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Comment by Rotdhizon | Hacker News Reader

Could they face repercussions over this? That is unsettling that they can remotely manipulate your phone without your permission.

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Most people buy Google phones specifically because they want Google to remotely manipulate their phones as quickly as possible with the latest Candy-named software. It's an in-demand feature.

There's a difference between fast-software updates and turning on/off certain features without the user's consent.

> turning on/off certain features without the user's consent.

I think that in practice, that applies to only the privacy sensitive features. Would you be upset if suddenly they rolled out a feature that reduced battery consumption by 10%?

This particular case was obviously a bug, but I suppose every software manufacturer is continuously doing A/B testing, and 99% of time the user would not even notice. I would be surprised if Google was not doing A/B testing, and did not have the whole framework for doing it.

Would you be upset if suddenly they rolled out a feature that reduced battery consumption by 10%?

If you're talking about battery saving mode, I would be upset if they activated the feature (turning it on) without my consent, yes. I don't have issues with Google pushing improvement to their code via OS updates.

> Would you be upset if suddenly they rolled out a feature that reduced battery consumption by 10%?

If they secretly installed it, of course I would be. It's not like this is the only way to deliver features...

> I would be surprised if Google was not doing A/B testing

On live (not beta), unsuspecting users, without their consent?

Is there? When calendar rolls out with a new UI is that different?

I wouldn't be surprised if both Google and Apple could do whatever they want with our phones remotely. It's just that they usually don't, so we never see it.

They can't if you're running Lineage OS.

I'm not that certain. From my understanding this works through Google play services that most people will install on other roms as well

And dont install GApps.

On iOS, at least, software updates require the user to enter their passcode, to prevent a San Bernardino-type backdoor. Though, I believe there are some assets that can be updated without a full system update.

I don't mean to be a tin foil hat, but I have to ask: How do you know? Do you work at Apple, with this exact thing?

From my perspective there shouldn't be a problem for Apple to have the regular updates work as you describe. And also for them to have an alternative method they can use without any user intervention at all. (Which probably very seldom is used.)

The "without your permission" bit is where you're probably wrong. But I agree with your sentiment that it's unsettling.

They can also delete media from your phone. Had a graphic video of that carnival ride breaking and killing someone and it was deleted...

Was it uploaded to some cloud service?

Is this for real? Was it deleted specifically on Google Photos, with a local copy still available or possibly available if it hadn't already been cleared locally? Or was it a legitimate "reach into local storage and clear it"?

I'd be wary of believing some random anecdotal story with absolutely zero proof and very little detail.

  anecdotal story with absolutely zero proof

If you lack real control over your device, "absolutely zero proof" is the new normal, and everything that gets zeroed out of RAM is rendered anecdotal thusly.

It was only local.

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