this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
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Privacy

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[–] henfredemars 35 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Mixed feelings about this article. In short, it presents a new way of fingerprinting devices.

While it's an interesting fingerprinting strategy, this is just one of many ways that a device can be fingerprinted. Do your best to avoid installing applications you don't trust to protect your privacy.

Also, the recommendations of the article don't make much sense. Anti malware on Android? Ridiculous and ineffective.

[–] LWD@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)
[–] henfredemars 11 points 2 years ago

No. There is no room for anti-malware services in the Android design.

Such software needs permissions that reach outside of the Android security model to do things like access other application data without its consent.

Imagine for a moment that you could install anti malware with some kind of super user permission that lets the software access everything it needs to do its job. If so, malware would immediately attempt to use that feature as well, either to steal more of your data or inject itself into other applications.

Play Services is special because it operates with much higher privileges than third party software can obtain.

Now, in theory you can still scan applications before they are installed, but I would argue that there's very limited value in doing so. If you're installing software from sources you don't trust, you have bigger problems. You can't rely on a signature matching engine to detect malware in the general case.

[–] Eggyhead@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago

Basically Android will change its UI coloring to align with your background image, and 3rd parties get access to knowledge about your designated UI colors, right? I get how that can be a privacy concern.

What happens if you set your wallpaper to automatically change every other hour or so? Does android allow that?

[–] GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 years ago

I dealt with this by using only trusted software. Problem solved. Neither kvaesitso nor lemmy or element will abuse it.

[–] Dehydrated@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's why GrapheneOS doesn't come with a wallpaper.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I feel like that would also fingerprint you because only grapheneos users would have that.

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So where do I get some wallpapers? I don't really care that much how it looks. Just that it looks decent in both light/dark modes and does not clash with icons so its hard to see them.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Just search online somewhere "[something of interest] wallpaper". You'll probably find good wallpapers on some wallpaper websites.

[–] user@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Thas like saying "Tor users are easily fingerprinted because they are using Tor." GrapheneOS has more than 200,000 users not including the other people on the outside who also have black wallpaper (a lot).

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 years ago

This only is a problem if you install apps that track you. If you only use F-droid the risks become much lower