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

[J Clark]

motto: resistance is futile.
Anyone watching Person of Interest?

Another reason to reconsider my position with Android/Google:

FBI Pursuing Real-Time Gmail Spying Powers as “Top Priority” for 2013
By Ryan Gallagher
March 26 2013
<http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/03/26/andrew_weissmann_fbi_wants_real_time_gmail_dropbox_spying_power.html>

thanks for sending this. i tried uninstalling Goog Search but can only uninstall the updates so now I'm back to the factory install. Will need to go find a root-level uninstaller now. Wondering how deep the waters are before I'm over my head.

  j.

On Mar 26, 2013, at 11:43 PM, Anon195714 wrote:

> 
> 
> This from a blog posting about Android in December:
> 
> ----
> 
> 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
> 
> ---- comment ----
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> ===== end =====
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