Hi, On 8/07/2013 9:08 PM, Robin Humble wrote:
maybe Open PDroid is for you http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=36678558 I haven't tried it, but it seems to have plenty of fine grained options. I expect there are other options out there too.
Yes, I think that would be a great option -- particularly if I wanted to root my phone, which I don't right now; and even better if I wanted to build my own ROM, which I probably don't have the skill and definitely don't have the time to do.
CyanogenMod folks thought that spoofing a lot and crashing many apps and causing a big app support load risked CM as a whole being blacklisted by app developers. eg. enough apps written as if (CM) exit(1); // too hard to support these tin foil hatters would defeat the whole purpose. I guess it's a fine line to walk when a rom has millions of users - it's large enough to get in trouble.
Yes, I can understand that. But if an app is going to ban all CM builds then that app probably isn't worth having.
the PrivacyGuard method of returning null sets (eg. no contacts, no sms's sent/recv'd) should be low disruption to apps as is a legit state that a phone could be in.
Sure.
having said that, I would kinda like to see a separate 'privacy' control for fine gps location though as I don't mind some apps (eg. bushfire) knowing exactly where I am on a map, but they still have no right to read or send sms's for me.
It might be very worthwhile to be able to send an SMS in an emergency situation .... some apps need to be more trusted than others? As I understand it, some bad apps come out of Google play store after having been good apps for a period of time.... they turned into bad apps by sliding under the radar.
It also needs to provide dummy access to any memory cards too -- or at the very least chroot type access to data areas so as to limit every app to only have the possibility to read/write it's own data.
CyanogenMod (or maybe even standard Android) already has: Settings -> Developer options -> Protect SD card "Apps must request permission to read SD card"
That is available in my stock S3 4.1.2 ROM.
which isn't great as it's not limiting them to one sdcard directory or anything, but OTOH if you have a photo editing app of some sort then you actually want it to be able to read your directories full of photos...
You are right, but what if a photo editing app wanted to upload ALL your photos or thumbnails to start with? It could easily still overreach significantly -- even if you do want to use it on one or two photos (or more, selectively).
at least a bunch of them are open source (mostly) so anyone can write patches and ship their own.
Anyone with enough time and other resources, as well as all the /right/ skills. The biggest problem with Google and this transfers down to Android, is that there are too many younger people whom don't seem to think twice about sharing their entire lives online in fb, twitter or anywhere else. Google's Buzz made assumptions that just because you communicated with someone, actually anyone, then you must be happy with the idea of linking them up as friends whom can see everything you do in Buzz .... glad that product died, not so glad Wave died, but that's the way of Google, you never know what will last and what will die. Cheers A.