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Comment by SifJar | Hacker News Reader

The article mentions that the required permissions are "very common permissions", and then in the next paragraph says that 179 apps on the Google Play store require those permissions. As of July 2014, there were 1.3 million apps in the app store [1]. That's ~0.014% of the apps on the store. Not exactly "very common" in my mind. Although the remark that they are "unlikely to raise suspicion" is valid, especially for the typical consumer, who probably isn't reading the permissions anyway.

[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Play#Android_application...

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I am ver surprised there is still no mass outrage over Android permissions.

1. They are not properly named or explained. And no, this shouldn't be on some obscure website. This should be right there, in the menu that asks for them.

2. There is no way to filter apps in the play store by permissions. This isn't just a privacy thing. Apps that require the least permissions are often least bloated and the most skillfully written.

It's obvious that both of these thing are deliberate, it's obvious that this is an issue, and no one cares.

Also, there's no way to download an app but deny it some permissions. iOS gets this right: apps don't get to ask for any permissions when you download them, they have to request them at runtime and the user can deny any of them (and the app is still expected to function)

The basic problem is likely that google is in the data gathering business. This to provide ever more targeted ads. Thus they can't have someone block all data going in or out of the device.

Possibly tiers of permissions then? I know apps I've written will not work without a network connection: they're useless without it so to put that as a "required" feature is necessary. However, I do like ease-of-use features like telling the person they don't have their wifi network enabled or something which requires a different permission but totally optional.

Lots of apps want access to folders of pictures and accounts which I assume to be for "sharing" and "social" features I never use. I'd love to disable those manually but currently don't have an avenue to do so.

Of course apps could still set everything to "required" but at least the option for consumer choice is there.

If you have root you can install XPrivacy, which allows you to deny (or provide fake data) for any app/permission combination.

You have to jump through some hoops to install it because obviously Google doesn't like to encourage this kind of control over your phone, but it's there and I can't imagine using an android phone without it.

This was briefly added in Android 4.something, but Google removed it.

It was a test tool and supposed to be hidden : you had to enter its Intent directly in order to launch it (if I remember well, they had also forgotten to hide it as a menu choice when creating a widget shortcut to the settings in one android subversion). Even if they repackaged it as a proper app (it really showed that AppOps was a test tool, the interface was pretty primitive), I don't see the point. Permission revocation is not that useful against an app like Facebook that will use its permissions to access your private data as soon as it is installed. What we need here is granular permission granting. Apps start with only inoffensive permission (bluetooth access ? internet ? I guess some reflection on what these base permissions should be would be needed) and only gain access to your private data (mail, contacts, calendar, ...) if they ask for it and you grant it to them. That way, apps can only collect your data if you let them.

Appops. Supposedly there as a test system for apps. I guess to see if they would crash in case of malformed data from sensors etc.

Some OEMs, like Huawei, offer similar functionality on their products.

It is possible to "activate" this functionality on some phones as well. I have it enabled on my Samsung Galaxy S4, which is rooted, but otherwise is running the stock ROM (though not by choice).

>They are not properly named or explained. And no, this shouldn't be on some obscure website.

Or worse, the developer might argue that he needs location via GPS for things like regional settings and time sentitive settings, but will also use them to sample your location to a T everytime you move to sell for advertisers. The permission system doesn't show me the difference. There was a report on those free flashlight apps on android. Turns out they were sampling your position thousands of times a day and selling it to advertisers. Not only is that horrific from a privacy perspective, but imagine how much that affects battery life. This is done completely behind the scenes. There's no iOS-like "Do you want this app to use your location." Its just does it - usually as a service in the background.

I have no idea what google is thinking nowadays. Android is pretty much a hand out to the advertising industry. I think this N5 is my last android phone. iOS is the only thing that remotely seems to respect my privacy. Perhaps Windows Phone is good enough now too.

>It's obvious that both of these thing are deliberate, it's obvious that this is an issue, and no one cares.

The typical FOSS coterie always reminding us that Apple and MS are the devil has performed a disservice here. Android seems to be the most hazardous OS out there and its owner is very much wed to the advertising industry and has major disincentives to take these complaints seriously.

> I have no idea what google is thinking nowadays.

Google's thinking hasn't changed. They've always wanted to vacuum up everything they could about you and your behavior.

> I think this N5 is my last android phone.

I don't trust Google either. But what about the 99% of smartphone consumers who just want a cheap phone and don't concern themselves about these things?

Google doesn't care about what you, part of the 1% on this issue, think. To update something that Lily Tomlin did many decades ago:

   We don't care.
   We don't have to.
   We're Google.

> The typical FOSS coterie always reminding us that Apple and MS are the devil has performed a disservice here

I agree, but I would also say that subculture has the least support for Google of any of them. I'm sure there are plenty of people out of touch enough to still rant about MS but the actual discussions are mostly about Google (Apple is an unstoppable opportunistic juggernaut, Google is an ideological enemy).

While I fully agree with your reasons for why there SHOULD be outrage, I think the reason for why there is still NOT mass outrage is pretty obvious.

In short: Consumers don't know and don't care.

If they get an app they just click through whatever screens are needed until they can install it. Odds are they don't know what the concept of "permissions" means, or why they should care. Nothing in their phone tells them they should care. It is only fairly recently that some mainstream publications have written about this overreaching and even then the reach is limited. Then you have Google itself that realized it would need to increasingly ask for new permissions in the future, so it basically just asked for EVERYTHING for their apps, so that future updates wouldn't flag anything.

So in short, there absolutely should be mass outrage and more granular, user-controlled permissions on Android. Will that happen? Unlikely.

Consumers have been trained to click on any 'yes' box for decades. From 'do you really wish to exit?' to 'accept this licence', people have been trained to just click on the yes button.

Furthermore, it does not seem trivial to me to add a granular permission system to Android. Beyond the permission system itself, retro-compatibility and implementation by third party apps seems really problematic to me (not impossible, just a lot of work).

I just hope that it does not stay in 'low-priority vs high difficulty' hell forever.

i fully agree to both of you.

as a former apple user and now really happy android user this topic is such an utterly mess.

in a group of techs and lawyers we recently discussed the right of ones data. i agree that data protection should allow people and companies to agree on whatever they want, but it should also be possible to revoke rights at any stage and this is not showing in the system especially of googles android but also other systems

it is a very bad sign that in our society people have higher awareness that somebody might send them a paper with some advertising (address) than that some applications will send all the data out of their contact list plus their movement profile

pretty weird

The typical consumer would probably just give the app access to the GPS. The hard part is getting them to download it.

Interesting research but not the most practical attack.

That's the problem with android. The 'typical user' has no control over individual app permission - it's literally all or none. If you install the app you give it access to the GPS, as long as it has specified that permission.

Rooted Cyanogenmod actually has privacy settings which enable you to restrict some permissions on a per-app basis. For example I don't allow Facebook Messenger access to GPS and Android asks me before Messenger gets camera access.

> Rooted Cyanogenmod actually has privacy settings which enable you to restrict some permissions on a per-app basis

Why only "some"; why not all?

I honestly don't understand why this is a problem. Isn't it enough that the app says it requires my location when I install it? If you don't like the required permissions no one is forcing you to install it.

Popular apps can essentially request any permission and you'll still download it — are you really going to forgo having Facebook on your phone because it asks for a couple of slightly-objectionable permissions?

On iOS, the average user has a chance to download that mainstream app and deny it access to their contacts.

> are you really going to forgo having Facebook on your phone because it asks for a couple of slightly-objectionable permissions?

That sounds like you meant it as a rhetorical question, but "yes" is a reasonable answer.

I've no idea why you have been downvoted. I also do not have apps on my phone which ask for permissions I do not like.

It sounds to me like the question was supposed to read

> are [most people] really going to forgo having Facebook [...]

There will certainly always be people who do pay attention to permissions for privacy or security reasons, but they seem* vastly outnumbered by the people who don't.

* Just an intuitive sense, I have not looked for data to back this up.

The point is valid, but it still doesn't address the 'general population' problem - how do you get the users to care about their security/privacy? Giving fine-grain control over permissions is a fantastic idea.. but then you realize that the 'general population' that you made this for will never touch those settings, so it's no different than telling users what permissions an application will take.

Also, the development cost of 'does this feature exist?' for each permission is pretty high.

I did, I use a third-party facebook client. It's cumbersome :(

Yes, I did forgo the Facebook app. For a host of reasons though, permissions being only one of them.

Then Facebook Lite came out, and it was what I wanted all along.

Google badly obfuscated permissions in a recent Play store update.

Where before it listed each permission, and required a manual approval of any was added in a app update, it now only list categories.

And it will only require manual approval if a new category is added.

And the categories are wide enough that someone can add an innocuous permission initially, and then push a update some time later that gives them virtually free reign of the user data.

Presumably this is an attack that would be targeted at an atypical user - someone security conscious enough to not give GPS permission to apps they install, and who would have switched off location services that would use wifi instead. In those circumstances you might assume that any tracking would be beyond the capabilities of anyone who didn't have direct access to the phone network. This proof of concept demonstrates that would be an incorrect assumption.

I can see a popup message of 'we tune our app based on your current power levels' or similar being quite persuasive in this regard too.

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