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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."
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.
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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.
Yeah, because someone who knows you spying on your text messages is exactly the same as some software gathering demographic information that will be used to better market things to large groups of people.
Anyhow, it's not like Android doesn't warn you - isn't that widely approved "permission list" that it pops up going to tell you it has access to SMS and the like?
If you have access to someone else's phone to install this spyware, you have access to approve the SMS permissions on install. The person being spied on gets no warning.
Finally, I think it's an app that has been marketed truthfully.
It's an app designed to be installed on someone else's phone without their consent.
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
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.
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.