Re: Android Marshmallow permissions model

I would say capdesk got it pretty ok for a first attempt. It was
substantially better than Android, the authorities that were available to
grant were at once more nuanced, finer grained, and easier for the end user
to understand. But looking at how the social and economic forces evolved
with Android, capdesk's system was not adequate. Every app on android
demands more authority than it needs, and people have again become
anesthetized and most just say yes.

Ken Kahn came up with a very cool enhancement shortly after capdesk work
ended. When installing a new app, the OS would come out to the user and
ask, "what kind of app do you think I'm installing?" Categories at that
time included games, document processors, browsers, and online gaming -- we
never made up a complete set of categories then, and of course the
categories have changed since.

Anyway, each category requires a different set of authorities. You pick the
category, the OS grants that set of authorities to the app; most categories
need such limited authority they are harmless. If the app tells the OS it
needs more authorities than the standard package, either the OS rejects the
installation or gives the app a pseudo-authority stub that looks like
authority but is not. Again looking at android, I am leaning  toward
silently granting the app harmless authority stubs. Over half of the apps I
look at for installing on my phone want my gps locations, less than 5
percent actually need it to serve my needs, giving the app a fake gps
locator would serve me well.

--marcs

On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 11:39 AM, Dan Connolly <[email protected]> wrote:

> My phone just offered to upgrade to Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
>
> This looks like a good thing:
>
> "With the new app permissions model, you pick and choose which
> permissions to grant apps at the time of use."
>   --
> http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2015/10/get-ready-for-sweet-taste-of-android-60.html
>
> But this looks like a big missed opportunity:
>
> "To determine if your app has been granted a permission, call the new
> checkSelfPermission() method."
>  --
> https://developer.android.com/about/versions/marshmallow/android-6.0-changes.html
>
> Are there good examples of APIs and user interfaces for this stuff?
> Did CapDesk get it right?
>
> --
> Dan Connolly
> http://www.madmode.com/
> _______________________________________________
> cap-talk mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://www.eros-os.org/mailman/listinfo/cap-talk
>

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