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Android is FACC
Android might be many things, but certainly not "privacy first". At least not if you want to use Google Playstore as a ressource for your apps. While at creation (initialization) of your google-account on your Android device, you are asked "Do you want to store your data with Google?", this only means "Backups of your ...
25
The Chrome page in the app store says this about the new permissions:
This version requests two new permissions, Camera and Modify Audio Settings, to support WebRTC, an experimental feature under development.
WebRTC itself is designed to expose your camera and mic to the browser, so that web-apps can implement video-conferencing and other multimedia ...
19
Remove the SD Card and SIM Card, and then do a Factory Reset.
If your device doesn't use full disk encryption, and you are worried about someone using advanced forensic tools to recover your data, you might want to overwrite the internal storage area with random data. You can do this by creating a file containing random data that fills up the entire free ...
18
This question has been bothering me quite some time. So now, finally, I decided to get to the bottom of the issue.
The Playstore has an app named permission.READ_PHONE_STATE, which requests READ_PHONE_STATE as the only permission, and does nothing else than printing out all data it can access with or without using it. I've installed that on my LG Optimus 4X, ...
16
General information
You might want to take a look at What do the permissions that applications require mean? -- our "community wiki" which hopefully becomes such a ressource one day. Next to that, you might want to take a look at App Permissions Explained – What Do They Really Mean?, a blog article at AndroidPIT giving at least some short ...
15
This is available for phones starting in Android 5.0 (Lollipop):
http://www.android.com/versions/lollipop-5-0/
And for tablets starting in Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean):
http://developer.android.com/about/versions/jelly-bean.html#42-multiuser
As Tatjana Heuser mentioned, it's also available as hidden functionality in Android 4.1, but not accessible through the ...
15
Verification by OTP uses a different API which doesn't need read SMS permission. You can read more here Perform SMS Verification on a Server
Hence, the app isn't reading your SMS but using a separate channel to read specially formatted text messages
I learnt of this when an Xposed module to block permissions did not work as I expected (similar case) and ...
13
XPrivacyLua is a module for Xposed framework which does exactly what you need. It is free and open source. Works on rooted devices. It's the successor of XPrivacy.
Install Xposed from here:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=3034811
You can then download the XPrivacyLua module from the Xposed repo through the Xposed Manager app, or manually ...
13
Yes, it can, but only on Android 4.3 and lower. This is used for example in Whatsapp. When you activate the app, Whatsapp sends an SMS to the number you reported, and the app intercepts it quietly and reports to the servers that it has received the SMS. This is how the account is tied to your number.
Of course, this can be used in harmful apps also. If an ...
13
In Windows, if you open Manage password in Chrome, then it asks for a master password (i.e. Windows Admin password) to view and manage your passwords. But that's not the case in Android. So for security purposes, Chrome for Android doesn't reveal the password.
From Greenbot: Saving your passwords to your device presents some obvious security
issues. ...
12
Configuring captive portal behaviour
captive_portal_detection_enabled (<= Android 7.1.1)
works as described in question body
captive_portal_mode (>= Android 7.1.2)
works as described in question body
Setting captive portal URL(s)
captive_portal_server (<= Android 6.0.1)
The server that holds a generate_204 page, used to internally craft a URL ...
11
This is a feature of CDMA (standardized in IS-95) and is called Voice Privacy.
See an Analysis of IS-95 CDMA Voice Privacy by M.Zhang, et al. from 2000, free download here
Citation (the real paper begins at p.10 in the PDF:
Abstract. The voice privacy of IS-95 CDMA cellular system is analyzed
in this paper. By exploiting information redundancy on the ...
11
A factory reset reformats the phone's user-data partition, but it's not a "secure" wipe; it doesn't overwrite everything with zeroes. If you want to be sure everything is erased, you can encrypt the phone first (which overwrites all the data with encrypted versions of itself), then do a factory reset (which sets up a new unencrypted filesystem).
(Update: ...
11
Not exactly matching your description (using the "last known" position if not GPS available), but still a good alternative:
On two of my devices, I completely got rid of all proprietary Google services, replacing them by alternatives. In detail, I've described this in Android without Google 5: Free your Droid!¹ (update¹). In short, this is what I've done:
...
10
I don't think there is a good way to do this - the issue isn't that the private number is being hidden by your phone, it's that the phone company isn't transmitting the caller id info to you at all. So there shouldn't be any way for you to get that data working strictly from your phone.
Unless you know people who regularly block caller ID data, but don't ...
10
As things stand
Android 4.3 and below without Hangouts app : Any app with
SMS_RECEIVE permission can read/abort an incoming SMS (ala Whatsapp)
Android 4.3 and below with Hangouts (SMS mode turned on) : Any app
with SMS_RECEIVE permission can read but not abort an incoming SMS
Android 4.4 and above : Any app with SMS_RECEIVE permission can read
but not ...
10
You could try this app: GPS Aids.
It tries to provide a quicker and more stable fix by providing a couple of GPS aids (GPS Aiding Data like LTO Long Term Orbits, gpsOneXTRA and AGPS), and it caches your last known GPS data.
It will run without root, but some options require root access.
9
Apps can get your approximate location without GPS, but only if they have the "coarse location" permission. The "fine location" permission lets an app get your GPS location too, if GPS is enabled.
When you an install an app, Android shows you the permissions it needs. If you don't see coarse or fine location in the list, the app can't get your location.
9
You don't need to sign into Google. But without access to the Play Store, you do limit the apps you can install on your phone. Many apps are available in alternative stores like Amazon, but I don't think they have all of them. When you first start up the phone, it should ask you for your existing Google or to create a new one. There should be a skip option ...
8
Voice Privacy is something that is part of CDMA. I found this article that talks a little bit about it in the introduction.
Voice privacy of IS-95 CDMA is provided by means of the long code
mask.The long code mask is not transmitted through any channel, it is
constructedby the base station and the mobile station. To recover the
long code sequence,...
8
Yes, but the application has to request the LOCATION_COARSE permission.
This uses a couple different sources used to find the approximate location.
Wifi access points: Google tracks the location of access points by gathering information about them when people have GPS on. Then they can use these access points to tell you where you are when you don't have ...
7
From the My HTC EVO 3D book:
Touch to enable voice privacy, which makes your EVO 3D encrypt your
phone calls.
What is Voice Privacy?
When you enable Voice Privacy, your EVO 3D starts encrypting your
calls so nobody can eavesdrop on them. ... By encrypting your phone
calls between your EVO 3d and the cell tower, you add an extra layer
...
7
if you believe that your parents are tracking you with your android.do this
1:backup your favorite apps.
2:factory reset the phone.
3:encrypt your phone.(this way nobody else can access your phone)
4:for extra protection you may add pin so that you can lock down parents from accesing your settings.
5:if you are going a step further you can lock down your ...
7
Note: This method requires root access.
The credentials of the websites that you allowed Chrome to save are stored in the file Login data which is located inside the data directory of Chrome i.e. /data/data/com.android.chrome/app_chrome/Default/. Certainly, no app or even ADB can access that location and neither Chrome has any provision through GUI to ...
7
Yes, a device administrator only has permissions to do what it says.
If you change the permissions of the app that the administrator is associated with, the administrators permissions will not change
(Answer made from the following sources):
7
Yes! it does, when using Truecaller application or services you have already accepted their :
Truecaller - Privacy Policy
So, in this case you agree that :
Truecaller may use your personal information collected by their application to provide, maintain, improve, analyze and personalize their Services for other Users, partners and third party providers.
...
6
Dan already pointed out that this is more a social problem. Talk with your parents, express how you feel about this. The feeling of being constantly monitored is sure not very pleasant.
That said, the only way to make it hard for someone to monitor the location with the help of your Android phone is by ensuring that you have a clean initial setup and a ...
6
How about Chainfire's tool Pry-Fi which was announced over at XDA?
It works great and it is available via the official Google play-store at:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.pryfi
Here’s a screenshot showing the tool in action…
6
XPrivacy is not a stand-alone application. It's a module of the Xposed framework, and thus utilizes the latter to achieve its goals. So if the Xprivacy dev "reports in", he might just say: "Waiting for the Xposed team to show up"...
Oh, if you don't wanna wait: head straight to the Xposed thread at XDA for all the details. The intro over there states:
I ...
6
In contrast to the comment from Zlatty, I was very pleased to learn that the pro version of xprivacy can do just that. I use it to allow whatsapp selective access to contact book entries only if I know that the person in question is already registered with whatsapp.
Blocking contacts by default:
Allowing partial access:
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