ReHacked vol. 335: Uncomfortable Questions About Android Developer Verification and some more
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“Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.” --Paulo Coelho
Uncomfortable Questions About Android Developer Verification #privacy
TL;DR
Question 1. What considerations were taken into account with regards to developers with legitimate reasons for anonymity?
Question 2. Which civil society organizations (e.g., EFF and AccessNow in the US) did Google engage with to review your plans, and what were the results of those engagements?
Question 3. Why does Google’s privacy policy allow Google to share “personal information” with any “businesses or persons”?
Question 4. How will apps be developed starting in 2027, as app development uses debug keystores, and those keystores do not seem to be part of the Android Developer Verification process? Will it no longer be possible to test apps under development on Google-certified production hardware?
Question 5. Similarly, how will apps be developed starting in 2027, as app development often uses duplicate package names (e.g., in educational settings), and duplicate package names are banned? For example, how will developers be able to build and run Google’s own sample projects?
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Your Word documents will be saved to the cloud automatically on Windows going forward #privacy
Microsoft Word users have several options when it comes to saving their documents: from local saves to storing documents on network shares or an integrated cloud service such as Microsoft OneDrive. AutoSave and AutoRecover were introduced several years ago by Microsoft in Office products to enable cloud saving and restoration.
Burner Phone 101 #privacy
Before the workshop began, we set the collective tone by sharing the goals, secret goals, and anti-goals. This helped participants know what to expect, created space for deeper learning, and reinforced the boundaries that kept the workshop safe and supportive. The goals were to learn about burner phones and have fun. The secret goals were to learn the limits of burner phones, connect them to broader digital privacy practices, and build confidence to share these lessons with loved ones. The anti-goals were just as important: do not share sensitive personal information and avoid framing these tools in ways that promote harm, harassment, or abuse.
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Dainius