When you buy a phone, especially a smart phone, you don’t really have a lot of control over what software goes on your phone or how your phone is used.
That’s a fact. It’s always been that way, and it will likely continue to be that way for the foreseeable future.
Apple has taken a lot of (well-deserved, in my opinion, and I say this as an iPhone user) shit for their weird app control-freakery. No porn, no apps developed using tools other than Apple’s own Xcode, no apps they find “controversial” or “offensive”…and the whole app approval progress is as opaque as Glenn Beck’s sense of ethics.
So a lot of folks are turning to Google’s Android phones, in the misguided and poorly-founded belief that the fact part of the Android stack is open source somehow means Google doesn’t exercise just as much control over the platform. This despite the fact they have on a few occasions now refused to host apps that various telcos have asked them not to.
I’m not in the market for a new smartphone, so I’ve been watching the whole thing from the sidelines. But something did catch my eye recently, and it’s got me thinking down a path that zaiah thinks is evil.
Last week, a security researcher released a Google app that claimed to be a preview of the new Twilight film–you know, the one about lame-ass sparkly vampires or something, written by a conservative Mormon woman who wanted a nice Christian alternative to the evil witchcraft that’s woven all through the Harry Potter saga like evil anchovies on the pure pizza of God, so she wrote about stalking and violence and rape instead. Because, of course, the main theological debate facing scholars in the dawn of the 21st century is “who would Jesus rape?” But I digress.
Anyway, the app secretly contacted his server in the background and downloaded (innocuous) code. He wanted to see how easy it would be to persuade people to download an Android app that could install a rootkit, and how easy it would be to get such an app onto the Google app marketplace.
The answers turned out to be “a whole lot” and “easier than opening a bag of Cap’n Crunch, apparently.
When Google found out, they vaporized all the copies of his app from all the Android smartphones out there.
Now, Apple also has a remote-kill switch. This is part and parcel of the state of the smart phone biz. A smart phone carrier or software vendor can reach out remotely and vaporize apps or files from your phone, without you being able to do anything about it. That’s the way it is.
But when Google vaporized this research app, the researcher discovered something interesting–Google also has the ability to remotely ADD an app to a user’s phone without the user knowing it. Google can remotely install software on Android phones over the air.
And that opens an interesting can of worms, oh yes it does.
The courts have ruled on several occasions that a company that has the ability to do something may be compelled to do it by a court order, whereas it is far more difficult to compel a company that does not have the capability to do something to add that capability.
Take Amazon and the Kindle (please!). Amazon revealed that it can remotely nuke a book from Kindles all over the world when someone started selling bootleg copies of George Orwell’s 1984, and Amazon reached out and wiped them.
Amazon then tearfully confessed that doing so had been an error in judgment and swore it would never do it again, but at this point they no longer have that option. Since they have demonstrated the ability to do it, the next time someone’s intellectual property is stolen and distributed for Kindle, the rights holder may be able to get a court order to force Amazon to nuke the offending files whether Amazon wants to or not.Amazon made that bed and might not have a choice about sleeping in it.
So here’s the conundrum I’m pondering. Since Google has the ability to remote install apps, what would happen if Google were forced by court order to use it? What would that do to the cell phone industry? Would people start staying away from Android in favor of other platforms without that ability? More important, would it lead to social dialog over what kind of power we should be willing to cede to the phone operators?
I’m considering writing an Android app that runs in the background and sends the GPS coordinates of the phone to a server every few minutes. I am also thinking about approaching a bunch of police departments and saying “I’ve written this app. I will not distribute it to anyone except law enforcement. If you get a court order to put it on someone’s phone, I’ll give it to you and you can compel Google to install it remotely.”
Might not ever get used. But the first time it did get used, I have a feeling it’d generate quite a shitstorm. And open a conversation that I think probably needs to happen.
zaiah says that doing this would be evil. What say you, Oh Interwebs?
From a general philosophical perspective, I say this is no different than the 911 GPS chip they made mandatory in every phone a few years back. It is not ‘evil’ for a company to develop technology with the intention of providing a valuable service to the consumers; it is ‘evil’ for the courts/government to use it outside the bounds of the constitution. Home network cameras are not ‘evil’; Panasonic is not ‘evil’ for providing a live stream backup server free with them so if someone robs your house when you’re on vacation you can know who it was. The court system/government becomes evil when it chooses to order Panasonic to release all the footage of your house for a certain time period under penalty of the law.
From a personal perspective, I feel it is “evil” for you to knowingly do it with the intention of invading someone’s constitutional right to privacy. But, since you are not an agent of the government (to the best of my knowledge), it is not an inherently “evil” act to write the software, and even attempt to distribute it on your own.
From a general philosophical perspective, I say this is no different than the 911 GPS chip they made mandatory in every phone a few years back. It is not ‘evil’ for a company to develop technology with the intention of providing a valuable service to the consumers; it is ‘evil’ for the courts/government to use it outside the bounds of the constitution. Home network cameras are not ‘evil’; Panasonic is not ‘evil’ for providing a live stream backup server free with them so if someone robs your house when you’re on vacation you can know who it was. The court system/government becomes evil when it chooses to order Panasonic to release all the footage of your house for a certain time period under penalty of the law.
From a personal perspective, I feel it is “evil” for you to knowingly do it with the intention of invading someone’s constitutional right to privacy. But, since you are not an agent of the government (to the best of my knowledge), it is not an inherently “evil” act to write the software, and even attempt to distribute it on your own.
I love this article. This conversation does need to happen, but if you do do this, be prepared for the backlash. But I’m insanely curious to know what kind of reception your app would get in the legal/law enforcement community. I suspect they’d be salivating all over it.
I love this article. This conversation does need to happen, but if you do do this, be prepared for the backlash. But I’m insanely curious to know what kind of reception your app would get in the legal/law enforcement community. I suspect they’d be salivating all over it.
I think the GPS tracker app is brilliant. Both because it might end up saving someone’s life one day and because it will, once discovered, open the very conversation that you desire.
I think the GPS tracker app is brilliant. Both because it might end up saving someone’s life one day and because it will, once discovered, open the very conversation that you desire.
You mean you want to write Google Latitude?
Heh, you beat me to it bc I spent ages trying to remember the name! (Resorted to xkcd for help, of all things!)
As a full time nomadic traveler, it’s an app I use regularly (on iPhone as a web based app because Apple forbids it, not Android for which there is an actual app).
So if‘s theory is correct, everything is already in place for his evil plan – and he doesn’t have to do anything 🙂
Heh. Except that you won’t know it’s running and cant turn it off. 🙂
You mean you want to write Google Latitude?
Prior art? Maybe they’re using it already…
Prior art? Maybe they’re using it already…
Heh, you beat me to it bc I spent ages trying to remember the name! (Resorted to xkcd for help, of all things!)
As a full time nomadic traveler, it’s an app I use regularly (on iPhone as a web based app because Apple forbids it, not Android for which there is an actual app).
So if‘s theory is correct, everything is already in place for his evil plan – and he doesn’t have to do anything 🙂
Evil.
I see the intellectual puzzle as intriguing, I am terrified of the real world implications. Setting aside whether or not such an app exists (see above). The principle you will be advocating is that anyone may offer a software product to a law enforcement organization for their use.
I see several ways this can go bad. First, racial profiling; what if the app is loaded onto the phones of people with foreign sounding names, to track them. Well, that’s bad enough, but given the difficulties in living in a nice neighborhood while black, now you have a situation where if someone of a particular color starts to go into an area where “they don’t belong”, police can locate and question them immediately.
Second, what if the police want to fish? How difficult would it be to write an app which falsifies information about location and/or activity? “We didn’t know it was wrong, oops?” is poor consolation should you spend time incarcerated.
Third, there is the aspect of placing said app in order to catch whistleblowers, namely by placing it on the phone of a reporter, and then pinging when any law enforcement officer or other suspect is nearby (given the wiretapping occurred without a warrant, it’s a reasonable proposition).
Lastly, this is an idea for which there are insufficient safeguards. How difficult would it be to randomly install a back door to feed financial information to the writer, who may later use it for identity theft?
Re: Evil.
The benefit of the phone company having control over which apps get uploaded onto a phone is that the police can’t do this without their assistance (and generally big companies don’t bend over backwards and do everything that the police tell them to do, esp if it’s illegal!) and the police need to have a warrant in order to force the phone company to cooperate, which means there are controls in place – they don’t have absolute power.
In theory someone at the phone company could, but I think without a warrant in place such data would be inadmissable as evidence (probably, IANAL)
“Lastly, this is an idea for which there are insufficient safeguards. How difficult would it be to randomly install a back door to feed financial information to the writer, who may later use it for identity theft?”>/i>
Again, this would hopefully be picked up by the phone co. – part of the rationale for controlling app availability is to prevent malicious code.
Re: Evil.
Bah, I fail at html tags today!
Re: Evil.
and generally big companies don’t bend over backwards and do everything that the police tell them to do, esp if it’s illegal!
< cough > NSA wiretapping < /cough >
Re: Evil.
In a civilized country, perhaps. In the US, where we still have Guantanamo, we have yet to rediscover the meaning of Habeas corpus
Evil.
I see the intellectual puzzle as intriguing, I am terrified of the real world implications. Setting aside whether or not such an app exists (see above). The principle you will be advocating is that anyone may offer a software product to a law enforcement organization for their use.
I see several ways this can go bad. First, racial profiling; what if the app is loaded onto the phones of people with foreign sounding names, to track them. Well, that’s bad enough, but given the difficulties in living in a nice neighborhood while black, now you have a situation where if someone of a particular color starts to go into an area where “they don’t belong”, police can locate and question them immediately.
Second, what if the police want to fish? How difficult would it be to write an app which falsifies information about location and/or activity? “We didn’t know it was wrong, oops?” is poor consolation should you spend time incarcerated.
Third, there is the aspect of placing said app in order to catch whistleblowers, namely by placing it on the phone of a reporter, and then pinging when any law enforcement officer or other suspect is nearby (given the wiretapping occurred without a warrant, it’s a reasonable proposition).
Lastly, this is an idea for which there are insufficient safeguards. How difficult would it be to randomly install a back door to feed financial information to the writer, who may later use it for identity theft?
It would be evil. But you’re opening a dialog by discussing this public and that’s not evil.
It would be evil. But you’re opening a dialog by discussing this public and that’s not evil.
There is no good or evil, only wise and foolish methods toward achieving your aims. Sadly, only in hindsight will you be able to judge and learn. If you choose to act I would be interested in learning your perspective on the consequences.
On the other hand what can happen, will, given enough time. So the real question is, do you prefer to see yourself as an agent or resistor of change?
There is no good or evil, only wise and foolish methods toward achieving your aims. Sadly, only in hindsight will you be able to judge and learn. If you choose to act I would be interested in learning your perspective on the consequences.
On the other hand what can happen, will, given enough time. So the real question is, do you prefer to see yourself as an agent or resistor of change?
Heh. Except that you won’t know it’s running and cant turn it off. 🙂
I just root my Android phone, install a modified OS and skip the whole debate. 🙂
I just root my Android phone, install a modified OS and skip the whole debate. 🙂
Unfortunately, the “make things so bad that people notice and fix things” school of anti-authoritarianism has not, so far, seemed to pan out very well. We’ve already got a U.S. Federal government that, for the past two Presidents, ignores the Sixth and Eighth Amendments completely. Why give them more rope with which to hang us?
In the current legal climate of the U.S., you can be darn sure that federal bodies would use such an app unethically if it started to be standard practice.
So far, Google seems (according to what I see in the news — I have no special insight here) to fight off this sort of invasion with full legal force, much more so than many other companies (AT&T comes to mind), but why add the pressure?
This.
Unfortunately, the “make things so bad that people notice and fix things” school of anti-authoritarianism has not, so far, seemed to pan out very well. We’ve already got a U.S. Federal government that, for the past two Presidents, ignores the Sixth and Eighth Amendments completely. Why give them more rope with which to hang us?
In the current legal climate of the U.S., you can be darn sure that federal bodies would use such an app unethically if it started to be standard practice.
So far, Google seems (according to what I see in the news — I have no special insight here) to fight off this sort of invasion with full legal force, much more so than many other companies (AT&T comes to mind), but why add the pressure?
My feeling is that it’ll happen eventually. My consideration would be if you think the dialogue it would open is more valuable than the trouble it would cause you.
My feeling is that it’ll happen eventually. My consideration would be if you think the dialogue it would open is more valuable than the trouble it would cause you.
Sometimes the best way to control the conversation is to trigger it yourself…I would dub that the Rossim & Senator Perrin line of thinking.
However, like Rossim, etc you’re in big danger of it all blowing up on you or twisting in unexpected ways. If I were to engage in this I would make the app serve several aims at once along with multiple kinds of backup, make the app into a Xanatos Gambit.* If that can be done, its worth doing…
So really the question to consider is, after you do this, what next? What happens if the conversation doesn’t happen? or if there is general acceptance not hoopla? etc If you think you’ve got a handle on the consequences to where it isn’t going to go horribly wrong, then do it.
*http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit
“At its most basic, the Xanatos Gambit is about secretly manipulating someone into trying to foil your own plans. It assumes two possible outcomes by the one manipulated – success or failure, and the plan is designed in such a way that either outcome will ultimately further your goals.”
Great icon, I have that edition of Stranger.
Sometimes the best way to control the conversation is to trigger it yourself…I would dub that the Rossim & Senator Perrin line of thinking.
However, like Rossim, etc you’re in big danger of it all blowing up on you or twisting in unexpected ways. If I were to engage in this I would make the app serve several aims at once along with multiple kinds of backup, make the app into a Xanatos Gambit.* If that can be done, its worth doing…
So really the question to consider is, after you do this, what next? What happens if the conversation doesn’t happen? or if there is general acceptance not hoopla? etc If you think you’ve got a handle on the consequences to where it isn’t going to go horribly wrong, then do it.
*http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit
“At its most basic, the Xanatos Gambit is about secretly manipulating someone into trying to foil your own plans. It assumes two possible outcomes by the one manipulated – success or failure, and the plan is designed in such a way that either outcome will ultimately further your goals.”
Great icon, I have that edition of Stranger.
Just had to say I heart that icon.
Just had to say I heart that icon.
Re: Evil.
The benefit of the phone company having control over which apps get uploaded onto a phone is that the police can’t do this without their assistance (and generally big companies don’t bend over backwards and do everything that the police tell them to do, esp if it’s illegal!) and the police need to have a warrant in order to force the phone company to cooperate, which means there are controls in place – they don’t have absolute power.
In theory someone at the phone company could, but I think without a warrant in place such data would be inadmissable as evidence (probably, IANAL)
“Lastly, this is an idea for which there are insufficient safeguards. How difficult would it be to randomly install a back door to feed financial information to the writer, who may later use it for identity theft?”>/i>
Again, this would hopefully be picked up by the phone co. – part of the rationale for controlling app availability is to prevent malicious code.
Re: Evil.
Bah, I fail at html tags today!
I say go for it on the condition that you’re willing to commit yourself to being the whistleblower, even if ordered to keep it secret. Otherwise you’re just surreptitiously reducing privacy.
I say go for it on the condition that you’re willing to commit yourself to being the whistleblower, even if ordered to keep it secret. Otherwise you’re just surreptitiously reducing privacy.
My .02
I am writing this comment based solely on your post. I have not read any of the other commenters (yet). I do not think that this is evil at all. In fact, I think this needs to happen. Mostly because I think the tel-cos already have too much control over our privacy (and yes, we’ve allowed this to happen). I agree that this is a conversation that needs to happen, sooner, rather than later.
And by the way, this is just another reason why I think your blog rocks.
Oh, and on a side note, that app would probably make you rich.
My .02
I am writing this comment based solely on your post. I have not read any of the other commenters (yet). I do not think that this is evil at all. In fact, I think this needs to happen. Mostly because I think the tel-cos already have too much control over our privacy (and yes, we’ve allowed this to happen). I agree that this is a conversation that needs to happen, sooner, rather than later.
And by the way, this is just another reason why I think your blog rocks.
Oh, and on a side note, that app would probably make you rich.
Re: Evil.
and generally big companies don’t bend over backwards and do everything that the police tell them to do, esp if it’s illegal!
< cough > NSA wiretapping < /cough >
Re: Evil.
In a civilized country, perhaps. In the US, where we still have Guantanamo, we have yet to rediscover the meaning of Habeas corpus
I’d put a lot of money that the services do not require your assistance in writing such an app, and that it already exists. But I’m surprised that people think it is very easy to legally enforce a firm to use it.
Imagine a hypothetical dialog about whether we should equip police with the physical means to storm into someone’s house. The people who are against it claim that it would lead to police breaking into people’s homes all the time, based on their ethnicity and whatnot.
But it hasn’t.
Same thing here — the question is about the laws that justify the court order for such things.
This app could save lives, potentially. There’s nothing evil about it, or even about the notion that a court order can be used to force a firm to install it. Evil can come only from incorrect answers to the question “Under which circumstances should such court orders be ensued?”
Ideally, I’d tend to agree with you. And, honestly, I have no problem with the notion that police are necessary to the functioning of a stable society, and that under some controlled circumstances, police can be given the authority to do things like tap your phone or follow you around.
But I also think that transparency is necessary to the healthy functioning of a stable society, and that with issues like compelling the manufacturers of electronic gizmos to control those gizmos for the purpose of law enforcement, we don’t have the level of dialog or transparency we need to have.
I also really wonder if the companies that install these capabilities in their gizmos have fully thought through the legal implications. I believe Jeff Bezos is sincere when he says that Amazon will never use their ability to remotely vaporize the documents stored on a Kindle again. I just think that he hasn’t considered the fact that now that the cat is out of the bag, a court can compel him to.
I’ve worked in companies that make tech gizmos. You’d think that there would be a legal team to offer guidance or oversight on the kinds of capabilities they install, and you’d think that they’d consider the legal implications of features like remote administration capabilities that they install. As near as I can tell, though, you’d be mistaken; it doesn’t seem to happen. Which I find a little weird.
Remote delete capability is one thing, but remote install capability opens a potential can of worms I don’t think people have thought much about. And, unfortunately, there are members of the government (I’m looking at you, W) who feel perfectly comfortable ordering telephone companies to engage in wide-spread, warrantless wiretapping, and companies that seem comfortable going along with that. Remove the legal balances on that sort of thing and we have a problem.
I’d put a lot of money that the services do not require your assistance in writing such an app, and that it already exists. But I’m surprised that people think it is very easy to legally enforce a firm to use it.
Imagine a hypothetical dialog about whether we should equip police with the physical means to storm into someone’s house. The people who are against it claim that it would lead to police breaking into people’s homes all the time, based on their ethnicity and whatnot.
But it hasn’t.
Same thing here — the question is about the laws that justify the court order for such things.
This app could save lives, potentially. There’s nothing evil about it, or even about the notion that a court order can be used to force a firm to install it. Evil can come only from incorrect answers to the question “Under which circumstances should such court orders be ensued?”
Wouldn’t it be easier to find or write an app that can block the add process? I would love to find out if that could be done…
As it turns out, the remote add process is necessary to installing ANY app on an Android phone.
With an iPhone, when you install an app from the App Store, the phone downloads the app you choose and then runs an installer. With Android, when you choose an app, Google receives the name of the app, then triggers a “remote download” command to send the app to the phone. If you block Google’s remote download feature, you block the ability to load apps at all.
free “don’t be evil” consulting
a good person inspiring google with a smaller shitstorm now would be doing them a favor
Not entirely true. It would block apps being downloaded from the market, which is admittedly a large proportion of the distribution of android apps, but on phones that haven’t been broken by design (like ones that run MotoBlur) you can quite happily tick a settings option, download an apk and install it locally on the phone so it doesn’t block you from loading apps at all.
You can also tweak the OS to ask you to confirm all app download requests should you wish. More hassle than I’m really willing to go through, though.
I would also assume that Apple has his ability as well, they’re just not talking about it.
Wouldn’t it be easier to find or write an app that can block the add process? I would love to find out if that could be done…
This.
I feel your confusion. This time, as you posit, the technology has exceeded the guidelines either our culture or our laws have proscribed. Your app is both evil (according to some aspects of our culture) and necessary (according to other aspects of our culture). It’s a goddamned necessary evil.
Someone in the comments already mentioned NSA wiretapping. I’ve just finished The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State by Shane Harris. He outlines how wiretapping is no longer the cut-and-dried procedure it once was, and that the NSA system is not only somewhat illegal, but also somewhat necessary. All forms of surveillance are illegal on today’s telephone equipment. Today, this is not a contradiction, but a situation made possible by technology leapfrogging our legal ability to write laws governing the tech.
I think you’re also dead-on about the court situation. Makers not only can but must follow court-ordered activity. What that will do to future smart phone platforms, I have no idea. Perhaps the next line of phones will have firmware that prevents remote installations or deletions. I don’t see that as a great selling point, though.
Interesting times.
I feel your confusion. This time, as you posit, the technology has exceeded the guidelines either our culture or our laws have proscribed. Your app is both evil (according to some aspects of our culture) and necessary (according to other aspects of our culture). It’s a goddamned necessary evil.
Someone in the comments already mentioned NSA wiretapping. I’ve just finished The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State by Shane Harris. He outlines how wiretapping is no longer the cut-and-dried procedure it once was, and that the NSA system is not only somewhat illegal, but also somewhat necessary. All forms of surveillance are illegal on today’s telephone equipment. Today, this is not a contradiction, but a situation made possible by technology leapfrogging our legal ability to write laws governing the tech.
I think you’re also dead-on about the court situation. Makers not only can but must follow court-ordered activity. What that will do to future smart phone platforms, I have no idea. Perhaps the next line of phones will have firmware that prevents remote installations or deletions. I don’t see that as a great selling point, though.
Interesting times.
I believe Blackberry involuntarily pushed an app on their phones a year or so ago. Couldn’t quickly find a reference to it, but I remember it creating a little ripple in the tech blogs and podcasts.
I believe Blackberry involuntarily pushed an app on their phones a year or so ago. Couldn’t quickly find a reference to it, but I remember it creating a little ripple in the tech blogs and podcasts.
the easiest thing to do would be to not play
…before i became a parent, i didn’t own a cell phone. How’s that for the opening line of a defense?
i’d like to fall back on a slightly Luddish, slightly anachronstic, and more than pissy line of defense in this whole thing: the easiest way to not worry about any of this, or have it follow any of you around, is to not own a cell phone.
i know, i know, i know– saying that is the equivalent of answering the old “Do you save the woman or the painting from the museum fire?” question by saying that you ask the woman, but, hear me out: we always have some version of the Well, if all your friends did “X”… model being bandied about. As a version of that, when the cell phone revolution exploded, people said things to me like, “Well, it’s important that others be able to get hold of you” or some such. And my answer was always this: if it’s that important you speak to me, get off your duff and come find me and tell me in person.
There are numerous benefits to having this chip, as well as the on/off capability, as well as the load and unload capability… and one of things that we often exchange for those benefits, those ease of use moments, is our freedom. Sure, it’s great that Mom can find you anywhere in the world if she knows your cellphone number… but now you can’t fall off the face of the planet anymore. What if your psycho ex-whatever knows your cellphone number and has a body who can get into the GPS system? Or your psycho ex-whatever can offload all your financial data using software from your phone? Or… Sure, it’s great to be able to hop on the Internet and check your balance… you can see where i’m going with this, right? At some point, it’s going to be harder than hard, if not downright impossible, to ever be truly alone at all. And sometimes, no matter how gregarious we are, we need that. For whatever reason. And to point out the obvious here: it’s not the phone company’s job to save your life, which often times is the first benefit that gets touted about when it comes to software like this: Joey Schmoey’s car went off the road in Great Big Nowhere and Big Bad Cell Phone company notified Big Brother and he was found.
At one point or another– as paranoid as this may sound– we all do or say things that are beyond the scope of law, for various reasons. It is very easy for people to make other people into criminals, to ostracize them, to start witch hunts. And even if the error gets discovered after the fact, well– dead is dead. And to my mind, pointing out the security benefits of this software and its capabilities is right up there with saying that Hitler may have been a mass-murdering shit, but hey! He got the trains running on time again!
Years ago, i read a paper that positted that the Social Security Number was the long-prophesied Mark of the Beast, since our credit was linked to it and we couldn’t trade or bank without credit; i scoffed at the idea a bit, but the more i think of it and the more our lives become increasingly ruled by and reduced to numbers– including the bits of code to load and offload things from our phones– well…
the easiest thing to do would be to not play
…before i became a parent, i didn’t own a cell phone. How’s that for the opening line of a defense?
i’d like to fall back on a slightly Luddish, slightly anachronstic, and more than pissy line of defense in this whole thing: the easiest way to not worry about any of this, or have it follow any of you around, is to not own a cell phone.
i know, i know, i know– saying that is the equivalent of answering the old “Do you save the woman or the painting from the museum fire?” question by saying that you ask the woman, but, hear me out: we always have some version of the Well, if all your friends did “X”… model being bandied about. As a version of that, when the cell phone revolution exploded, people said things to me like, “Well, it’s important that others be able to get hold of you” or some such. And my answer was always this: if it’s that important you speak to me, get off your duff and come find me and tell me in person.
There are numerous benefits to having this chip, as well as the on/off capability, as well as the load and unload capability… and one of things that we often exchange for those benefits, those ease of use moments, is our freedom. Sure, it’s great that Mom can find you anywhere in the world if she knows your cellphone number… but now you can’t fall off the face of the planet anymore. What if your psycho ex-whatever knows your cellphone number and has a body who can get into the GPS system? Or your psycho ex-whatever can offload all your financial data using software from your phone? Or… Sure, it’s great to be able to hop on the Internet and check your balance… you can see where i’m going with this, right? At some point, it’s going to be harder than hard, if not downright impossible, to ever be truly alone at all. And sometimes, no matter how gregarious we are, we need that. For whatever reason. And to point out the obvious here: it’s not the phone company’s job to save your life, which often times is the first benefit that gets touted about when it comes to software like this: Joey Schmoey’s car went off the road in Great Big Nowhere and Big Bad Cell Phone company notified Big Brother and he was found.
At one point or another– as paranoid as this may sound– we all do or say things that are beyond the scope of law, for various reasons. It is very easy for people to make other people into criminals, to ostracize them, to start witch hunts. And even if the error gets discovered after the fact, well– dead is dead. And to my mind, pointing out the security benefits of this software and its capabilities is right up there with saying that Hitler may have been a mass-murdering shit, but hey! He got the trains running on time again!
Years ago, i read a paper that positted that the Social Security Number was the long-prophesied Mark of the Beast, since our credit was linked to it and we couldn’t trade or bank without credit; i scoffed at the idea a bit, but the more i think of it and the more our lives become increasingly ruled by and reduced to numbers– including the bits of code to load and offload things from our phones– well…
Ideally, I’d tend to agree with you. And, honestly, I have no problem with the notion that police are necessary to the functioning of a stable society, and that under some controlled circumstances, police can be given the authority to do things like tap your phone or follow you around.
But I also think that transparency is necessary to the healthy functioning of a stable society, and that with issues like compelling the manufacturers of electronic gizmos to control those gizmos for the purpose of law enforcement, we don’t have the level of dialog or transparency we need to have.
I also really wonder if the companies that install these capabilities in their gizmos have fully thought through the legal implications. I believe Jeff Bezos is sincere when he says that Amazon will never use their ability to remotely vaporize the documents stored on a Kindle again. I just think that he hasn’t considered the fact that now that the cat is out of the bag, a court can compel him to.
I’ve worked in companies that make tech gizmos. You’d think that there would be a legal team to offer guidance or oversight on the kinds of capabilities they install, and you’d think that they’d consider the legal implications of features like remote administration capabilities that they install. As near as I can tell, though, you’d be mistaken; it doesn’t seem to happen. Which I find a little weird.
Remote delete capability is one thing, but remote install capability opens a potential can of worms I don’t think people have thought much about. And, unfortunately, there are members of the government (I’m looking at you, W) who feel perfectly comfortable ordering telephone companies to engage in wide-spread, warrantless wiretapping, and companies that seem comfortable going along with that. Remove the legal balances on that sort of thing and we have a problem.
As it turns out, the remote add process is necessary to installing ANY app on an Android phone.
With an iPhone, when you install an app from the App Store, the phone downloads the app you choose and then runs an installer. With Android, when you choose an app, Google receives the name of the app, then triggers a “remote download” command to send the app to the phone. If you block Google’s remote download feature, you block the ability to load apps at all.
do it
so everybody knows
do it
so everybody knows
free “don’t be evil” consulting
a good person inspiring google with a smaller shitstorm now would be doing them a favor
If a third party is permitted to install apps without your knowledge or consent, I think the first cases you’d hear about would involve something like this installed by malicious third parties who figure out how it’s done.
Imagine all the good times an insider at the telco could have, or foreign agents installing to military/industrial targets etc.
If a third party is permitted to install apps without your knowledge or consent, I think the first cases you’d hear about would involve something like this installed by malicious third parties who figure out how it’s done.
Imagine all the good times an insider at the telco could have, or foreign agents installing to military/industrial targets etc.
That’s the hacker culture that I grew up in. I realize there are lots of different kinds of hackers, but the ones I grew up with made a point of hacking things for the purpose of revealing their security weaknesses, so that problems could be resolved.
I’m hard pressed to see this as “evil”, since someone could come along and do just this, but for actual evil purposes. If a hacker came along with the intention of highlighting this incredibly dubious or dangerous feature, I’d see this as for the greater good.
The devil is in the details, though.
In fact, I was once employed by a startup in Silicon Valley who installed a new firewall, and then asked us employees to do what we could to crash it, so they could find, and then plug, any security holes. We had lots of fun downloading porn that week.
That’s the hacker culture that I grew up in. I realize there are lots of different kinds of hackers, but the ones I grew up with made a point of hacking things for the purpose of revealing their security weaknesses, so that problems could be resolved.
I’m hard pressed to see this as “evil”, since someone could come along and do just this, but for actual evil purposes. If a hacker came along with the intention of highlighting this incredibly dubious or dangerous feature, I’d see this as for the greater good.
The devil is in the details, though.
In fact, I was once employed by a startup in Silicon Valley who installed a new firewall, and then asked us employees to do what we could to crash it, so they could find, and then plug, any security holes. We had lots of fun downloading porn that week.
It never fails to amaze me how snarky people can be about a person who reveals the plots and machinations behind the current administration…Glen Beck, for instance. This great man takes a lot of crap for his particular brand of showmanship, which educates while entertaining.
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Sean Hannity, another Great American, finds himself in the same shoes.
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What a tragedy that people who consider themselves so educated would make no effort to look past the Pravda of our times (CNN or BS-NBC, take your pick) to learn more about what’s going on in our out-of-control government. Nobody seems to want to know exactly what a socialist road we are headed down. Odd how the people who picketed the last administration when they went about ignoring the people, now are curiously silent despite the majority of Americans (by every poll) objecting to the path we are on.
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Perhaps not so smart after all, eh?
It never fails to amaze me how snarky people can be about a person who reveals the plots and machinations behind the current administration…Glen Beck, for instance. This great man takes a lot of crap for his particular brand of showmanship, which educates while entertaining.
.
Sean Hannity, another Great American, finds himself in the same shoes.
.
What a tragedy that people who consider themselves so educated would make no effort to look past the Pravda of our times (CNN or BS-NBC, take your pick) to learn more about what’s going on in our out-of-control government. Nobody seems to want to know exactly what a socialist road we are headed down. Odd how the people who picketed the last administration when they went about ignoring the people, now are curiously silent despite the majority of Americans (by every poll) objecting to the path we are on.
.
Perhaps not so smart after all, eh?
Not entirely true. It would block apps being downloaded from the market, which is admittedly a large proportion of the distribution of android apps, but on phones that haven’t been broken by design (like ones that run MotoBlur) you can quite happily tick a settings option, download an apk and install it locally on the phone so it doesn’t block you from loading apps at all.
You can also tweak the OS to ask you to confirm all app download requests should you wish. More hassle than I’m really willing to go through, though.
I would also assume that Apple has his ability as well, they’re just not talking about it.