Facebook new app update let them record sound & video from your phone, at any time, without your con

reply to post by MrMaybeNot


Wow... reminds me of that application in batman that turns everyone's cellphones into bat sonar....
Wonder what they are recording , and for who.

Originally posted by scottlpool2003
reply to post by MrMaybeNot

 

Because you can take a pic using the app? Because you can create audio using the app? Turn the app off when not in use or don't use the app?

Oh come on! Don't give me this 'all it means is .. ' bs!

It would be perfectly simple to limit the scope of the permission to what you suggest - that is EXACTLY what legalese is for!

How about this for instance:


This is how it currently is: "allows the app to record with the microphone, This permission allows the app to record audio at any time without you permission."

Simply change it to "allows the app to record with the microphone, This permission allows the app to record audio during user interaction with said app without your permission."

+

"allows the app to record with the microphone, This permission allows the app to record audio during third party software interaction with said app without your permission." (if you'd like to use it in conjunction with other apps. This should be a check box style option)


The wording might not be perfect, but I'm sure you get the point. See, this severely limit the scope of the permissions while retaining the possibility of acting like (the user) intended.

Legalese is intended to say exactly what it means. Do not think the words are not chosen very carefully.

I don't understand why people choose to participate in one of the biggest and most successful spy programs out there, but they do!

the sd card permission isnt so they can wipe your card. it is most likley so they can send all the info on your phone to any law enforcement agency, oor to upload to a massive server/mainframe for storage and to possibly build a case against you without your knowledge. facebook sucks. and even though i de-activated my profile im sure allll the things i ever said or pics i posted are stored somewhere in or outside the country for use AGAINST the posted if they need to use it. im sure they scan through everything ever posted on facebook just to survey it. and all the gun control talk and stuff, i bet theyre going to use all these posts by people as back to use the patriot act and arrest/detain people just for not going with the rest of the sheeple and having teir own opinions on the subject. especially the idiots who post anti obama stuff. who knows under the patriot act that could eb considered an act of terrorism. facebook sickens me to no end.

Wow, so we don't need RFID chips or something like that to be tracked, videotaped, recorded, have our lives and relationships charted out, etc. All we need is Facebook and a cell phone. Don't forget laptops and the Kinect. And drones (wait -why do they need those...? oh... hellfire missile packs I guess?)

Well, I think that settles that. Good job, American government. You are making steady progress towards your obvious intentions!

i have a 39.99 GO phone bought from best buy 3 years ago, i can call and text, and i am not on facebook or twitter. i've known about the apps on smartphones available to secretly record the holders activites. it's in the patent statements, and in the "end user agreement"
however, most people don't care about that because they know they are not criminals and have nothing to hide, and frankly conclude that what is recorded off of their smartphone, nobody cares about, it's simple apathy.

the best part, is if you have rooted your device there is an app, that will allow you to block certain permissions of an app to be installed which i find marvelous. either way i have never had or used facebook on my phone since im sure it directly links it to your mobile number with or without your consent. facebook is a joke, it is the biggest catalouge of everyones info which is fully accesable to law enforcement and other agencies.

WELCOME TO EAGLE EYE!

Originally posted by dirtybird
the best part, is if you have rooted your device there is an app, that will allow you to block certain permissions of an app to be installed which i find marvelous.
WELCOME TO EAGLE EYE!

That is just what I was about to say. Most devices have some sort of version of CyanogenMod that can be installed once rooted and this feature is built-in. I've disabled many unnecessary permissions in my app list.

reply to post by TortoiseKweek


What's also good is "HTTPS everywhere" from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's site. It's even installed by default when using the Tor bundle browser. It just forces SSL on every site.

If I didn't want my smartphone spying on me, I wouldn't have it.

Some previous comments say hey, don't use the app then. Android's Facebook app is uninstallable by default, as are a number of other applications included with some packages.

The way I see it is if the hardware is there and capable (of listening and recording), assume it is, Facebook app or not.

Interesting times we live in!

Where will Facebook be and how much of an impact will it have on us down the road in five or ten years?


Will it go the way of Myspace and become fairly obsolete, or morph into something else?

Well im going to write a inbox mentioning bomb bus station and ect and see if my phone starts acting a bit wierd or amything that will see if they are spying lol

Originally posted by Honkwoo1486
Well im going to write a inbox mentioning bomb bus station and ect and see if my phone starts acting a bit wierd or amything that will see if they are spying lol

some Anon hacker needs to write a virus that sends various bomb/attack/bioweapon/ nuclear , etc messages from infected devices all at once. See how many octomegagooglebytes the NSA/DHS/CIA can handle on their fancy servers.

Oke I just went to post this on Facebook and it did 2 random errors iI not seen before I got it to go on

Yeah get some tech heads to do a mass internet bomb posts ect and crash there servers teach em what happens when they invade privacy

reply to post by MrMaybeNot

root ur fone. install a permissions manager and lock down all the apps that use that permission and others u dont like. piece of cake


maybe u didnt notice that google apps also use that permission including tracking ur gps location and path during the day. a gps firewall helps screen that out as well.

ads also track ur habits. theyre collecting tonnes of data on u. so remove all ads by redirecting thru ur host file to null urls. there's an app for that.

the camera app also records sound and video randomly.. for no real apparent reason.

it's all the licence agreement when u turn on features such as google maps etc.

so get a gps firewall or full fone firewall that doesnt spy. i suggest one from a chinese programmer. all the western conglommerate companies antivirus/firewall transfer the spying to the app u try to rely on to protect ur privacy. using the permissions manager as root and a safe firewall software u can effectively.. kick google and the privacy spies out of ur fone and go rogue!

Originally posted by SSPI07

Originally posted by dirtybird
the best part, is if you have rooted your device there is an app, that will allow you to block certain permissions of an app to be installed which i find marvelous.
WELCOME TO EAGLE EYE!

That is just what I was about to say. Most devices have some sort of version of CyanogenMod that can be installed once rooted and this feature is built-in. I've disabled many unnecessary permissions in my app list.

Problem is = Rooted = Not everyone has the money to buy a new phone if it turns into a brick once rooted = not everyone has the knoweledge and know how to completed this task......I do but have a fear of bricking my phone......So regardless Bye,Bye FB on the Droid.....

reply to post by MrMaybeNot


I think the problem is that you do not understand mobile technology and how the interface works. Android is actually doing a good thing by telling you what hardware each app requires to use to function properly.

The same permissions you granted this new update you also grant to an app that needs to use microphone such as a microphone recorder app to jots down some notes. Every camera app out there also needs permissions to use the camera hardware in your app at any time. "At anytime" includes times when you are talking on the phone, surfing the web. The "At anytime" just grants the app permission to be in "background" or allowed under "multitask" in the operating system.

You can change settings in the developer options by restricting number of processes that can run at the same time to 1. But then your sync might not work well.

Hope this helps.

Can anyone else confirm the OPs claims? Has anyone else had a look at the new update and saw the same information as what is posted here? I'm just asking, because I can't find another source for this info other than from the OP.

Originally posted by LiveEquation
reply to post by MrMaybeNot

 

Every camera app out there also needs permissions to use the camera hardware in your app at any time. "At anytime" includes times when you are talking on the phone, surfing the web. The "At anytime" just grants the app permission to be in "background" or allowed under "multitask" in the operating system.


Hope this helps.

that's actually not correct.

as i have found.. disabling the permission across facebook and the camera app left 0 loss of functionality. everything works fine.. it juts only works when i manually activate it rather than randomly recording me during the day for a possible upload over wifi to some privacy invasion logging server.

i have seen what "without ur consent" means on the android platform. and it is not just to run in the background.. it is to fully function without providing the user a notification or interface of any type.

Originally posted by 2manyquestions
Can anyone else confirm the OPs claims? Has anyone else had a look at the new update and saw the same information as what is posted here? I'm just asking, because I can't find another source for this info other than from the OP.

you see it in the update list for the app at the play store.

i actually uninstalled the new update and reverted to one of my favourite older versions. it worked.. i had no complaints.. so why change it.

Originally posted by TortoiseKweek


Do you have any links / proof / justification for what you just said? If so, please provide.

The internet is full of information on the Android OS, it is open source after all and the development community is massive. Educate yourself for a change. App permissions are a very simple process to understand. Many applications require access to many features. Google Maps would want access to gps for geolocation and the Camera would need access to gps for geotagging. The Camera app also has permissions to modify the content of an sdcard for example, how else would it save/delete photos?

Of course if you have any proof that the Facebook app is secretly recording/taking video/photo or magically disappearing the contents of folks storage then I'd be glad to see it. Otherwise the permissions, as shown, are just that. Nothing more.