Re:Facebook scans system libraries on Android and uploads th...
by MauranKilom on Friday August 30, 2019 @02:54PM
(#20841479)
1. Uploading files from the user phone to their servers is straight up copyright violation in plenty of cases.
2. I have doubts that you need copies of all kinds of system libraries to debug that crash. They won't help you debug a crash dump (assuming they don't have debug symbols left in for some reason). They generally won't help you reproduce the crash unless you actually know reproduction steps - it wouldn't surprise me if they tracked every user action, but I doubt they do - so it takes many of those crashes to even start debugging. At that point you probably know precisely which library you need and can obtain it legally.
That said, I agree that uploading the files themselves is not necessary to fingerprint users (the hashes would totally suffice). Unless they do the uploading as a cover-up story, which doesn't make much sense either.
2. I have doubts that you need copies of all kinds of system libraries to debug that crash. They won't help you debug a crash dump (assuming they don't have debug symbols left in for some reason). They generally won't help you reproduce the crash unless you actually know reproduction steps - it wouldn't surprise me if they tracked every user action, but I doubt they do - so it takes many of those crashes to even start debugging. At that point you probably know precisely which library you need and can obtain it legally.
That said, I agree that uploading the files themselves is not necessary to fingerprint users (the hashes would totally suffice). Unless they do the uploading as a cover-up story, which doesn't make much sense either.