Uber wants access to browsing history, bookmarks, and running apps

Not OP but I found Lollipop pretty laggy and that it didn't add much I wanted, most of Google's updates come via Play now anyway. So also no reason to upgrade to Marshmallow either.

Why make a network call if the device can give you that information locally?

Doesn't uber have tight integration with other apps that could be running? e.g. Google maps?

I assume the handoff from Google Maps doesn't require any kind of check to running apps from Uber, but I am curious if it is something along these lines.

Does the app log in every time it starts up, or does it just have a stored access token that is simply supplied with future requests regardless of whether it's been 5 hours or 5 months?

It's so they can quickly switch between the most recently used maps application like Waze or Google Maps for drivers.

It wasn't always this way. The individual permissions used to be displayed to the user directly; newer releases of the Play Store have "streamlined" this permissions prompt so that users see general permissions "groups", and some permissions (such as INTERNET) are considered "not dangerous", requiring a click on the "See all permissions" button to view everything the app requests.

I imagine it's because Google recognized the general insanity of the system, and presenting fewer "scary" permissions improved conversion rates.

Then they threw the whole system out with Android 6.0, moving to a much more sane flow for everyone involved, where the user is able to grant or deny individual permissions at runtime.

"Simplified Permissions" is a relatively new feature of the Play Store and only gives you general permission categories. It was probably changed from the older specific permissions to make it less complex for people who didn't care as much. Note that PackageInstaller still shows all permissions, which is used when clicking on an apk or using a 3rd party app store (like F-Droid). Due to backwards compatibility, this can't be changed easily at the OS level.

> Can someone shed light on this?

Whoever is in charge of the permission system is absolutely nuts. Or it's designed by the committee from hell. Those are the only reasons I can think of. No one sane would create this.

They actually wanted to "simplify" the permissions system and let the user have more control/understanding. You could argue they've done the first... at the expense of everything else. Half of it seems to have been introduced so "it bugs you less", which is not the point, I want to be bugged (by default) so I know what applications are actually doing. If users wants to "not be bugged" let them manually set it, don't make it default.

I've meant to write a post titled "Android 6 permissions: Still pants" after buying a Nexus 5X and being happy with the phone/camera but utterly disappointed with the "revamped" permission systems:

- Yes sure, because I granted an application "Coarse location data", just go ahead and automatically (WTF?) give it "Fine location data" permissions too, because hey, it's all just "location data" right? Not like I might have wanted to give it coarse and not fine on purpose...

- Want to write contacts? Here's reading too! Want to write texts? Here's reading too! Same as above really. Is the use-case of wanting an application to be able to add to my data (at my request) but never-ever read all my data really that hard to predict?

- You get an Internet, you get an Internet, every application gets an Internet. Because every application needs Internet right? It's not like I'd maybe want to install an application to manipulate a specific file type right now but don't want it connecting all over the net right? Maybe I don't have time to verify it's not nefarious. Maybe I just want control over what applications can actually phone home from my device?

- "Runtime permissions" is hit and miss. Some applications ask and then respect the answer. Others will just pop up the dialog over and over and over again until you accept it... which was not the point.

- READ_PHONE_STATE is still terrible. It's used by app/games to pause tasks when the user gets a phone call but... also gives away the number that's calling you! Of course, nearly every application then requests this. I don't get it, it's yet another obvious use case ("Let the application know the user is busy without leaking any data") that seems to have been glossed over. I thought by this point they'd have a proper IS_USER_BUSY permission that tells applications that you're in a phone call/whatever but doesn't leak any of your personal data *whatsoever".

At this point my next phone will be an iPhone/iOS, even though I don't particularly like them as at least security/sane permissions seems to mean something over there...

The permissions system does not exist only for the user. In fact, as described here (https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Securi...), the primary purpose of sandboxing apps is to help developers secure their apps.

"By limiting access to resources on a per-app basis, App Sandbox provides a last line of defense against the theft, corruption, or deletion of user data if an attacker successfully exploits security holes in your app or the frameworks it is linked against."

As such, from the developer's perspective the ideal permissions system should actually be as fine grained as possible to let the developers minimize the exposure of their apps. Android's permissions system was probably designed from this point of view.

That's because the permission model is back compatible.

Instead of creating a new 'access contact permission', the permissions are now bundled automatically.

That way the same manifest (where you declare a bunch of things about your app, including its permissions) can be used for both old and new devices.

As far as the manifest is concerned, it would have been easy to automatically generate the old permission list from a new permission list like {Contacts, Calendars, ...} but you would also have to create a new library to translate these new permissions to the old ones in the code (since old OS versions still only understand the permissions that existed with them) ...

It is probably easier to just keep the old permissions.

To be fair, there is zero ability (outside of undocumented and forbidden private APIs) for an iOS app to even request access to browsing history, bookmarks, or app history.

Actually that's backwards. Android moved to the new permission system (fewer perm groups, runtime user permission) to be more like iOS. It used to be that all permissions were granted at install time, which made apps much more likely to ask for onerous permissions because the user is unlikely to read the list or turn back.

It's likely they don't try this on iOS because iOS simply doesn't have the APIs to do this under any permission. It's a philosophical platform difference about what the user should be able to allow apps to do.

iOS applications are moderated and Apple might not want Uber to collect too much information on their users.

I'm sure that you'd be happy to provide them access to your house in order to "improve the functionality of the application".

I could be wrong, but without a real explanation, it seems more likely Uber is still convinced analyzing customer behavior in the most personally invasive ways is worth the risk, and were testing the waters, hoping a response like the OP's wouldn't gain traction the way it did.

In a company with thousands of employees, already scrutinized for privacy violations, it's hard to believe that a single engineer could ask for the most sensitive of permissions without anyone else reviewing or bumping up the chain first.

Thanks, I'll take a look.

Not that I'm aware. Maybe even just a good hashtag to start.

#AndroidPrivacy #CreepyApps #AppPrivacy

???

I knew I wasn't just making it up, and because of that, I'm at -2.

yup. fixed ;)

That is simply not a solution that will work for more than 0.1% of the populace. While you meant nothing wrong, your "solution" repulses me because I don’t care about this sort of thing just for myself and other supernerds, but for my friends and family and countrymen as well.

Exactly. I don't get why there is no root account on most android phones. Why is "rooting" a hack that voids your warranty? Why can't we have our smartphones like our computers?

That's ideal but runs counter to how Google sets up permissions today.

Android has supported multiple users for quite a while now.

There is absolutely a permission for that, it's called INTERACT_ACROSS_USERS. I suspect what you mean is 'is there a permission accessible by normal apps that can do this', to which the answer is no - the permission is signature-level, meaning the app must be signed with the same key as the OS to be able to access the permission.

I can't find a page from the official docs from my phone, but there's a list of permissions on Stack Exchange: http://android.stackexchange.com/a/38389/150855

I believe the Gmail TOS used to state that one person could only have one personal account. That has either changed, or I am misremembering.

No, it does not. Dangerous permission can be toggled off for all apps now. For apps on the new API level, they can no longer obtain dangerous permissions at install time. They have to trigger an OS-level prompt for the permission. They're supposed to explain why they need it before triggering the OS prompt and many apps did it poorly by adding an extra, meaningless prompt before the real one. This was't done for the old API level because it would cause crashes for permissions where data can't feasibly be faked and the user would have no indication that fake/empty data was being used if it was the default.

It's actually probably so you can autocomplete a contact as a destination address for your Uber. The same is true in Maps for navigation. Unfortunately UX wins over privacy so launching an intent to pick a contact probably wasn't as elegant as using a unified autocomplete field.

They aren't capable of handling the case where they aren't given access to a permission though, so that makes them potentially more prone to crashing.

For example, you may wish to use an editor or viewer on any file on your machine.

Drivers.

I think you're on to something, for example the Uber app probably also uses the `true` constant in places, which could be used by `if` comparisons, and Uber could actually be using `if` comparisons all over the place. Who knows what sort of suspicious `if` comparisons Uber's app might be making? We don't know, and until we do we should probably not use this app.

It's not a logical argument. It's more of a heuristic of human behavior, which tends to be right. Only rarely is there someone sitting behind a large desk making tent hands while laughing maniacally.

EDIT: On second thought, if it is a logical argument, it's a specific case of Occam's Razor. Which is more likely? Someone made a mistake, or there is a grand conspiracy?

By "don't care," you mean, "are extremely delighted when Google reminds them to pay a bill on time and avoid a late fee."

Don't tell you what?

I don't get why people working there would defend their company's shady tactics. But then again, I never understand why people blindly defend their countries, sport teams, etc.

If the tactics are not shady, come out and plainly state it. No such statement has been made that I can see.

Uber are mold-breakers who are well known for 'disrupting' "the established, respected and ethical way" of doing X.

They are simply revolutionizing the old-fashioned and corrupt HN commenting industry.

The existence of past conspiracies does not offer proof of new ones. Likewise, the fact that shills have existed in the past does not mean they exist here and now. The burden of proof is still on the one making the claim.

It's not only irresponsible but dangerous to take a guilty until proven innocent approach. You should expect somebody to prove it if they're making a claim. That's not letting anyone "win".

Look at profiles. Look for unusual voting patterns. Is it more likely that Uber is secretly watching and manipulating a forum for hackers, or could it be that a lot of people here actually quite like Uber as a company? Occam's razor suggests the latter.

Or maybe - like me - this story just seems shaky as hell with people not understanding that Android permissions (like license agreements) often over-extend themselves. That a permission requiring X doesn't mean X is being used. All the time we see things like "App requires contacts list" where it's only grabbing the owner's info.

Honestly, playing the shill card is lazy and irrelevant. If you have proof, show it -- otherwise you're just spreading FUD.

They want to black-box your mind, of course ;)

everyone should run burp on their phone at least once! its a kinda terrifying experience seeing how much data everyone collects on you...

Im a journalism student and would like to investigate this issue. Can you keep me up to date if you find out anything?