Android M Developer Preview and Tools

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by christop on Thursday May 28, 2015 @06:35PM (#9621627)

"When the user installs or updates the app, the system grants the app all permissions that the app requests that fall under PROTECTION_NORMAL. For example, alarm clock and internet permissions fall under PROTECTION_NORMAL, so they are automatically granted at install time."

Based on the Android 5.1 source, there are a lot of permissions in the "normal" group, which will apparently now be accepted automatically at install time:

  $ curl -sL http://git.io/vklnX | grep -B2 'protectionLevel="normal"' | grep name | cut -d'"' -f2 | sort
  android.permission.ACCESS_LOCATION_EXTRA_COMMANDS
  android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE
  android.permission.ACCESS_WIFI_STATE
  android.permission.ACCESS_WIMAX_STATE
  android.permission.BROADCAST_STICKY
  android.permission.CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE
  android.permission.EXPAND_STATUS_BAR
  android.permission.FLASHLIGHT
  android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS
  android.permission.GET_PACKAGE_SIZE
  android.permission.GET_TASKS
  android.permission.KILL_BACKGROUND_PROCESSES
  android.permission.MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS
  android.permission.PERSISTENT_ACTIVITY
  android.permission.READ_SYNC_SETTINGS
  android.permission.READ_SYNC_STATS
  android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED
  android.permission.REORDER_TASKS
  android.permission.RESTART_PACKAGES
  android.permission.SET_TIME_ZONE
  android.permission.SET_WALLPAPER
  android.permission.SET_WALLPAPER_HINTS
  android.permission.TRANSMIT_IR
  android.permission.VIBRATE
  android.permission.WAKE_LOCK
  android.permission.WRITE_SETTINGS
  android.permission.WRITE_SYNC_SETTINGS
  android.permission.WRITE_USER_DICTIONARY

Though note that the INTERNET permission is currently in the "dangerous" permission group, so I guess some changes have been made for Android M.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by Aldo_MX on Thursday May 28, 2015 @05:54PM (#9621433)

  Application YourTypicalMobileApplication is asking for access to the Internet
  to display advertisements powered by Google AdMob.

                                                             [ D̶E̶N̶Y̶ ] [ ALLOW ]

  (Do you think we would give you the option to easily cut our income?)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by socceroos on Thursday May 28, 2015 @09:53PM (#9622294)

Then please, oh please separate it out. Internet and Advertising. Shouldn't be hard.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by Manishearth on Friday May 29, 2015 @03:26AM (#9623205)

> Shouldn't be hard.

How can the OS tell if an HTTP request is for the Internet or for Ads? It can't.

Though Google could special-case AdMob effectively owning the ad scenario for apps which don't use the internet for anything else.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by socceroos on Monday June 01, 2015 @02:11AM (#9636998)

That's what I meant. It covers a good ~95% of all ads. Have any extras register for security exemption. Makes sense to me - in the context of not screwing the user over constantly.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by vardump on Thursday May 28, 2015 @05:51PM (#9621412)

Can't agree more. It always bothers me all apps can access my external storage by default.

But I have to use Android, because it's the most open established mobile ecosystem. Only system that supports the mobile web browser I find tolerable to use for instance (hint - it's not the default browser or Chrome). Only system that allows developers to map executable pages. Only system that allows me to customize user experience as I see fit, and not offer one size fits all. And so on.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by digi_owl on Thursday May 28, 2015 @05:54PM (#9621435)

I guess they consider external storage to be already handled by the Storage Access Framework.

As for Internet, they leave that out of their "improved" Play store permissions as well (and the M groupings seems like a carbon copy).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by wongarsu on Thursday May 28, 2015 @06:00PM (#9621463)

>As for Internet, they leave that out of their "improved" Play store permissions as well (and the M groupings seems like a carbon copy).

Why would they do that? On it's own "Internet" may not seem to be an important category, but I am willing to give apps many more permissions if I know that they can't phone home. For tools, the Internet permission is often the deciding factor for me.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by ufmace on Saturday May 30, 2015 @03:29PM (#9631463)

I'd like to see a modified internet permission that permitted access to only a specific domain. Maybe along with a policy prohibiting or discouraging using the all-internet permission for anything that didn't clearly need it, like say a web browser. Say the Twitter app only has permission to access URLs under twitter.com, and accessing any other URL domain is a separate permission.

I'm not sure if Google would go for it, but I suppose it would encourage devs to use Play services for ads and analytics, since it wouldn't need any extra internet permissions, while using an external service for either would.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by vardump on Thursday May 28, 2015 @06:06PM (#9621485)

A few years ago mobile virtualization was hyped a lot. What came of it? I'd love to be able to run multiple OS instances on same phone. Use one for private communication and others for fun and games (not that I play games, but the point).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by arthurfm on Friday May 29, 2015 @05:42AM (#9623599)

There isn't any need for the OS to be virtualized now that Android supports dual-personas (i.e. Android for Work). [1]

[1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/a-revi...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by mcintyre1994 on Friday May 29, 2015 @02:36AM (#9623080)

Nowhere near the same but android does support multiple accounts - might be worth looking into whether they're sandboxed enough to stop apps looking beyond the account they're installed on.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by on_and_off on Thursday May 28, 2015 @06:50PM (#9621687)

Crash reporting and analytics come to mind as reasonable applications of the default internet permission.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by zmmmmm on Thursday May 28, 2015 @08:29PM (#9622037)

Google should silo those into separate categories to generic "internet access". Same with ad access. Sending data to pre-whitelisted, registered and trusted sites that register with Google in advance should be in a different category to "upload to random server in china".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by hrktb on Thursday May 28, 2015 @07:42PM (#9621883)

Isn't there an entry point on the OS/Google Play side that allows the dev to get crash reports?

Also, I think analytics should be something fundamentaly optionnal, at least from a privacy POV.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by on_and_off on Saturday May 30, 2015 @07:28AM (#9629806)

>Isn't there an entry point on the OS/Google Play side that allows the dev to get crash reports?

There is, but there are multiple crash reporting services that provide more features than Google (and just having some competition in that area is pretty great).

In my company, we use Crashlytics on Android & iOS and Bugsense on wp.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by digi_owl on Thursday May 28, 2015 @06:06PM (#9621487)

Everyone with a pulse has asked themselves that already, and come up blank. All we have are potential conspiracy theories revolving around ad revenue for both Google and app devs.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by magicalist on Thursday May 28, 2015 @07:04PM (#9621742)

Except all the mobile operating systems do this?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Android M Developer Preview and Tools by mappu on Friday May 29, 2015 @01:40AM (#9622868)

I recommend AFWall+ for preventing the latter.

[ Parent | on HN ]