Re: [PLUG] OT - android tracker

[Rich Freeman via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 2:47 PM jeff via plug
<plug@lists.phillylinux.org> wrote:
>
>   If this were a desktop, you'd just update your HOSTS file with any of
> the files available, free and commercial. Unless you have root, you
> probably can't update your android HOSTS file. Then you need to look
> into a firewall or a different program in the VPN which does this job.
>

There have been many android privacy solutions over the years.  The
issue is that Google is the main force behind android, and ultimately
privacy is contradictory to their business model.

I've seen OS extensions that will let you enable permissions in apps
but feed them bogus data.  If the app requires access to contacts you
can just feed them an empty contact list or whatever.  If the app asks
for your device unique ID, it gets an ID that will be the same every
time but is unique to that install of that app.  If the app wants your
location it gets whatever location you want it to have.  Or of course
you can let any of these functions obtain the true values, if you're
using an app that necessarily needs these things.

The problem is that Google actively fights all this stuff so it is a
pain to use.  They also promote a security model where they define
secure as the device runs the vendor's unmodified firmware, and
insecure as anything else.  There is no reason that they couldn't
still have secure boot or whatever but let the image that is secured
be one of the user's choosing.  Well, other than it becoming practical
to bypass all the data collection and concessions made to movie
studios to allow HD streaming or whatever.  (I really don't get why
HDCP and that stuff is still a thing - for a decade now anything that
is released is pirated within minutes, usually without even
re-encoding it.)

-- 
Rich
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