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Google Bans Sale of Android Spying App
dbune writes "Google is not letting a handset application that spies on someone's text messages be sold at its Android App Store. The Secret SMS Replicator developed by DLP Mobile to help lovers find out if their partners are cheating on them violates company policy, according to Google. The app works by secretly duplicating incoming text messages and forwarding these to another mobile phone number."
DLP Mobile also tried to sell the app on Apple's iPhone app store but was rejected.
I doubt that. The iPhone walls off SMS messages from apps. Apple can't have rejected it - you can't write it.
Its rather Ironic that a company who's business relies on spying (cough) tracking what other people do should ban an app designed to track what people are doing.
Isn't one of the advantages of Android the ability to install apps from other than the Google app store? So people who really want this thing can still get it, independently of Google's disapproving glare, right?
Genuinely curious about this.
2*3*3*3*3*11*251
It's malicious in exactly the same way as someone installing a USB keylogger in an internet cafe - they have to have physical access to the machine!
It's malicious as in illegal. Your freedoms do not extend to covert snooping on other peoples conversations.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
apparently you don't have teenage children
isn't the Android Market supposed to be more open than the App store?
Absolutely! It's amazing what you can do and still be more open than the App store.
Jokes aside, Google has a degree of responsibility over the apps that they sell to you. It's perfectly reasonable for them to refuse to sell an app which is specifically designed to be installed without the knowledge or consent of the phone's regular user and who's purpose is to spy on the regular user (with costing the owner money from extra SMSs as a side effect), as that can easily be considered illegal. If you really want this program on your phone then Android is open enough to let you install it, but you'll have to get it from somewhere other than Android Market.
He could have spelled it "yore" :) I am as annoyed by misspelling of your/you're, there/their, thats/that's, then/than as you probably are. Turns out that complaining/correcting doesn't have any affect on the masses. But then again, I am not sure anyone has ever tried putting it on a road-side billboard yet... so let's get a "correct you're damned english" foundation put together and by some signage.
What irritates me the most is how many apps now request access to my GPS data. I mean, why does Com2Us's Homerun Battle 3D need to know my GPS location? It's a freaking game! Pageonce personal finance or Live Scores? Why do you need to know where I'm at?
You don't. You just want to sell my information.
That is "...effect on the masses", "correct your damned english" and "buy some signage"
It is.
A) This is a snooping app, and malicious.
B) With a simple selection in the options on the phone, you can install it from another site.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Or, develop a good relationship with your children instead of once again relying on technology to babysit for you.
Talk to your kids about behaving responsibly, and openly talk with them about their concerns, and yours.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I don't need to know what my computers are doing at all times in the background. To steal an infomercial catch phrase, I like to set it and forget it.
There’s a difference between “out of sight, out of mind” and “if I go looking for it, it tries to hide”.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Call me "old fashioned, but they don't sound much like lovers to me!
Even if this app smelled like roses and shat apple pies, it shouldn't be allowed in the app store.
It's not about 'evil intent', it's about a program that behaves badly...it doesn't appear in the list of installed apps, it doesn't use the normal install/uninstall procedures, etc.
I can think of several legitimate, useful reasons for an app that duplicates text messages, even if such a program could be used maliciously. OTOH, a piece of code that circumvents the OS to hide itself? That's not an application. "Applications" are expected to mostly conform to certain norms on how they interact with the user and the OS.
There is no heavy-handedness on Google for kicking this one to the curb.
The Wii has a great system where it just records daily activity to a friendly little log, and stamps Mario's smile on it. There is no way to delete it, alter it, move it, or whatnot. And they put it in its own friendly little calendar view where file activities like faking your usage or deleting the log doesn't really come up. They've invisibly made it completely natural that the system records what you do, and that you can't do anything about it.
The ______ Agenda
That is, "correct your damned English."
Not the OP, but the replies.
I used to think EXACTLY like that, until I had children of my own. We often tend to think in terms of one-size-fits-all, or "if it works for me it should work for you". This is very likely human nature, so I'm not denigrating anyone. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. I have three teenage step-daughters. To say the older two have been "challenging", would be the understatement of the century. In a nice suburban home, with decent income, a loving mother and step-father, a good school system, dinner at the table, help with homework, support and encouragement; I've had to deal with drugs, law enforcement, runaways, and a very, VERY serious suicide attempt. I can't even begin to tell the readers of this site the complete and utter hell I've endured in the last few years. I wish this upon no one. Yet through it all, I love them with every fiber of my being.
Unless you are prepared to lock your child in their room until they are 18, there are forces acting on them that are well beyond the parents' control. It's fantasy to think that good parenting will overcome all. I'm a step-father because the biological father passed away. That does more than a little damage to a child, and no amount of therapy (been there), talking (done that), and good parenting (always) can fix it. There can be neuro-chemical imbalances that you just can't sit down with a child and rationally talk away. Problems can often happen faster than you can detect or address. Teenagers, even good ones, are deceitful by nature as they want to explore the world and there place in it...unencumbered by their parents views or morality. Of course, you do everything you can to prepare them for the challenges, pitfalls, and evils of the world; but there will be missteps, and a rare few can have permanent consequences.
The point of my little self-pity party, is that while "spying" on your children may not be for everyone, or even desirable by anyone, it should be tool at a parent's disposal if they deem it necessary. While I don't disagree with Google's decision to pull it from their store, I would have words with anyone who tried to keep me from having that technology when it was available because if their own rose-colored world-view from atop the ivory tower. Had we had the ability to see our daughter's text messages, it might have spared her five days in ICU and another ten in a step-down hospital room. As a parent, I can tell you there is simply no price too great to pay to prevent that...nothing, and I mean NOTHING is off the table.
Having gone though what I have, I've met many parents with similar stories. While you never really know what goes on behind closed doors, most of them do not strike me as the kind of people who let technology babysit their children. They don't seem to be absent in their children's lives. They don't seem to be anything other than loving, conscientious parents who for whatever reason, found themselves dealing with problems no parent ever wants to face; and are looking for any way possible to protect their children.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Parents should just be parents. We're not supposed to have complete trust in our children...they're children! They do dumb stuff! Does this mean that we should sneak around and covertly monitor everything that they do? Absolutely not. However, my children (who are not quite teenagers yet but will be sooner than I would like) will be made fully aware that their right to privacy ends the second that I think that there might be a problem. They will know that at any time I reserve the right to pick up their phone and go through it, sift through browser history or whatever. Kids should not be subject to constant covert monitoring, but it doesn't mean that parents should give up their authority entirely, either.
Social Engineering Expert: Because there is no patch for stupidity.
Unless you have a smart kid and knows that if you start the wii in maintenance mode (hold - and +, then press A at health warning screen) the games you play are not logged.
Somehow a "parental control" spy app is orders of magnitude creepier than a "suspicious spouse" spy app...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I had stupid amounts of freedom and discovered that stricter kids went crazy when they finally left the house.
My Mom's rules were:
1) "Clean up your own messes."
2) "Be polite to guests that are over."
3) "Learn something new every day."
My Dad was constantly deployed and played a smaller role in parenting.
If i skipped class or did poorly on a test and the school called the House to talk to my Mom.. she would ask them if they have talked to me about it yet. If not, she would ask them to speak with me about school related problems first because only the school and myself have the ability to directly change an outcome.
This set the stage for how i live my life. Laws aren't a substitute for morals. Laws aren't something to obey because The Man will catch you. It's up to the individual to internalize the differences and learn (usually through experience) why rules exist and specifically why. Everyone reading probably breaks the law every day.. speeding. But very few if any are breaking the spirit of the thing and that is to set a safe speed to travel at. Police obviously are supposed to enforce the law to the letter but from experience we know a good officier is lenient and follows the spirit of the law. After all, we are Human.. not machines.
Strict kids go fucking nuts when they get out of the house. No rules man! That's because they haven't internalized the reasons for the law existing.. it was pressed upon them from above.
all imo, of course.
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