Firewalls are a great way to tell if new apps are secrely installed

Btw what is the key verifier thing?

    • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
      0·
      2 months ago

      Provides a single process that can be used by all message apps so that they don’t need to implement backdoors into all of them?

      • ChillPill@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        Worried I’m getting a bit too paranoid, but…

        Why backdoor the messaging apps when you can just monitor the entire OS?

        • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
          0·
          2 months ago

          Having control over the OS doesn’t help if the OS doesn’t understand the app’s data.

          • ChillPill@lemmy.world
            0·
            2 months ago

            … the OS doesn’t understand the app’s data.

            I assume you are referring to End to End Encrypted (E2EE) messaging apps here. I’m no programmer/developer/software engineer and I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a ton about how most apps work on the backend. That being said, my understanding is that E2EE apps decrypt whatever is being transmitted to them when they get to your device (assuming phone here) (of course it would decrypt it, otherwise how would you make sense of the information?). Once the data is on your phone, it is decrypted. From what I understand, sandboxing apps is not all that robust on Android (at least on “mainstream” versions)

            Therefore, the data that was Encrypted from End to End was decrypted at the End and therefore accessible by other applications and processes on your phone. Unless Android sandboxing has improved greatly in the last few weeks.

      • Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        And with it unified, it’s easier to tie multiple online identities back to which one single person they all are.

  • nailingjello@lemmy.zip
    0·
    2 months ago

    I uninstalled it on my Samsung last time and just checked but it hasn’t reinstalled itself again (yet).

  • u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    It often feels like I am just a user of someone else’s device.

    Even from the stuff that is shown like “Your device has new features” and “Settings changed by carrier”. And how Motorola tried forcing updates by using non-dismisable (they would re-appear immediately) full-screen notifications, and trying to disable the app led me to “Blocked by your IT admin” (I returned that phone).
    Also when I connect any modern phone to Wi-Fi not manually set as metered it starts downloading a bunch of random shit automatically.
    It keeps killing apps I want running (I had to use a cheap dumb phone as alarm clock with the past 2 smartphones), but keeps all Google services conveniently spending data and battery.

  • MrSulu@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    I’ll he RethinkDNS for its firewall. It took me a while to work out how to use it (not very skillful at these things), but ever since, I’ve felt much safer. Rightly or wrongly

  • jherazob@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Note: The “Key Verifier” one is supposed to be tied to E2EE on Google chat platforms or something on those lines, although you shouldn’t be using those and go for a safer chat instead though

  • merthyr1831@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    These are usually installed as core Google apps on Android, and most flavours have them hidden since they’re really just background daemons/libraries.

    Gf had the same happen on her Huawei P30 which clearly wasn’t set up to have the apps hidden by default.

    If youre degoogling obvs not what you wanna have on your device but technically they shouldn’t be doing much on their own.