[HN Gopher] The Privacy Sandbox on Android
___________________________________________________________________
The Privacy Sandbox on Android
Author : tosh
Score : 100 points
Date : 2022-02-16 14:45 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.google)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.google)
| alphabettsy wrote:
| Seems like a lot of words that don't say anything.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| I see a lot of comments here reduce the argument to "Ads are bad"
| . . . Well, Remember that ad-supported business models have
| underwritten the vast majority of technology R&D and improvements
| over the past two decades. Yes, including Apple. Hardware devices
| would never have the utility they do at present without large
| scale, low margin, high throughput ad models that benefit
| developers building insanely complex systems around said
| hardware.
|
| The whole advancement in AI we're seeing today would never have
| been accelerated the way it has been this past decade without the
| monetization models of the present internet.
|
| It is a fine balance to strike where we don't want to kill off
| the model that works so well, for fear of parts of it.
|
| The alternative monetization models are things that many people
| here would despise much more: - More closed-source , paid
| services , apps, devices that are more expensive without the
| scale of ad supported models - Smaller (and arguably harder to
| oversee) spin offs of major ad supported services. - etc
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| Looked at the Android part of it. Seems Google is trying it make
| it such that third party will lose access to these data but
| Google will still have it and now Google can say this is now
| privacy.
|
| This sounds like a corporate/PR joke.
| cs702 wrote:
| _> Today, we're announcing a multi-year initiative to build the
| Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the goal of introducing new,
| more private advertising solutions._
|
| Translation from corporate-speak:
|
| "Today, we're announcing a multi-year initiative to build a
| sandbox on Android _that makes complete unrestricted access to
| your data available only to Google_ , with the goal of
| introducing new advertising solutions _that keep all those pesky
| third parties, like Facebook and TikTok, outside of Google 's
| garden_."
|
| Calling it the "Privacy Sandbox" is... unintentionally Orwellian.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| lol, unintentionally. yeah :D
| jensensbutton wrote:
| Yeah, just like Apple did.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Apple isn't an ad company.
|
| Yes they have access to your data if it's not E2EE, but you
| don't have to worry about their core revenue stream
| conflicting with your privacy.
| yonixw wrote:
| They are absolutely an ad company [1]. And they absolutely
| track stuff about you [2].
|
| [1] https://pocketnow.com/apples-ad-business-5-billion-
| growth-ap...
|
| [2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/01/android_ios_loca
| tion/
|
| "..According to Leith, Android and iOS handsets share data
| about their salient characteristics with their makers every
| 4.5 minutes on average."
| marcellus23 wrote:
| According to https://searchads.apple.com/privacy, the
| only user information used when showing ads is:
|
| * details provided in your Apple ID profile (location,
| email, etc.)
|
| * history of App Store downloads and in-app purchases
|
| * contextual information like "device type, iOS version,
| time of day, device location, and search query."
|
| In other words, while there are some privacy concerns
| here (really just device location, I guess), it seems
| like Apple is just using data from the App Store itself
| to serve App Store ads. In other words, no different than
| if Facebook only used information about how you use the
| Facebook app/site, rather than tracking your behavior
| across the entire internet.
|
| I'm curious why you think this is comparable to what
| Google/Facebook does.
| joao_lopes wrote:
| But Apple does have an ad-network, and they do sell access
| to it. It might not be Google/Facebook-level yet, but
| nothing stops them from continuing that path as a means to
| generate more revenue in the future.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2021/10/19/apples
| -... https://searchads.apple.com/
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| People always seem to ignore the obvious. In addition to
| advertising, Apple partners with third parties to sell
| stuff "directly" (with Apple as the middleman) to the
| computer owner after the sale of the computer is
| complete. Apple takes a cut. Music, e-books, software,
| etc. Apple wants credit card numbers for future use; most
| purchasers comply.
|
| Buy stuff using an Apple computer and Apple makes money.
|
| There once was a time when Apple computers were just
| computers, not an intended means for capturing further
| revenue after purchase by partnering with media companies
| and other sellers. There was no mandatory data collection
| after purchase. No submission of credit card numbers. I
| still have one of those Apple computers. The company
| changed. Whether that was in response to what other
| companies were doing, e.g., Google, "changes in the
| industry", etc., is left as a question for the reader.
|
| There was a patent application from Apple some years ago
| regarding advertising embedded into the operating
| ssystem. (Imagine the computer refusing to boot until the
| user has viewed an ad.) Perhaps we could tell ourselves
| Steve Jobs was trying to protect us by filing for claims
| to the most annoying advertising tactics imaginable, with
| the intent to never practice these inventions and to sue
| anyone who does. No doubt online commenters will have
| more cogent explanations of what this application
| represents.
|
| http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
| Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| People always seem to ignore the obvious. In addition to
| advertising, Apple partners with third parties to sell
| stuff "directly" (with Apple as the middleman) to the
| computer owner after the sale of the computer is
| complete. Apple takes a cut. Music, e-books, software,
| etc. Apple wants credit card numbers for future use; most
| purchasers comply.
|
| Buy stuff using an Apple computer and Apple makes money.
|
| There once was a time when Apple computers were just
| computers, not an intended means for capturing further
| revenue after purchase by partnering with media companies
| and other sellers. There was no mandatory data collection
| after purchase. No submission of credit card numbers. I
| still have one of those Apple computers. The company
| changed. Whether that was in response to what other
| companies were doing, e.g., Google, "changes in the
| industry", etc., is left as a question for the reader.
|
| A patent application from Apple some years ago described
| advertising embedded into the operating ssystem. (Imagine
| the computer refusing to boot until the user has viewed
| an ad.) Perhaps we could tell ourselves Steve Jobs was
| trying to protect computer owners from advertising by
| filing for claims to the most annoying advertising
| tactics imaginable, with the intent to never practice
| these inventions and to sue alleged infringers. No doubt
| online commenters will have more cogent explanations of
| what this application represents.
|
| http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
| Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| There was a time when Apple wasn't an iTunes company, and
| then that started making them obscene profits.
|
| There was a time when Apple wasn't an App Store company,
| and then that started making them obscene profits.
|
| So yes, there is a time now when Apple isn't an ad
| company. We'll see how that goes.
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| And Aol, and Skype, and YouTube and Facebook and Yahoo and
| Microsoft[0]. The domestic surveillance nightmare never ends!
| We on HN laugh about this stuff and love to make noise about
| E2EE and whatnot, but the battle was lost decades ago.
| There's nothing left, privacy is a myth from a different era
| of the internet.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program
| )#/...
| fsflover wrote:
| > There's nothing left, privacy is a myth from a different
| era of the internet.
|
| GNU/Linux phones (Librem 5 and Pinephone) are here to help.
| hughrr wrote:
| Well they would be if anyone actually owned them.
| ryandvm wrote:
| That's an insightful take, but to be fair, it's still a massive
| improvement as far as the end users are concerned.
|
| It's kind of like suggesting that "reducing the number of
| people peeing in the pool to ONE" isn't a good thing. It is
| (unless you're a former pool pee-er).
| dudus wrote:
| From the announcement:
|
| > We're also committed to working closely with regulators.
| We've offered public commitments for our Privacy Sandbox
| efforts on the web, including ensuring that we don't give
| preferential treatment to Google's ads products or sites. We'll
| apply these principles to our Android work as well, and
| continue working with the U.K. Competition and Markets
| Authority, and others.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| If there's an accurate third-party source, we can change to
| that. Corporate press releases don't make the best HN
| submissions (this is a kind of exception to HN's original
| source rule).
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
| Krasnol wrote:
| > Corporate press releases don't make the best HN submissions
|
| They do if they come from Apple though and it's quite funny
| especially with this news.
| dang wrote:
| Not sure what you mean, but we don't care which corporate a
| press release comes from.
| Krasnol wrote:
| Those participating seem to though or how would you
| explain the overly overblown popularity of posts from
| apple compared to this one for example?
| iqanq wrote:
| After so many years people love apple products much more
| than they love google products.
| Krasnol wrote:
| So you DO know what I mean.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| There's a ton of details on:
| https://developer.android.com/design-for-safety/ads
|
| If you feel like revising your hot take based on the provided
| designs instead of pulling a single sentence out of a PR
| snippet that's just announcing a dozen-page design proposal.
| zibzab wrote:
| This is completely pointless if they don't also fix the (very
| deliberate) permission problems.
|
| For example, a lot of innocent operations such as connecting to
| your headphones have been tied to locations services. Google has
| been abusing this to extreme lengths to extract exact user
| location for years now.
| izacus wrote:
| This was fixed with Android 12 and now has a separate
| permission.
|
| (Although, that permission will also allow everyone to see your
| location due to how Bluetooth works, but apparently being
| notified of this fact annoyed you people so much that it's fine
| to ignore on both iOS and Android. But there's nothing
| "innocent" at allowing bluetooth scans - it DOES expose your
| location like the permission said before.)
| jcranberry wrote:
| One of the features of this proposal is to sandbox advertising
| SDKs into separate binaries submitted to the app store, which
| run in a separate process (one instance per app without app-to-
| app communication allowed) with its own permissions, storage
| space, and which is only allowed to execute code from the apk.
| So that would help.
| lewantmontreal wrote:
| Sounds nice. I'm hoping android becomes a reasonable option
| once my old SE finally dies. The new SE phones are huge and
| iPhone Minis are in constant rumors of getting cancelled.
| Android likely has more options for small size phones.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| > Android likely has more options for small size phones.
|
| I wish. The only phones you can get that are of a similar
| or smaller size to an iPhone Mini are unsupported Chinese
| gimmick phones or quite old. The smallest Android that
| still gets support is the Pixel 4a (NOT the Pixel 4a 5g,
| which is much larger), and that is approaching the end of
| its support window.
| xg15 wrote:
| I heard that argument a lot, but I still don't quite get it. If
| you have (stock) Android, then Google has root on your phone.
| They don't need to hide loopholes for themselves inside the
| permission system, because they are not bound by it anyway. Or
| did I miss something?
|
| I think you are still right that the permissions are way too
| coarse-grained or have weird associations. But it seems to me,
| they at least partially improved the situation by switching to
| an ask-on-first-use model.
|
| Of course it might still be that Google is keeping the
| permissions deliberately coarse to secretly help third parties
| with data mining. That would be sort of the same spirit as the
| whole "privacy sandbox" stuff.
| zibzab wrote:
| As a user, you can decide to never enable GPS.
|
| This scheme forces you to enable it for reasons completely
| unrelated to your usage.
| hulitu wrote:
| > As a user, you can decide to never enable GPS.
|
| As a user you can decide this if you never use programms
| which need access to location, navigation programs, for
| example. If you look a bit further you will notice that
| there are a lot of google programs which have access to
| location like Google play games or google play music or
| messages etc. There are also some "system" programs for
| which you cannot disable location access.
| xg15 wrote:
| This is true - but my point was that this doesn't influece
| _Google 's_ ability to track your location in the
| slightest. Google could design the most privacy-conscious,
| user friendly permission system, make it super easy to
| disable location without any side effects - and still have
| the OS or Google Play Services or whatever else completely
| ignore the setting and track you anyway.
| wzdd wrote:
| A loophole is useful in the scenario that Google wants the
| good PR of being seen as as privacy-focused by restricting
| location tracking, even to itself, but still wants to collect
| as much location data as it can.
|
| That said, I don't believe this is what's happening for the
| headphone pairing case. It's easier and likely more fruitful
| to limit functionality of popular apps unless fine grained
| location and is enabled and you are logged in to your Google
| account, which is what I believe they do with Maps.
| xg15 wrote:
| Well ok, from a psychological standpoint it could make
| sense: Google can shape the available choices in such a way
| that requesting has immediate negative effects on your user
| experience with the device - and then Google can claim that
| users actually don't want any privacy.
| gruez wrote:
| >For example, a lot of innocent operations such as connecting
| to your headphones have been tied to locations services
|
| This is a non-issue for me. The last time I had to do that (to
| get a bluetooth headphone companion app to work), I disabled
| wifi and location, enabled bluetooth, opened the app, granted
| it location permissions, and connected to the bluetooth
| headset. Afterwards I revoked location permissions and
| reenabled location/wifi, but the app still worked.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Imagine the masses of average users having to put up with
| that.
| JaggedJax wrote:
| As of Android 11, Google actually made this flow easy.
| Right next to the allow option is an "Only this time"
| option.
| zibzab wrote:
| 1. How does that make it any better? You didn't want to
| provide your location, you were strong armed into doing it
| _once_ and that 's okay?
|
| 2. If you are using an app for device management (e.g. Google
| Home, Samsung Wear) it will be started next time you connect
| and then it's permission-madness all over again.
| gruez wrote:
| > 1. How does that make it any better? You didn't want to
| provide your location, you were strong armed into doing it
| once and that's okay?
|
| As other commenters have mentioned, allowing bluetooth
| access also potentially leaks your location. The
| alternative of not asking for permission isn't exactly
| better either. Therefore it's hard to characterize this as
| some sort of nefarious attempt by google to coax location
| information from you.
|
| >2. If you are using an app for device management (e.g.
| Google Home, Samsung Wear) it will be started next time you
| connect and then it's permission-madness all over again.
|
| I'm not sure how other apps work, but for the companion app
| I was using it continued to work afterwards, even with
| location permission denied. This persists across app closes
| and device restarts.
| pydry wrote:
| I tried doing that for screencasting. It failed.
|
| It also requested I signed a EULA (xiaomi). Apparently
| streaming video over wifi requires GPS. Who knew.
| oauea wrote:
| Connecting to your headphones requires bluetooth. Getting
| access to bluetooth means you can scan for nearby bluetooth
| devices. This may leak your location if identifiable bluetooth
| beacons are nearby. Hence, you need location access.
|
| iOS is similar. But they do not give apps access to the mac
| address of scanned bluetooth devices which makes the platform
| borderline unusable for actual bluetooth apps.
| Saris wrote:
| The problem is the permissions for bluetooth are lumped in
| with fine GPS location permissions.
| TurningCanadian wrote:
| They're lumped together correctly. If you allow bluetooth
| access, the nearby bluetooth MAC addresses could be used to
| identify your location with near-GPS precision.
| giaour wrote:
| Or greater precision! GPS (at least as used on most
| phones) has a ~6 foot margin of error.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| iOS is more scary. They don't give apps the permission, but
| make no such restrictions on their internal services for
| analytics/competitor research/private APIs
|
| I've dug in much detail through what iOS makes available in
| the data takeout request on the Apple account level and I
| find it impossible to believe they include everything they
| have through iOS at the moment.
| zibzab wrote:
| This the apology I usually hear, and it is no longer true!
|
| Google has with every android release pushed this a bit
| further. In Android 12 it demands (1) background (2) precise
| positioning _and_ (3) a GPS position lock.
|
| Note also that "Bluetooth may leak your location" is actually
| due to this very type of data gathering.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| "Bluetooth may leak your location" is not a result of this.
| It's the result of the increasingly widespread prevalence
| of bluetooth location devices. That is, bluetooth modules
| whose sole purpose it to be location beacons that can be
| looked up ( eg
| https://www.inpixon.com/technology/standards/bluetooth-
| low-e... ). See also the _massive_ amount of bluetooth tags
| these days from Tile, AirTags, etc...
|
| Android didn't used to require precise location to access
| bluetooth. This permission got "coarser" over time as the
| _result_ of people using bluetooth specifically for
| location.
|
| And you'll note that Google / Pixel don't make any
| bluetooth tracking beacons. They didn't make this mess,
| they just reacted to it. The reality is letting an app scan
| for bluetooth means it can probably get your precise
| location in a non-trivial amount of places. Same as letting
| an app scan for wifi.
| izacus wrote:
| > Google has with every android release pushed this a bit
| further. In Android 12 it demands (1) background (2)
| precise positioning and (3) a GPS position lock.
|
| This is not true. At all.
| cute_boi wrote:
| The issue with Android is broad permissions.
|
| This is how dictator works; make a broad rule and harm
| everyone. We should abhor such malpractices. They should have
| just made separate permission for bluetooth.
| godshatter wrote:
| So, Google, how about giving me the option to completely delete
| my advertising id? It would be nice to completely opt out of your
| advertising empire, at least as far as personal tracking is
| concerned.
| jcranberry wrote:
| You can delete the data that google currently has and reset
| your advertising id.
| godshatter wrote:
| Sure, and then they start tracking me with that id. I just
| want to opt out of the entire experience. I'm fine paying the
| price by not having any personalized ads sent my way. I'd
| actually really really like that, in fact.
| jcranberry wrote:
| I think there's a privacy focused firefox browser on the
| play store which is good for that.
|
| Maybe its possible to also create a service which resets
| your advertising ID daily or something?
| jayd16 wrote:
| It would mean removing any and all anonymous user identity,
| right?
| Havoc wrote:
| Don't think I trust a single word google announces on the topic
| of privacy anymore
| jefftk wrote:
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/bounded-distrust might be
| helpful in thinking about statements from entities you don't
| trust
| vivekraghunatha wrote:
| Founder of @Neeva here. In my experience, this is mostly PR that
| will go nowhere -- these are efforts that are not structurally
| set up to succeed given the internal constraints at Google. The
| Chrome sandbox efforts have been going on for 3-4 years with no
| progress.
|
| The mobile app ads businesses (UAC campaigns) at Google are just
| too profitable, and depend too much on IDFA/ADID tracking for the
| Android team to be able to do anything meaningful here. So we all
| know the stakes here, and to put this abstract "tracking" into
| "real world" perspective, a big use case of ADID/IDFA tracking is
| gaming advertisers identifying "whales" (kids/adults who spend a
| shit ton of money on their games) and accurately targeting them
| across all their usage on the phone. If your kids are being
| tricked into spending hundreds of dollars by these ads, this is
| why.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> The Chrome sandbox efforts have been going on for 3-4 years
| with no progress._
|
| There has been progress: many APIs have been implemented in
| Chrome, with several origin trials for testing them and
| iterating. Ex: FLoC started an origin trial, people raised
| issues, Chrome proposed a replacement (Topics) which looks like
| it will be in origin trials soon
| (https://privacysandbox.com/open-web/#the-privacy-sandbox-
| tim...).
|
| (Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, speaking only for myself)
| jcranberry wrote:
| Do you think there's any plans for this to replace the
| current API/advertising ID system?
| freediver wrote:
| Thanks for providing your insights. It is a pretty strong
| comment against your former employer and presumably former
| colleagues. Were you not a part of the same spiel, building
| these very systems for years including those tricking kids into
| spending hundreds of dollars with ads, presumably with the same
| passion as you have now?
|
| Working at a corporation as big as Google and at a high
| position as you had must have left a mark. I am curious what
| changed for you and how do you look at your friends and
| colleagues that are still working in Google today?
| Crash0v3rid3 wrote:
| > Founder of @Neeva here. In my experience, this is mostly PR
| that will go nowhere
|
| Let's be honest here, this post is clearly your own PR for
| Neeva.
| vivekraghunatha wrote:
| For sure, there's a bit of that. You would still agree w/ the
| point I'm making?
| grishka wrote:
| Google is an advertising company. It's not interested in any real
| privacy because that would negatively affect its revenue.
|
| I'm a very anti-advertising kind of guy. I block ads on all my
| devices. I wish all forms of cross-app tracking identifiers were
| simply abolished, and any API that could be used to pass data
| between apps like this would require explicit user consent.
| Anything lesser is a pathetic half-measure.
| bentcorner wrote:
| I'm very anti-advertising as well. I use ublock and youtube
| vanced, and have a pihole on my home network.
|
| While privacy is certainly a bonus, the main reason is that ads
| interrupt what I want to look at, consume power, are ugly,
| intrusive and a vector for malware. I know many content
| creators consider me to be stealing their content, I wouldn't
| exactly disagree. But so be it. Some sites block me from
| visiting them, I think that's completely fair, and I don't put
| up much effort in circumventing such blocks.
|
| This Privacy Sandbox initiative appears to not at all address
| the problems I have with advertisements.
| jcranberry wrote:
| I think it could help with being vectors for malware. The
| proposal wants advertising sdks to be uploaded to the play
| store as separate apks, and run in a separate process with
| limited permissions with no remote code execution allowed.
| Perhaps that might help you install apps without the SDKs as
| well.
|
| But the sandbox does appear to be computationally costly
| since the spec says it may not be enabled on starter android
| 13 phones. Also I doubt it will help regarding aesthetics.
|
| Of course the documents have all this as optional features
| rather than compulsory ones. But it sounds nice.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > I wish all forms of cross-app tracking identifiers were
| simply abolished, and any API that could be used to pass data
| between apps like this would require explicit user consent.
|
| Real question: how would you try to abolish fingerprinting?
| Processing identifying info on your device can mostly be done
| server-side and requires no device permissions, accounts or
| APIs, just some basic identifiers like screen resolution,
| storage capacity, software/library versioning, battery
| health... anything is fair game.
| grishka wrote:
| Fingerprinting is "analog" by its nature and thus never 100%
| reliable.
|
| Besides, here's another idea: not only make internet access a
| runtime permission like I suggest in another comment here,
| but also make it _per-domain_. If you don 't trust an app,
| run it in a "paranoid mode" where you have to explicitly
| allow it to access every domain it tries to access.
| Advertisers always use their own infrastructure to prevent
| fraud among other reasons.
|
| And another one: a docker-style fully isolated container for
| you to run apps you don't trust. The container simply lies to
| apps with hardcoded or random values for anything that could
| possibly be used for fingerprinting.
| fsflover wrote:
| One possibility is to use Tor (or Whonix on Qubes, which I
| use).
| bko wrote:
| I heard on an interview somewhere a security advocate mention
| that android phones "phones home" basically everything you do
| every so often (GPS location, app data, even voices recordings).
| But I couldn't find that anywhere apart from a few
| "malfunctioning" google nest devices.
|
| Is there any resource about what exactly is communicated to
| google while using android phones? Everything I read is either
| conspiracy theories or corporate speak.
|
| [edit] The interview in which the claims were made was with Dr
| Robert Epstein if that makes any difference
|
| https://open.spotify.com/episode/4q0cNkAHQQMBTu4NmeNW7E
| kllrnohj wrote:
| Android & iOS both phone home your GPS location combined with
| things like wifi points that were visible in that area. And on
| iOS also things like nearby bluetooth devices - this is how eg.
| AirTags work. Apple re-purposed their entire userbase to be GPS
| & bluetooth phone-home minions to power that network, and
| nobody was asked if they were OK with that. For both Android &
| iOS there's an "off" setting buried somewhere to disable this
| phone-home tracking.
|
| As for "phones home" app data... I mean, that's what cloud sync
| & backups are. It doesn't _necessarily_ mean that Google or
| Apple have access to that data, the device _could_ encrypt it
| with your user passphrase before sending it. In theory. In
| practice they probably both do because otherwise password
| recovery systems kinda don 't really work. If you can do a
| password reset and still access your data, then so could the
| company hosting that data.
|
| But for both of those this is that awkward spot where very
| useful features necessarily require something that can sound
| very malicious depending on how it's described (and could
| actually be very malicious depending on how it's actually used)
| sixothree wrote:
| I think one of the problems is "what is google" and "what is
| phoning home". So many of these services make simple requests
| that wouldn't be considered "phoning home" but absolutely fall
| into that category. Additionally, the number of google products
| and the number of calls being made is vast.
| bko wrote:
| I don't expect apps to be collecting data when not in the
| app. I think I get a permission warning like "this device
| uses GPS - allow when in app, allow in background, etc"
|
| But with android, I just want to know if there is a log of
| every place I go for instance and does this get sent to
| Google periodically. This is outside of the map app.
|
| Also, I definitely want to know if it's recording data any
| time apart for when the microphone indicator is on. This is
| on an OS level.
|
| I know there's some nuances, but I think what I am asking for
| is pretty basic.
| izacus wrote:
| > But with android, I just want to know if there is a log
| of every place I go for instance and does this get sent to
| Google periodically. This is outside of the map app.
|
| There's two ways this can happen:
|
| - There's a feature called "Location History" which does
| exactly what it says - reports your location periodically
| to Google. You can disable it under Location settings on
| Android.
|
| - Your location may leak via IP requests in background -
| the most common way would be via persistent connection to
| FCM servers (servers that provide push messages, analogous
| to Apples Push notification services) or when the phone
| background syncs. Similarlly, you can leak your location to
| websites by simply browsing with your phone.
|
| > Also, I definitely want to know if it's recording data
| any time apart for when the microphone indicator is on.
| This is on an OS level.
|
| As far as I know there new microphone switches and
| notifications are implemented deep enough in AOSP code that
| a piece of software can't easily open the microphones
| without triggering that notification.
| fsflover wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261
| loteck wrote:
| Apple and Google are doing their best to redefine the term
| privacy to mean "information choices you make within the confines
| of our total surveillance."
|
| Prisoners are free to move about in their own cells.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I do not see the prospect of an alternative without a
| government codifying it into law and funding R&D for
| alternative devices.
| deusum wrote:
| So... you're saying it's possible!
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I think that's an open question; FOSS Android ROMs and the
| assorted non-Android mobile Linux options are somewhat niche,
| but they're not nothing.
| teddyh wrote:
| There _are_ alternative devices.
| [deleted]
| laegooose wrote:
| I'm so confused after reading this. What exactly are they doing?
| hericium wrote:
| Advertising.
| Jwarder wrote:
| Looks like they are trying to create a distinct set of APIs for
| third-party advertising (and I think everything else) SDK
| libraries. Those libraries are submitted to Google
| independently from the app. The apps now have to declare they
| are using library X version Y and Google will deploy that
| library to the end user's device when the app installs.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| If you're familiar with the mobile advertising landscape, on
| device identifiers are either OS-provided and deterministic or
| are computed through a "signature" or "fingerprint" based on
| unique signals the app has access to.
|
| This move is one where either of those will be removed/made
| universal so there is no way to identify uniquely, one user
| from another when they perform actions outside your app or for
| many scenarios within it as well (such as clicking on an ad
| that takes them to the app)
|
| Lots of advertising companies (predominantly Facebook) have
| made an industry standard out of selling ads based on THEIR
| interpretations of users actions across apps and time leading
| to a conversion. For example, a 7day "click through conversion"
| means , if your ad is shown to a user through Facebook on any
| of their apps or partner apps with the Facebook ad network sdk,
| and a subsequent conversion occurs in the next 7 day window,
| that user is counted as 100% credit to Facebook.
|
| Is this logical? Nope.
|
| Advertisers pay for the nice looking metrics they can stick in
| a PowerPoint and be done with it.
|
| Now, Facebook can't use their "eye of Sauron" to put out
| numbers such as these and need to compete with companies such
| as google and Pinterest and Reddit and snap for where users are
| looking for things, not just "snipe" the attribution at the
| last minute when they know the user is about to pull the
| trigger and buy.
| jcranberry wrote:
| There are a few links which seem to describe what its all
| about.
|
| https://developer.android.com/design-for-safety/ads/sdk-runt...
|
| https://developer.android.com/design-for-safety/ads/topics
|
| https://developer.android.com/design-for-safety/ads/fledge
|
| https://developer.android.com/design-for-safety/ads/attribut...
|
| The SDK Runtime sounds like a major step in the right direction
| (separating advertising SDKs into its own process with distinct
| permissions, separate from a hosting app and with no app-to-app
| communication).
|
| Also the ability to custom audiences from apps (in the fledge
| article) and control topics both sound good.
|
| These things dont appear to have any current plans to be
| required, but in the future I hope they do.
| mtgx wrote:
| But the Google Play service will still get data _on everything_ ,
| right?
| xvector wrote:
| Both iOS and Android desperately need a "Network" permission (as
| is found on GrapheneOS.) I'd say at least half my apps don't need
| internet connectivity.
| username190 wrote:
| This is available in iOS - but for whatever reason, on devices
| outside of China, you are only allowed to disable use of
| cellular data (not WiFi).
|
| This is also available in some Android skins (OxygenOS is one,
| for example) - but it is not in AOSP.
| grishka wrote:
| The fun part is that android.permission.INTERNET is something
| you have to declare in your app's manifest, otherwise any and
| all networking for your app will be blocked by the system. It
| has existed since the very first Android version. This
| permission is automatically granted by the system upon app
| installation. So the only thing missing is this permission
| being a runtime permission that the app has to request and user
| has to grant.
| infthi wrote:
| There are controls to disable internet access on a per-app
| basis. Seen them in devices from at least two different
| vendors, one of them being Pixel - thus I believe this is a
| stock feature on at least Android 10+.
| zmk5 wrote:
| I don't really follow android much anymore, so does anyone know
| how this would compare to iOS's privacy systems?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Essentially, since Google is an ad company, and is supported by
| selling ads based on user tracking, they will integrate their
| ad tracking platform directly into Android itself.
|
| Meanwhile, Apple just blocks tracking behaviors.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Every time Google implements a new "privacy" feature, it's
| because they've figured out how to be mostly unaffected while
| harming their competitors.
| KKKKkkkk1 wrote:
| According to analysts, Apple made $5bn in ad revenue in 2021
| [0].
|
| [0] _Apple's privacy changes create windfall for its own
| advertising business_. https://www.ft.com/content/074b881f-a9
| 31-4986-888e-2ac53e286...
| guywithabike wrote:
| "According to analysts" tells you that you shouldn't take
| this very seriously. Analysts have a long and storied
| history of getting pretty much everything wrong about Apple
| for decades now.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Please, take the first-hand account of the multi-trillion
| dollar company over the results of independent studies.
| Next up, you should ignore the UN's accusations of Apple
| abusing Uighur labor in China because they're primarily
| comprised of nations that are not the US, which gives
| them a vested interest in badmouthing a spotless domestic
| company like Apple.
|
| It all makes so much sense now!
| meibo wrote:
| Permissions for third party apps are pretty much identical to
| iOS now. People are always brigading these HN posts with
| useless snark because they think that Apple respects them.
| guelo wrote:
| I think the main difference is the default. Android is now
| opt-out, iOS is opt-in. Defaults are significant.
| izacus wrote:
| Defaults of what exactly? Permissions default to off on
| Android as well. Trackers and analytics default to on on
| Android and on Apple devices (where Apple devices differ
| only in the fact that they split tracking from apps and OS
| itself and enable Apples own tracking by default and
| prevent non-Apple tracking).
|
| Nevertheless, there's a massive amount of tracking going on
| in Apples ecosystem as well - all big analytics, marketing
| and mobile data services (like Facebooks's SDKs, Mixpanel,
| etc.) are iOS first and still provide massive amount of
| behavioural data on iOS users first and support Android
| second.
| izacus wrote:
| They're very simillar these days, although Android is still
| easier to fingerprint just due to the higher amount of devices
| available out there. There's simply more informational content
| that can be gathered by the fact that you have a "T-Mobile
| firmware version of Galaxy S22" despite Google being pretty
| decent at plugging identifier leaks since Android 10 to new 12.
|
| Both operating systems assume something very basic though -
| that you trust the manufaturer of hardware and the developer of
| the OS. That is - Apple on one side and OEM/Google on the
| other.
| [deleted]
| chakrihacker wrote:
| Whenever Google talks about privacy they are just joking. Don't
| take it seriously
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-16 23:01 UTC)