Slashdot Mirror
Study Finds That a Large Number of Popular Android Apps Secretly Cast the Screen To Third Parties, But They Don't Listen To Conversations (gizmodo.com)
Kasmir Hill, reporting for Gizmodo: It's the smartphone conspiracy theory that just won't go away: Many, many people are convinced that their phones are listening to their conversations to target them with ads. [...] Some computer science academics at Northeastern University had heard enough people talking about this technological myth that they decided to do a rigorous study to tackle it. For the last year, Elleen Pan, Jingjing Ren, Martina Lindorfer, Christo Wilson, and David Choffnes ran an experiment involving more than 17,000 of the most popular apps on Android to find out whether any of them were secretly using the phone's mic to capture audio. The apps included those belonging to Facebook, as well as over 8,000 apps that send information to Facebook. Sorry, conspiracy theorists: They found no evidence of an app unexpectedly activating the microphone or sending audio out when not prompted to do so. Like good scientists, they refuse to say that their study definitively proves that your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but they didn't find a single instance of it happening. Instead, they discovered a different disturbing practice: apps recording a phone's screen and sending that information out to third parties.
Good news residents, thieves aren't coming to plunder your document safes. Instead, they're only going to rummage through your jewelry boxes.
May as well have led with a bit on no conclusive evidence that the apps were trying to give you cancer.
... that the following may be true:
People are far more forgetful of the actions they've taken online and how they could be used by data/ad companies.
People aren't entirely likely to notice ads without having some reason (e.g. just having talked about it)
Data/ad companies are far better about targeting their results than they were in the past.
People love a good conspiracy. I know I do.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
That seems worse than whatever stupid shit I might say near my phone.
Indeed! So, if I chose the "show password" to make sure I'm writing it correct- it can screenshot my password and send it to a third party? If I open PayPal it can screenshot what I've spent and send it to a third party?
Are these apps only screenshotting within themselves- or potentially everything you do. This could be extremely serious.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Stupid post is stupid.
All android apps can REQUEST the permission to record your screen. Hell, there's good reason for it in some cases: See "CalcyIV" for Pokemon Go (which reads the pokemon's stats and provides more detailed info), or even Google's own Now / Assistant which screenshots and gives information about what you're looking at.
Unless it's preinstalled on your phone (and even if it is, it might still need to request it), there's going to be this huge "[APP] requests to record everything on your screen" prompt. Then, every time it records your screen, an icon appears in your status bar by the Wifi/3G/clock and I believe a notification appears.
In Oreo, you're probably going to be reminded at least once that the app recently used it. It just notiffied me that Soundhound used my mic the other day, and that was with me actively using the app.
Additionally, apps can block (https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/133022/disable-screenshot-security) screenshot/casts.
You literally have to ignore 3-4 warnings / notifications *AND* your banking apps / password requests have to be programmed badly (it's literally one line of code) for your information to be recorded.
You don't have an android then, do you?
Because Google Play needs access to everything or it pops up complaints all of the time if you limit it. On a pretty regular basis I get a notice that Google Play is having issues because I haven't allowed it to use my phone, access my contacts, and whatever else stupid shit it wants access to. Instead of failing gracefully it's a constant nag, and they've been ignoring bug reports on this "feature" for 3-4 years now.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Dont use a computer with a live mic. Connect a mic when its needed for the app thats trusted.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It's not a conspiracy theory when articles like this refute your study.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1...
Just another day in Paradise