. > The decision to use that is on the developer Every developer making apps for a proprietary app store will make the decision to use remote attestation. It's a power struggle. They want to own our computers.

gr4vityWall 2y ago
> their software despite the rhetoric of this world filled with DRM, I believe your copy of a program belongs to you. :)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
danbruc 2y ago
It is your machine and it is their software. Why do you think what you want is more important than what they want? You can decide not to run their software if you do not like what it does, if you decide to run it, it will do what they want it to do.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  Because I own the machine that runs the code. It's that simple. Their code will do what I allow it to do. It's not really a "take it or leave it" deal. I have numerous options available to me. If those options aren't there, it means I don't own the machine. If they don't want others to "tamper" with their code, they should run it on their computers. Keep them safe and secure on their servers. Code that runs on our machines is and should be completely under our control. Anything that enables them to usurp this control from us is an attack on computing freedom and should be illegal.
- franga2000 2y ago
  This "you decide to run their software" narrative is the same bullshit as the "just vote with you wallet" crap that even economists don't push anymore. I can choose between one of half a dozen banks, all of which have "integrity" anti-features. Some government and school apps also have them and you basically have to use them. What apps are doing these days is like if all the major grocery store chains decided you can only drive there using a BMW and said "just buy a BMW or shop somewhere else" to everyone that complained, ignoring the fact that 1) there's nowhere else to shop, 2) BMWs are expensive and 3) many people have needs that a BMW isn't suitable for.
  - matheusmoreira 2y ago
    It's just an "our way or the highway, take it or leave it" attitude from people with zero leverage over us. In fact we have a third choice: run their software anyway, and stop it from doing things we don't want it to do, whether they want it or not. We have numerous options available to us at all times. Because we own the computer. Adversarial interoperation. It should be our right, as the owners of the computers, to do this. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interopera...
t0bia_s 2y ago
You don't have to use apps that you don't like, do you? Use apps that respect your privacy and are open source. For example FairMail developer recommend to install app from github instead of PlayStore.
- fragmede 2y ago
  I do, if I want to get the services that app gives me access to. Eg my bank's app gives me access to my bank. There are no open source bank apps that I am aware of, so switching banks doesn't help.
  - t0bia_s 2y ago
    Why do you need access to your bank from app? Isn't browser enough?
    - SAI_Peregrinus 2y ago
      Remote check deposit usually isn't available without an app. Probably other services as well.
      - t0bia_s 2y ago
        It is avalible via web login. At least in mine bank.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  I use free and open source software when I can. I use and contribute to open street maps. I use proton mail's open source software and have purchased a plan with SMTP included. I still gotta use WhatsApp though. In my country, to not have WhatsApp is to be ostracized. And there is no such thing as an open source WhatsApp client. They ban your number if you try. It's in the terms of service. I can't build a free software app to interface with my bank's systems either. I actually tried asking my banks about this once... How naive I was.
em-bee 2y ago
that is why i use Free Software and Open Source applications. quibbling about this detail (not your comment but the discussion as a whole) is not going to change the fact that only FOSS lets us own our computers ourselves.
- matheusmoreira 2y ago
  Free software is a mirage. It's an illusion. I am committed to developing all of my projects as AGPLv3 free software. However, the fact that I even get to do this at all is something of a miracle. Governments don't generally allow non-engineers to erect big buildings. So why is it that we get to make software at home? Individuals developing software is a deeply subversive action. It heavily contributed to the democratization of cryptography. The publication of PGP source code as a book defeated the US government's attempt to keep the cryptography to itself. Someone writes a little software called bittorrent and it threatens to wipe out entire industries, wipe out entire classes of business model. Somebody invents a bitcoin thing and now US presidential candidates speak of strategic bitcoin reserves. Somebody invents stable diffusion... We're all living to see the aftermath of that. It's hard to describe just how powerful and subversive computers are. Computers can literally reshape society. It's all enabled by free computers. General purpose processors which run the code you input into them, no questions asked. And what we are witnessing here is the destruction of those free computers. For the sake of corporate interests. The computer is not free anymore. It only runs the code the corporation allows it to run. Because if it could run the set of all programs, it means it could run code that negatively impacts the corporation's profits. Their solution is to allow execution of the programs the corporations like and nothing else. Could be worse I guess. It might have been the government making that decision. Perhaps one day it will be. Software freedom is not the same thing as computing freedom. There cannot be free and open source software without free computers. Focusing on free software as a solution to this is missing the forest for the trees. There is no point whatsoever to free software which we can't run, free software which can't interface with the services we need, free software which gets us ostracized. Our free computers are being increasingly labeled as "untrusted" and excluded from networks and services. We need home computer fabrication technology so that we can make the computers themselves in our homes. Our own free hardware designs, one hundred percent free from their control, fabricated by ourselves. But more than anything, we need to enshrine computing freedom into actual law. It should be illegal for them to lock our computers down. It should be illegal for them to refuse to interoperate with non-locked down computers. Anything short of this means free software has no future.

raxxorraxor 2y ago

If they were serious with their security theatre, they would add an app permission if an app is allowed to check system status or not. Of course any shitty app could then disallow usage as well with the lack of permission. Helps with deciding what you can uninstall safely. Also, information about the root status can be exfiltrated by the app, which is a security concern.

Yizahi 2y ago

I'm pretty sure that Google itself will do it. So for example I've previously sideloaded Android Auto, because Google generously deemed it "unavailable" in my country, just like Apple Auto. And it worked fine for years, until Google integrated it in the OS and now the restriction is kinda moot, because OS is available in my region. If in the future I would by some hardware from Google (under Google brand) for example (I would not of course, but let's pretend), like some smart appliance or similar, and for sure it won't be available again. I would not be able to bypass this bs now.