6

"Angry Birds Backup" seems to be a third party app that modifies other application's data.

This should not be possible from security point of view, as it enables you to create malicious software.

So how does that backup program work?

It works on my nexus one, but phone is not rooted. Application only asks for the network and sd card access. the former could be required for ads only (have not checked the paid version yet)

7
  • Not a dupe, but for reference, here's a previous question on backing up Angry Birds data that mentions that a phone user wanting to do this themselves would need root android.stackexchange.com/questions/5301/…
    – GAThrawn
    Jan 27, 2011 at 13:41
  • 3
    Does AngryBirds save state on a file on the SD card? If yes, that could be why... Otherwise if it is using a database or similar, it would be breaching a security issue (unless you were rooted).
    – Bryan Denny
    Jan 27, 2011 at 13:46
  • Even if it just saved the state, how would it restore the state without root access?
    – Matt
    Jan 27, 2011 at 15:20
  • @Matt Writing to / reading the SD card doesn't require root. Jan 27, 2011 at 19:21
  • I realize that. If Angry Birds doesn't make any provision for backing up and storing state data on the SD, how would a 3rd party app be able to over ride the Angry Birds state without over writing the information that I assume is stored somewhere in the /data/ directory (which you do need root to access)?
    – Matt
    Jan 27, 2011 at 21:03

1 Answer 1

2

According to the Android Dev Guide, files written to the internal storage such as the Angry Birds data cannot be accessed by other applications by default. I'm guessing that Rovio used MODE_WORLD_READABLE instead of the default, however. Maybe this was a mistake or maybe they plan on having future apps being able to read your progress and unlock sometihng, or whatever.

Of course, this doesn't bar the possibility that an Android exploit is being used to bypass the file privacy, but who really knows besides the author of the backup app?

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .