General > General Technical Chat
Is there any theoretical limit to stupidity? (Android permission auto-revoke)
Halcyon:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on February 13, 2022, 08:23:56 am ---It's not stupidity.
It's a deliberate act to slowly render the society dysfunctional. It comes in all flavors, big and small, the key is to make everyday lives as difficult and unsafe as possible. People are made to conform to this kind of BS, and accept it.
All that "two factor authentication" BS is part of this. It's pretty revealing that a company for which security has never meant anything is most strongly driving this.
Sounds like a tinfoil hat thing but I'm really serious.
--- End quote ---
If you're even moderately interested in security, you wouldn't be buying a handset from Chinese manufacturers. I know it might sound like generalisation, but it's largely true. Their primary motivator is to make a feature phone with all the bells and whistles of a Samsung device but at a fraction of the cost. Pay a bit more and get something decent from companies like Samsung, Google or even Apple. Those handsets are pretty solid.
ve7xen:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on February 12, 2022, 08:41:31 pm ---I noticed this revoking permission thing, but in my case, it was at least for apps that I hadn't used in a long time.
Another annoying thing with Android is that (at least on several Android systems I tried from 8 to 11) if you use fingerprint for unlocking the device, it will ask for your password every 3 f*king*days, and it's not even a setting, so you can't change that. One week or even one month would have been fine by me. Or just when I reboot the system.
All in all, it comes down to a common cause: software that is designed to know better than yourself what you need. It's a pretty general trend in software these days. It's horrible. And I'm not sure "stupidity" is the problem.
Oh, and it's not restricted to software either... but that's a bit beyond this topic.
--- End quote ---
While I agree with your premise, I think that security features are a reasonable exception, since users don't know what's best for them, and stand to be seriously screwed if you let them do what they think is best. Password 'reminder' prompts like you're describing are annoying, so many users - even experienced ones - would disable them if given the choice - but they work. Then they'll forget their password, since they've been unlocking their phone exclusively with biometrics for the past 6 months, and don't use it anywhere else, then they'll need to take it to the store for help wiping it, and they'll lose all their data. They might also lose access to many of their online accounts, because they lose the 2FA keys. That's a bad user experience that will put them off the product, even though it's their own 'fault' for forgetting a password they've had no reason to remember.
Ditto with permission revocation. Managing permissions is a pain in the ass, and to mitigate that, users 'set it and forget it', which is probably not what their trust model supports, whether they are thinking about it or not. Revoking permissions after a period of disuse makes perfect sense, it's clearly not important to the user that this app have permanent permission if they are barely using it, and the prompt to re-enable it if they do isn't a significant barrier.
Halcyon:
--- Quote from: ve7xen on February 14, 2022, 10:04:32 pm ---
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on February 12, 2022, 08:41:31 pm ---I noticed this revoking permission thing, but in my case, it was at least for apps that I hadn't used in a long time.
Another annoying thing with Android is that (at least on several Android systems I tried from 8 to 11) if you use fingerprint for unlocking the device, it will ask for your password every 3 f*king*days, and it's not even a setting, so you can't change that. One week or even one month would have been fine by me. Or just when I reboot the system.
All in all, it comes down to a common cause: software that is designed to know better than yourself what you need. It's a pretty general trend in software these days. It's horrible. And I'm not sure "stupidity" is the problem.
Oh, and it's not restricted to software either... but that's a bit beyond this topic.
--- End quote ---
While I agree with your premise, I think that security features are a reasonable exception, since users don't know what's best for them, and stand to be seriously screwed if you let them do what they think is best. Password 'reminder' prompts like you're describing are annoying, so many users - even experienced ones - would disable them if given the choice - but they work. Then they'll forget their password, since they've been unlocking their phone exclusively with biometrics for the past 6 months, and don't use it anywhere else, then they'll need to take it to the store for help wiping it, and they'll lose all their data. They might also lose access to many of their online accounts, because they lose the 2FA keys. That's a bad user experience that will put them off the product, even though it's their own 'fault' for forgetting a password they've had no reason to remember.
Ditto with permission revocation. Managing permissions is a pain in the ass, and to mitigate that, users 'set it and forget it', which is probably not what their trust model supports, whether they are thinking about it or not. Revoking permissions after a period of disuse makes perfect sense, it's clearly not important to the user that this app have permanent permission if they are barely using it, and the prompt to re-enable it if they do isn't a significant barrier.
--- End quote ---
Yep, I certainly don't disagree with any of that. But ultimately, consumers should have a choice.
IanB:
--- Quote from: ve7xen on February 14, 2022, 10:04:32 pm ---Then they'll forget their password, since they've been unlocking their phone exclusively with biometrics for the past 6 months, and don't use it anywhere else, then they'll need to take it to the store for help wiping it, and they'll lose all their data.
--- End quote ---
This has already happened to me once. Biometric security is extremely dangerous if you have no way to recover a forgotten password.
I now understand why Apple forces you to unlock your phone manually once a week.
PlainName:
--- Quote ---Pay a bit more and get something decent from companies like Samsung
--- End quote ---
I used to do that (buy Samsung) and hated everyone one. The only Samsung device I now use is the TV, and that only because it predates the data snarfing models and it only has to show a picture from a STB.
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