I personally do not like to go fishing, but, I some times stop along the river and watch folks who do. Some times they have interesting stories, sometimes not.
Couldnât find the PDF yet - just the screenshot, which helped me look for the title 
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PDF:
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Seen on slashdot today:
Full text.
Android app developers intentionally delayed updating their applications to work on top of Android 6.0, so they could continue to have access to an older permission-requesting mechanism that granted them easy access to large quantities of user data, research published by the University of Maryland last month has revealed. From a report:
The central focus of this research was the release of Android (Marshmallow) 6.0 in October 2015. The main innovation added in Android 6.0 was the ability for users to approve app permissions on a per-permission basis, selecting which permissions they wanted to allow an app to have. [âŚ] In research published in June, two University of Maryland academics say they conducted tests between April 2016 and March 2018 to see how many apps initially coded to work on older Android SDKs were updated to work on the newer Android 6.0 SDK. The research duo says they installed 13,599 of the most popular Android apps on test devices. Each month, the research team would update the apps and scan the appsâ code to see if they were updated for the newer Android 6.0 release. âWe find that an appâs likelihood of delaying upgrade to the latest platform version increases with an increase in the ratio of dangerous permissions sought by the apps, indicating that apps prefer to retain control over access to the usersâ private information,â said Raveesh K. Mayya and Siva Viswanathan, the two academics behind the research.
Links:
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I feel like I did in 2011 when I used windows for the last time installing my first full time linux distro .
Look at that article up there. Android app builders delaying so they can get more app permission data .
BYEEEEEEE
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Thanks! (Someone read my latest post, woohoo!)
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anon4488778 has the right idea. People are way to quick to go bananas. But I do not think my original post was unreasonable. I am sorry but I have friends and family that use specific apps that you guys deem âbad for privacyâ and in order to be able to communicate and conduct business with these people I rely on certain apps. Additionally there are three aspects of security that are built into the phone such as OS security and hardware kill switches, then there is app security, and privacy, then there is carrier privacy/cellular privacy. These are three different things. Not having app privacy does not necessarily correlate with not having phone privacy or security especially with the right settings/permissions. None of these solutions help with cellular privacy.
If you guys truly want privacy the best option is to probably not even have a phone. While I value my privacy I donât value turning into an Amish person to achieve these goals. It is not worth it in my opinion. Even with this phone the baseband is not secure and nor is the phone lines that I still rely on to communicate with people. I am sure your carrier is still tracking you and sending all this info to the government. Thus I am not getting this phone. If this problem is solved I will consider it. It is not reasonable to expect everyone I know to switch to things like signal or Matrix thus app privacy is not solved.
Is matrix going to be required at both ends to message ? Or will it only be secure if the L5 is the only one using it ?
I think your original topic was expecting things that cannot be reasonably achieved. If you want to go to the moon, you cannot just send someone there on the first rocket. It has to start with engine tests and psychological evaluations, perhaps send a dog into space etc. etcâŚ
Let me state why I think most people are here. For me it started with the first tablet I ever bought. I chose my tablet, it seemed to be to be a computer of sorts, I paid real honest hard earned cash and then brought it home. I switched it on and was absolutely shocked with what I saw. In order to get the programs I had to give my details over to start an account. I thought no! But in the end there was simply no choice, You cannot get the apps without âbelongingâ to the corporation. An âagreementâ came up on the screen. I thought hang onâŚTHERE WAS NO AGREEMENT WHEN I PAID CASH!!! now an agreement appears AFTERWARDS!!! I gave in and gave out my details - what could I do. from then on I saw that everything I did had the same slimey deal - money up front⌠get home, open the box⌠AGREEMENT+ GIVE OVER DETAILSâŚOR NO USE!!! My lumia promised me windows, I bought it in good faith, It was not windows at all - it was windows ZOMBIE, that was the version - honest! it couldnât do anything like a word processor or basic windows functions at all. My Galaxy core prime gave me android 4.x it got updated only as far as 4.4.4 NEVER to get a reasonable update. My computer never ever got an upgrade to windows 10, I forced it but the GPU was totally uncatered for, after numerous requests to windows, AMD, and HP I got nowhere, not one of them thought it was a responsibility to give me a GPU driver - In other words âbuy new hardwareâ NO I WILL NOT. I became a Linux user at that point and will never look back. That is only the corporations. Now my government has done something that only North Korea and China have pulled off - both extremely oppressive states - legislation to get a front door key to every form of encryption anywhere. It is called spying. Do the governments of this world regard it as a crime? OH YES THEY DO! World wide, history shows the standard penalty to beâŚtorture, and numerous examples can be found with footage from the second world war of summary execution on both sides. Now we are their bosses - they are public servants. Whatever they consider the crime to be between servants, how do they reason when the servant does it to the boss IE the public that gives them the mandate (but actually never gave any mandate)? Apparently it is OK! Did they think to ask our opinion? Er no - because they have forgotten their place! Not one person voted for it. Just go and google up the five eyes and you canât believe the boldness of governments that have no mandate!
So I am willing to start off with the basics - a phone, calculator, sms, calendar, internet browser, and a few other things, If for once I can just get some honest dealings and truly own what I bought and have security. The Librem 5 task is not easy, It has to start from first principles, Check each chip, each bit of code, make the OS universal so that the phone IS for the first time a REAL computer when it gets given a monitor. They have to lay huge foundations. As long as they promise to keep going and giving me upgrades(LIKE NOBODY ELSE HAS EVER DONE FOR ME) Iâll buy into the first model arriving well under par. The people who come here I believe are fed up with the evil status quo and want a better world. They donât need a âtinderâ app, besides, If the phone can use a browser, there is âtinderâ anyway! And this one will do it on the big screen which most cannot at all. You cannot reach for the moon and expect the first rocket to just go there.
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With all that background, youâve been in the wars and you will appreciate the Librem 5 all the more.
You donât need a tinder app because you are already getting screwed. 
As am I.
Some people are listing their basics here: Apps you want on the L5
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Hear, hear!!!
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Yes, me too, and that applies not only to the librem phone but to any phone or personal computer in general. If i consider something breaching my privacy - i donât use it. Regardless of the platform. Iâm really looking forward having the platform which is private by default for not to spend too much time on tightening the seams.
And yes those friends of mine and relatives are complaining they cannot reach me via their convenient means. And my only response is - sorry, if you want to reach me please use channels I use, iâm not going to compromise my privacy/security for your convenience.
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Personally I think it is a shame that Anon left, his opinion unlike many here has some meat to it. Iâm not a fan of Purism because I believe their products are super secure (I do however believe that they are genuinely working to improve security on them), but rather because of their slant on hardware. Hardware you can truly own and repair is crucial.
I do think if Linux had the same user space of uninformed naĂŻve computer users as Windows it would drown in malware, same thing with OS X. If it is software it is vulnerable. If it is software that connects to the internet even more so.
Period.
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I think you and I have similar reasons for backing this product.
There is a trade-off between âidiot proofâ and âsomething you can truly ownâ. If you have the freedom to do what you like with the product, then you have the freedom to infect it with malware! There is only so much that can be done to prevent that by having secure defaults and user interfaces that discourage insecure actions. With freedom comes responsibility.
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Iâll be â100% Librem 5 proofâ as soon as i can get rid of whatsapp 
Everything else was abandoned a long time ago.
Fellow software engineer here as well, and I have one question regarding your take on the pluses of open source software:
If OSS is so superior to proprietary programming efforts, than explain to me why proprietary software is consistently more polished, feature rich, and functional? Why if the collective efforts on a OSS project are so important, do those projects never really measure up to proprietary software? GIMP and Blender are two great examples. They are both excellent pieces of software, but try comparing them to industry leading software. (Photoshop and 3d Studio Max, for example) They donât hold a candle to them based on feature set, usage, etc.
I know this might be a hard point to fathom by many of the more seasoned FOSS community but just because theyâve never used this software out of principle.
Think about it: If OSS software was really so much better than proprietary software, why wouldnât the whole industry instantly switch to it? Theyâd have every reason in the book to do that!!
OSS is not a clear cut better way of developing software and the reality of software development today is evidence of that.
Blender does infact hold a candle to other software, as not only is it free compared to the other products, but it does nearly everything those do and more in some cases (i mean at one point it literally had itâs own game engine in it too⌠and itâs used for much more than game models). And yes, photoshop still has more features, but it also has alot more money to go around compared to gimp or krita.
Photoshop has also been around much longer than Krita and even Gimp.
Further, there are plenty of areas that FOSS is ahead in terms of features, performance, and security. Not to mention itâs free. Your paying for other products, wheras you donât need to pay a dime to use FOSS software.
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There is a chasm 1,000 miles wide that fits into that statement. Also have you ever used any of the proprietary software that are used for similar purposes?
With the hive like nature that OSS trumpets, time would be a diminishing factor as you would have exponentially more (in theory) people developing it. Your argument of Photoshop being older as an excuse undermines OSS more as it disproves this notion. (Iâm not saying that more people working on something doesnât speed development, Iâm saying if you canât get people to work on a project, it doesnât matter.)
Give me an example, and Iâm fairly certain I can show you a proprietary version that is better (better meaning more features, more polish, more functional, etc.).
Exponentially more people developing it when itâs a free program that is being worked on by people donating blood, spit, and tears?
Foss runs on donations (of anything people can spare), that donât measure up to the level of funds that a big corporation pushing such software to make money off of would get.
Just because itâs not got every bell and whistle imaginable, doesnât mean itâs bad. Maybe one day it will have all those bells and whistles, but most people in foss aim to keep things simple and make sure they work, while respecting user privacy and freedoms.
If itâs missing something, add it. Donât just sit and complain itâs not there. Donate to it, contribute, and push it forward. Thatâs how itâs prospered, and why itâs valuable.
Further, time doesnât mean a program is magically going to get 10x more contributors than the project before it. In the case of Foss itâs much more likely the project will take some of the ideas from the existing project and improve it while preserving the Foss ideas, not go out on a crusade to add more features than the original or beat it in some way. (which does have itâs downsides, but at the same time it has upsides)
And if you still canât get over a free peice of software not having as many features for whatever your edge case, then use the propeitary stuff and go back to windows. You donât have to use it, and thatâs a right too. But i know plenty of people who find free software much better for their use because itâs free, and because itâs still plenty useful. Your probably never going to get everything you want (XYZ may need something, but alot of people donât), but youâll likely find things you canât live without too.
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I think Pixar now makes heavy use of Blender. Hereâs one of the first links I can find where a Pixar employee says Blender does pretty much everything their own software could, and they even open-sourced parts of their own software.
Additionally, while I believe Matlab has certain areas without much FOSS competition (yet), in my field (physics) everyone is ditching Matlab for Python. I donât think Matlab has much staying power.
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