How is this even possible that a 3rd party application can intercept all text messages, call history, and photos and still get published to the Android Play Store? Ins't Google supposed to be reviewing the apps?
I always dread the thought of people not understanding these permissions and letting apps have all kinds of permissions — access to all text messsages, privilege to send text messages, access to call history and privilege to make calls. Many apps read the text messages to process one time passwords/codes sent as text messages, thus avoiding the user having to enter them manually.
These privileges have never been available in iOS for third party apps, and I appreciate Apple deciding to err on this side of the privacy equation (though Apple could still do a lot more on app permissions). Taking the same example as above, iOS apps that need one time passwords/codes depend on the user to enter them manually.
There's no way (in stock) to return blank data, so apps will simply shut down or silently malfunction if you refuse permissions.
The grouping of permissions lumps "can portscan your network" and "run hidden in the background when your phone boots" under "Other", which you can't disable.
J2ME had a more refined security model back in 2006.
Yeah, that’s frustrating. Mobile app permissions are a gross nightmare.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gmail.heag...
If an application won't work after I've turned off all the permissions that it shouldn't need, it simply gets uninstalled.
Also, I've never had to have a discussion with any "reviewer" about my app on Android. For iOS, I've always had to do quite a few back and forth interactions with the "Resolution Center".
Android seems to be a pass through, perhaps after some automated checks are passing.
As mentioned by others, you don't necessarily have to publish to the Play Store: apps can be side-loaded on Android.
The real question is: who gets to say in what someone's phone is going to be doing: the programmer, the manufacturer or the phone's owner. Most everyone would agree that the owner should have a word in it, and that the manufacturer should have no say at all.
Germany takes another approach: no one gets to do surveillance outside strict limits, privacy is highly regarded over there. The Guardian reports: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/18/germany-b...
I'm not saying that government regulation is needed, I'm just pointing out that the purpose of this tire feature is to make it more likely that people notice tire wear, and don't die from accidents involving bald tires.
I own an iPhone instead of an Android precisely because I don't want to be burdened with the task of determining if what I'm installing is or isn't going to backdoor its way into my phone. I trust that Apple will in most cases do the right thing. Maybe they won't every time, but the risk of that is less than the cost of time & energy required to play "deep dive into every fucking app I install on my phone".
Isn’t setting the defaults behaviour ‘Having a say’, and who else but the manufacturer gets to do that? Sorry but this suggestion doesn’t make it past even 2 seconds of considered thought.
Another few seconds - who gets to decide what privacy controls the phone even has, if not the manufacturer? Does this not count as having a say?
I can see why some manufacturers would agree with you though, many of them give the impression they don’t want to have any responsibility in this area whatsoever.
Regulatory bodies and / or standards organisations.
Some kind of "This devices meets or exceeds the International Organization for Standardization of mobile device security..."
We don't even have a voluntary one of those.
There's no iOS version.