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0 pointsStavrosK12y ago0 comments

I'm pretty sure you could fake most permissions convincingly. After all, how is an app to know that that empty contact list or those GPS coordinates on the top of mount Everest aren't actually real?

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yareally12y ago

There's been a few mods out on xda for at least a year or two that let you fake most permissions per app so the app would think it was getting legit data and not just blindly crash if it was denied the data totally. I think one was built into MIUI and could also be used standalone. The other one I can't recall the name, but if I think of it I will edit my post in a bit. Both had their source out though so you could mod them.

Cyanogenmod 7 tried to totally deny permissions for apps and it was not a good idea. It resulted in apps crashing a lot. Also the reason they didn't continue to do it in Cyanogenmod 9 and 10. Faking permissions is definitely the way to go though.

edit: pdroid was the other (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1357056)

616c12y ago

Pdroid is fantastic. I waste time patching my ROM every time I need to upgrade with that tool. The amount of information you can disable or manipulate to hand to app providers is amazing.

I think Android would have much better cred in the geek community if this was standard, but the legal and business hoops it jumps around and out of make it a pipe dream. I will say when I meet Infosec guys in my area and show them that app, even the iPhone guys are impressed and want to know how to get it if they got Android phones.

StavrosKOP12y ago

What legal and business hoops are you talking about? I can't see any legal problem with Android letting me disable my own permissions...

StavrosKOP12y ago

Yeah, my problem is that I use stock, so no love there :/

yareally12y ago

Stock as in a Nexus device or stock as in some other OEM skinned device? You shouldn't have problems applying either if you're using stock vanilla AOSP and rooted. OEM skins (touchwiz/sense/etc) though are another thing since you don't have any source code to work off of without modding or using something like Cyanogenmod and they tend to mod a lot of the framework base. Pdroid's patches were to the framework_base part of the Android source from what I recall working with it before. Modding the Android source isn't too bad if you import it into Intellij IDEA or Eclipse though. If you have some questions about where to start, feel free contact me.

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yareally12y ago

edit: pdroid was the other (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1357056)

616c12y ago

Pdroid is fantastic. I waste time patching my ROM every time I need to upgrade with that tool. The amount of information you can disable or manipulate to hand to app providers is amazing.

StavrosKOP12y ago

What legal and business hoops are you talking about? I can't see any legal problem with Android letting me disable my own permissions...

StavrosKOP12y ago

Yeah, my problem is that I use stock, so no love there :/

yareally12y ago

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