3 ms·

There is another point here, one I think even more important and more disconcerting. Google released an entire feature of their Android OS BY ACCIDENT. W...T.

There is another point here, one I think even more important and more disconcerting. Google released an entire feature of their Android OS BY ACCIDENT. W...T...F?! How do you release a feature "by accident?" By having awful quality control? How does that make me feel about the rest of their Android OS now? Either this, or they're lying through their teeth in an effort to cover up. In either case, it's evil.

chaz 13y ago
Hanlon's Razor probably applies here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
- mcguire 13y ago
  Stupidity and malice are frequently indistinguishable by an outside observer.
  - chaz 13y ago
    All the more reason to pause before ascribing malice as the motive.
    - mcguire 13y ago
      I don't know. Personally, I would rather be regarded as evil than stupid.
      - saraid216 13y ago
        And now you've justified evil for every stupid person in the world. Check it out: "Don't call me stupid; I'll punch you for that!"
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Hmmmmmmm, perhaps, but I'd suggest that: Stupidity is negligence. Negligence is selfish. That makes it malicious. Its willful which ever way one chose to spin it. IMHO, such phrases are not much different to ones like "what do you have to hide?". They are designed to look like one thing, confuse and win a point, while hiding the fact that something appalling is going on. Its the language of confusion to control. Its too easy to be allowed to hide behind a false concept of stupidity. Too convenient.
    - andrewflnr 13y ago
      Stupidity is negligence. False, in general. If you want to assert someone is using stupidity as a cover, you need evidence. I don't believe that should be the default hypothesis.
mattmcknight 13y ago
It's more like they left an undocumented feature accessible.
morpher 13y ago
From the comments, it sounds like the preference pane was hidden and had to be enabled by installing 3rd party software. Having experimental features in software that are hidden (but included for testing in limited situations) is not surprising, nor WTF worthy.
- Groxx 13y ago
  This is exactly the case. Someone noticed it somehow (source / activities dump, I forget) and figured out how to launch it. And last I saw it wasn't actually removed, it just had stronger permissions on what was allowed to launch it, which broke all existing launchers. There may or may not be a new way to launch it. Meanwhile, the source code keeps moving more and more towards having a real runtime-permissions-manager. Honestly I think they'll have something soon, but probably not before 4.5 or 5.0. In the meantime, I've been loving XPrivacy, it's probably more granular than anything they would release anyway (and I've had exceedingly few crashes, blocked data is faked not broken).
kllrnohj 13y ago
No, EFF is simply wrong. The feature was never released, and instead of posting a "we screwed up" retraction EFF is now trying to shift blame.
- annoyedgoogler 13y ago
  If you put software into the wild - you have released it. Just because the cycle has sped up, you didn't document it properly, and your QA failed, does not mean you didn't release it. I'm not taking sides here, but you have to call a spade a spade.
  - Groxx 13y ago
    Arguably true, but if you rely on a hidden, undocumented feature and it changes or goes away and you don't like it, I'm not sure you have any right to complain since its volatile nature was quite clear from the start.
  - ben1040 13y ago
    But with no clear user-facing way to activate it, meaning you have to use some unofficial app that accesses it in an undocumented manner, it has the smell of something that you could not rely upon as a "feature." If it's there and it works, then great for you, but you can't expect a whole lot more. It sucks that they didn't actually make it a published feature with an actual means of accessing it, and take on the responsibility of maintaining it, because it seems like something I'd like to use.
  - kllrnohj 13y ago
    > If you put software into the wild - you have released it. Even by that definition Google never released it. You needed a 3rd party app to access the feature, Google's software alone was not enough. Google didn't fail here, they flat out never released it. Or perhaps you could argue that they failed by not releasing it (or something similar), but that's different story.
    - google666s 13y ago

chaz 13y ago

Hanlon's Razor probably applies here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

mcguire 13y ago
Stupidity and malice are frequently indistinguishable by an outside observer.
- chaz 13y ago
  All the more reason to pause before ascribing malice as the motive.
  - mcguire 13y ago
    I don't know. Personally, I would rather be regarded as evil than stupid.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      And now you've justified evil for every stupid person in the world. Check it out: "Don't call me stupid; I'll punch you for that!"
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Hmmmmmmm, perhaps, but I'd suggest that: Stupidity is negligence. Negligence is selfish. That makes it malicious. Its willful which ever way one chose to spin it. IMHO, such phrases are not much different to ones like "what do you have to hide?". They are designed to look like one thing, confuse and win a point, while hiding the fact that something appalling is going on. Its the language of confusion to control. Its too easy to be allowed to hide behind a false concept of stupidity. Too convenient.
  - andrewflnr 13y ago
    Stupidity is negligence. False, in general. If you want to assert someone is using stupidity as a cover, you need evidence. I don't believe that should be the default hypothesis.

mattmcknight 13y ago

It's more like they left an undocumented feature accessible.

morpher 13y ago

From the comments, it sounds like the preference pane was hidden and had to be enabled by installing 3rd party software. Having experimental features in software that are hidden (but included for testing in limited situations) is not surprising, nor WTF worthy.

Groxx 13y ago
This is exactly the case. Someone noticed it somehow (source / activities dump, I forget) and figured out how to launch it. And last I saw it wasn't actually removed, it just had stronger permissions on what was allowed to launch it, which broke all existing launchers. There may or may not be a new way to launch it. Meanwhile, the source code keeps moving more and more towards having a real runtime-permissions-manager. Honestly I think they'll have something soon, but probably not before 4.5 or 5.0. In the meantime, I've been loving XPrivacy, it's probably more granular than anything they would release anyway (and I've had exceedingly few crashes, blocked data is faked not broken).

kllrnohj 13y ago

No, EFF is simply wrong. The feature was never released, and instead of posting a "we screwed up" retraction EFF is now trying to shift blame.

annoyedgoogler 13y ago
If you put software into the wild - you have released it. Just because the cycle has sped up, you didn't document it properly, and your QA failed, does not mean you didn't release it. I'm not taking sides here, but you have to call a spade a spade.
- Groxx 13y ago
  Arguably true, but if you rely on a hidden, undocumented feature and it changes or goes away and you don't like it, I'm not sure you have any right to complain since its volatile nature was quite clear from the start.
- ben1040 13y ago
  But with no clear user-facing way to activate it, meaning you have to use some unofficial app that accesses it in an undocumented manner, it has the smell of something that you could not rely upon as a "feature." If it's there and it works, then great for you, but you can't expect a whole lot more. It sucks that they didn't actually make it a published feature with an actual means of accessing it, and take on the responsibility of maintaining it, because it seems like something I'd like to use.
- kllrnohj 13y ago
  > If you put software into the wild - you have released it. Even by that definition Google never released it. You needed a 3rd party app to access the feature, Google's software alone was not enough. Google didn't fail here, they flat out never released it. Or perhaps you could argue that they failed by not releasing it (or something similar), but that's different story.
  - google666s 13y ago