[sudo-discuss] "Uh-oh" department: Android app EULA: cameras and mics without your consent.

[Anon195714]

This from a blog posting about Android in December:

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I was going to update Google Search yesterday, then I read the new
permissions. It says that it can record audio without permission and
take pictures or videos any time it wants without authorization! Scary.
Uninstalling…

Here it is:

Record audio
Allows the app to record audio with the microphone. This permission
allows the app to record audio at any time without your confirmation.

NEW: Take pictures and videos
Allows the app to take pictures and videos with the camera. This
permission allows the app to use the camera at any time without your
confirmation.

Wasn’t google’s tagline before ‘do no evil?’

Yikes~!

Source:
http://androidandme.com/thread/google-search-permissions-can-take-pictures-and-record-audio-whenever-it-wants/comment-page-1/#comment-554224

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So, why exactly does Google Search need the ability to "record audio"
and "use the camera," "at any time without your confirmation"...? In
other words, record your conversations in the room, and take pictures of
you and your pals, at any time, without letting you know?

Google has enough expensive lawyers to make sure that the language they
use in their EULAs says and means exactly what they want it to. That
language was not an accident and not the result of being sloppy with words.

"At any time" means ANY time, even when you're NOT using the Google
Search application.

"Without your confirmation" means without letting you know when it's
being done.

Google may claim that these "features" are intended for some future use
where you can point your camera at bar codes to get information on
products, and where you can do search requests by speaking. But in both
of those cases it is trivially easy to implement a "may I?" permission
and confirmation protocol.

For example that you actually have to click a button to take a picture.
Or that you have to click a button to enable the mic and then use a
specific command to start a voice search.

Let's be really clear about this: the ONLY reason to want to turn on
someone's camera and mic, regardless of whether they are using the app,
and regardless of their consent, is to spy on them. Not only to spy on
the person who uses the device, but to spy on whoever they're hanging
out with.

Anyone who doubts me is welcome to try to find any other rationale to
explain the wording in that EULA.

"Don't be evil," huh. For anyone who believes that slogan, I have a
bridge for sale, cheep.

The motto should be "You search us, we search you. Bend over!"

Or perhaps, "We invented Search, we don't need no stinkin' warrant!"

Or perhaps just, "SUBMIT!"

-G.


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