I think my explanation of DeviceAdministrators was poor, I didn't mean to suggest that they can enable themselves. I dislike how DAs are un-installable until disabled but I do agree that it makes it more difficult to do malicious things this way. Pop-up permissions could also work, like in iOS (since that's where Android is headed). Why not prompt the user "this app wants to do X, allow/ disallow". I know it's a pain but it then it doesn't break existing apps the same way absolute removal does. It's the same way with Accessibility, it's a pain for users to have to enable but at least that way good apps can do things like monitor notifications while bad ones might seem suspicious and never get a chance to do real harm.
If that doesn't work I would have honestly suggested removing KILL_BACKGROUND_PROCESSES<http://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission.html#KILL_BACKGROUND_PROCESSES>long before removing the ActivityManager APIs. Task-killers aside, I can't think of any good uses for that permission. By removing it, don't you also remove the ability for apps to kill Settings and prevent the preventing of un-installation? Anyway, I think I'll start reading into OpenGL. Cross-platform, plus I could build live wallpapers with it (I think), which seems like a much safer development strategy than personalization apps that may or may not be permitted to exist in the future. BTW, it took until my app broke to know about the SET_ACTIVITY_WATCHER<http://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission.html#SET_ACTIVITY_WATCHER>thing. Is there some "official" blog or something I can read to know when and why large changes like this might occur in advance? I'm wondering about other permissions too, like SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW<http://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission.html#SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW>? That could also be quite dangerous in the wrong hands, but also quite useful too (another one I use). Tom On Monday, August 27, 2012 7:09:50 AM UTC-4, Mark Murphy (a Commons Guy) wrote: > > On Sun, Aug 26, 2012 at 10:33 PM, Tom <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > > So it's really a situation of a few bad apples ruining the whole bunch. > I > > don't like them apples. > > Yup. And to the extent we can figure out ways to better filter the bad > apples, without saying we cannot have any apples, the better off we > are. > > Though, in retrospect, a better choice of fruit might be in order... :-) > > > DeviceAdministrators are un-installable until > > they are disabled, and what's to stop an app from doing just that? > > Apps cannot enable or disable device administrators automatically. The > device administrator path involves additional steps and warning > prompts, to make it less likely that someone will set one up > accidentally. So, for an app locker, it will make some sense why the > app might need this capability; for some hacked version of Angry > Birds, users will hopefully think twice. Again, it's just one idea for > how to filter bad apples without avoiding apples entirely. > > -- > Mark Murphy (a Commons Guy) > http://commonsware.com | http://github.com/commonsguy > http://commonsware.com/blog | http://twitter.com/commonsguy > > Android Training in NYC: http://marakana.com/training/android/ > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
