Facebook's Android App Can Now Retrieve Data About What Apps You Use 176
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook on Friday released its Android launcher called Home. The company also updated its Facebook app, adding in new permissions to allow it to collect data about the apps you are running. Facebook has set up Home to interface with the main Facebook app on Android to do all the work. In fact, the main Facebook app features all the required permissions letting the Home app meekly state: 'THIS APPLICATION REQUIRES NO SPECIAL PERMISSIONS TO RUN.'
As such, it’s the Facebook app that’s doing all the information collecting. It’s unclear, however, if it will do so even if Facebook Home is not installed. Facebook may simply be declaring all the permissions the Home launcher requires, meaning the app only starts collecting data if Home asks it to."
Re:Big Android Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt most people will flinch but... (Score:5, Interesting)
I was actually curious to try Home, but when I saw the new permissions requested by the Facebook base app, I just said 'enough is enough' and deleted it.
I think I'm definitely in the minority, but stuff like this increases that bifurcation of their userbase. I keep a toe in just because I know people that use Facebook as a primary communications tool, but I already log in only in a separate browser from everything else I do just to quarantine it.
Re:LOL, suckers... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't laugh at all those future phones sold with this garbage, and with it installed and set up in such a way that you are forbidden from uninstalling it...
I already have problems caused by "stock" programs on my phone that cannot be uninstalled without root access, and I cannot trust going through the process of attempting to gaining root, something that could possibly leave me without a phone. Once this garbage makes its way "stock" onto commercial Android phones in the same way, there will be an even greater need to try to gain root access. I am not looking forward to the day when I have to start doing extra research just to find out if a particular cell phone comes with this Facebook garbage, only to find that they all fucking do and the only possibly way out of it is to risk rooting it.
It's already a bitch doing research for a new phone, given all the variations in (incompatible) Android versions. It's a royal pain in the ass trying to find a phone that doesn't suck in general, and doesn't force the use of a cell service provider that tries its best to fuck you up the ass. The last we need is to add fucking Facebook to the mix. Fuck them.
Re:Big Android Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
A cool feature would be the ability to provide selected apps with spoofed data.
That feature was proposed for Cyanogen and a patch was written. It was never included out of fears that developers would block Cyanogen from installing apps on the (then named) Android Market.
Re:Big Android Problem (Score:5, Interesting)
There are various patches that implement this. There were some root-requiring apps that did this as well but I don't believe they work post-v4.
The key isn't to return errors to applications - you just need to return a successful call with no useful data. If it asks for contacts, just say that the user hasn't defined any (a situation every app has to handle anyway). If it asks for the IMEI tell the app that there is no SIM installed. If it asks for the location, tell the app that there is no GPS coverage. If it asks to phone home, tell it that the network appears to be down at the moment.
Apps handle all of these things gracefully already. The key is to intercept the API call and direct it along one of these paths, and not to just return an error due to a lack of permissions, which the app no doubt was not designed for since it was supposed to be guaranteed those permissions.