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Sandboxing should prevent most of those issues. We can't control the users giving permissions to everything, but with more control on those permissions, or disa
by Disposal8433 1y ago
Sandboxing should prevent most of those issues. We can't control the users giving permissions to everything, but with more control on those permissions, or disabled by default, a phone should stay pretty safe, or am I missing something?
- narmiouh 1y agoIts not the sandboxing, its the access to user data that apps can request. a mobile OS allows apps to request and be granted all kinds of permissions, and 80% of the world population doesn't really understand what all things are possible for each of the permissions they give to an app. For example being able to export the whole contact list, or read all files in folders (where users may have saved notes with passwords) or real time tracking of gps location with wifi mac address sniffing, listen in on conversations, be able to screenshot other apps, trigger touch events... none of this a sandbox can prevent. When there are problems reported about an app, there has to be a known party to hold accountable. I agree that a developer path that is complex enough that only people who know all the impacts are able to use to side load random apps they own or from someone they can trust, but the general population has to be protected unless at the individual level they are savvy.
- nottorp 1y ago> there has to be a known party to hold accountable So no free applications. Prepare to pay a subscription for every flashlight app.
- rafram 1y agoPeople have been trained to tap through those prompts without really reading them, and it’s unreasonable to expect a less technical user to know what the implications of granting a permission are.
- simion314 1y ago>People have been trained to tap through those prompts without really reading them, and it’s unreasonable to expect a less technical user to know what the implications of granting a permission are. Can you please explain why there is no big push from the Google and Apple to remove microphone and camera access from the browsers? You claim that most users are "less skilled" and will allow anything , so for the grater good why not pushing to remove microphone, camera and file upload permissions? Why do we trust this users with reading a popup for permissions ? Or maybe if the popups are not clear or good enough maybe is not the users fault ?
- snowe2010 1y agoThat’s just advocating for the same thing, OS makers removing users abilities to do things they want with their devices. Pretty much everyone in this comment section that is advocating against what Google is doing would advocate against that as well.
- simion314 1y agoI do not see this Apple fanboys asking Apple to remove the camera and microphone features in their OSX operating system. They have many stories about grandma getting tricked to sideload soem evil app from Facebook but somehow same grandma does never get tricked to share her microphone, camera or screen. So I concluded that it is all their minds creating a narative to feel better about them getting screwed by Apple (we all have this problem where we invent some reason to justify some decision we did but in this case is a big mob)
- danaris 1y agoOr maybe your absolutist bullshit is, in fact, bullshit, and there's nuance to be had that explains the discrepancy you observe. In this case, one nuance is the fact that camera and microphone permissions are very very often necessary in the browser for video chats. Y'know, exactly the kind of thing that grandma might want to do with her grandkids on a regular basis.
- patrakov 1y agoBe careful with this statement. The whole premise behind banks requiring non-rooted phones is "we can be sure that sandboxing works on the original ROMs—e.g., it will prevent malware from screenshotting our app, and we know that certain custom ROMs patch this snapshot-prohibition code out, thus deliberately breaking the sandbox that we rely upon".