[dundee] Android and App privileges

[James Le Cuirot]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 19:06:33 +0000
Robert Ladyman <it at file-away.co.uk> wrote:

> One thing which has struck me about a lot of "Apps" is that they seem
> to request access to almost everything - most of the time I cannot
> see why the app I've downloaded needs to be able to make calls or
> access my address book. If I'm feeling kind, I think it's because
> they are the defaults in some way.
> 
> What might be useful would be a 'fake access' option: that is, for
> each app you should be able to choose "no access", "real access" and
> "fake access", so that if you require a particular app that insists
> upon address-book access, but do not wish to grant it, you give it
> the 'fake' setting which does exactly that, give fake information to
> the app (and similarly with telephone access). You'd also be able to
> test a program's trustworthiness without letting it loose across your
> precious data.
> 
> Thoughts? Is this already available?

I thought I remembered reading about something like this before so I had
a quick look. If you're running CyanogenMod (you should be!) then they
added revoking but refused to add faking.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/05/22/cyanogenmod-adds-support-for-revoking-and-faking-app-permissions/

There are seemingly also other solutions such as LBE Privacy Guard,
which was only in Chinese to begin with but an English version was
later released.

http://himself.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/english-lbe-security-master-for-android-now-available-outside-market-formerly-lbe-privacy-guard/

Regards,
James