It could be an alternative SMS app like TextSecure. One of the best features of Android is that even built-in default applications like the keyboard, browser, launcher, etc can be replaced by alternative implementations.

It could also be a SMS backup application (which can also be used to transfer the whole SMS history to a new phone).

Or it could be something like KDE Connect making SMS notifications show up on the user's computer.

so no, it's not necessary at all. and many apps identify OTPs and give you an easy "copy to clipboard" button in the notification.

but that isn't all super widely known and expected (partly because not all apps or messages follow it), so it's not something you can rely on users denying access to.

Then you'd have the other "screaming minority" on HN show up, the "antitrust all the things" folks.

If they are concerned about malware then one of the obvious solutions would be safe guarding their play store. There is significant less scam on iphone because apple polices their app store. Meanwhile scam apps that i reported are still up on google play store.

This blog post is specifically saying there will be a way to bypass the gatekeeping on Google-blessed Android builds, just as we wanted.

> But that kind of privacy based security model is anathema to Google because its whole business model is based on violating its users' privacy.

Despite this, they sell some of the most privacy-capable phones available, with the Pixels having unlockable bootloaders. Even without unlocking the bootloader to install something like GrapheneOS, they support better privacy than the other mass market mobile phones by Samsung and Apple, which both admittedly set a low bar.

But having seen how things work at large companies including Google, I find it less likely for Google's Android team to be allocating resources or making major policy decisions by considering the YouTube team. :-) (Of course if Android happened to make a change that negatively affected YouTube revenue, things may get escalated and the change may get rolled back as in the infamous Chrome-vs-Ads case, but those situations are very rare.) Taking their explanation at face value (their anti-malware team couldn't keep up: bad actors can spin up new harmful apps instantly. It becomes an endless game of whack-a-mole. Verification changes the math by forcing them to use a real identity) seems justified in this case.

My point though was that whatever the ultimate stable equilibrium becomes, it will be one in which the set of apps that the average person can easily install is limited in some way — I think Google's proposed solution here (hobbyists can make apps having not many users, and “experienced users” can opt out of the security measures) is actually a “least bad” compromise, but still not a happy outcome for those who would like a world where anyone can write apps that anyone can install.

Google is not rolling this out to protect against YouTube ReVanced but only in a small number of countries. That’s an illogical conclusion to draw from the facts.

If I'm going to live in a walled garden it's going to the fanciest

The era of United States companies using common sense United States principles for the whole world is coming to an end.

Of course there are no good options for open hardware, but that is a related but separate problem.

Note that adding "full stop" pointlessly to the end of sentences does not strengthen your argument.

Do what you please and get enough people to do it with you, and no one can stop you.

You’re still missing the point the comment is making: In countries where governments are dead set on holding Google accountable for what users do on their phones, it doesn’t matter what you believe to be your natural right. The governments of these countries have made declarations about who is accountable and Google has no intention of leaving the door open for that accountability.

You can do whatever you want with the hardware you buy, but don’t confuse that with forcing another company to give you all of the tools to do anything you want easily.

That immediately takes the pressure off people who are being told that their bank details are at immediate risk.

Assuming this is true (ignore if you disagree), why is that? Is it that PCs never became as widespread as phones (used by lots of people who are likely targets for scammers and losing their life savings etc), or technology was still new and lawmakers didn't concern themselves with it, or PCs (despite the name) were still to a large extent "office" devices, or the sophistication of scammers was lower then, or…? Even today PCs are being affected by ransomware (for example) but Microsoft doesn't get held responsible, so why are phones different?

The government(s) have to treat the middlemen as middlemen. Otherwise they are forced to act as gatekeepers.

Also this will kill any impetus that was growing on the Linux phone development side, for better or worse. We get to live in this ecosystem a while longer, let's see if people keep damocles' sword in mind and we might see more efforts towards cross-platform builds for example

Sure, they'll keep building it forever — this is just a delay tactic.

Wow, this really pulls back the veil. This Vendor (google) is only looking out for numero uno.

Yeah, if google gets to have rules over what happens by apps that have their seal of approval. that's how seals of approvals work. you're not entitled to these things. you don't have the right to publish to the android platform, if Google, wary of anti-trust suits allows a 3rd party app store, it can institute reasonable requirements.

If an appstore is willingly hosting malware, should Google still provide their seal of approval? That was supposed to be rhetoric, but I wouldn't be surprised if you told me that they should.

This is willful ignorance, I only hope you educate yourself on the harms caused by malware and malicious actors and consider taking a practical approach to finding solutions instead of dying on every single hill.

The whole SafetyNet and "secure chain" things are PITA, eg. ChatGPT app wouldn't work if the phone bootloader isn't signed by Google. Lots of banking app wouldn't work, HSBC banking app for instance wouldn't allow login if Android developer mode is enabled.

As an early cyanogen mod adopter I really don’t want to lose ability to side load etc. but to answer your question this is probably for the lowest common denominators safety. Anecdotal example - a scammer tricked my parents into sideloading an apk which automatically forwarded all sms messages to the said scammer. This lead to 2FA code from bank go through and allowed them to perform some transactions. There were many red flags during this ‘call from a bank’ and I’d say some blame lies on my parents here, I guess this is the only way to lock down bad actors? I am not entirely sure it is.

Another pet peeve is that they prevent screenshots simply because they can, and it feels safer. I know, 3rd-party apps which can do screenshots etc., but this is fighting the threat the wrong way. And yes, it's partially the fault of the platform, which could just allow user-initiated screenshots. Or at least make it configurable.

For example, my bank here in Hungary, Erste Bank has announced that the central bank requested that they stop allowing their android app to run on "modified" devices.

They even have a workaround: switch to SMS-based 2FA and use their website (which works well on any screen and has all the features of the app except 2FA)

So somebody then needs to say that this is not something they worry about rather than doing the easy thing and remediating it.

Offline it would make it possible to verify your age at the self-checkout registers without having someone have to check in person.

In the future (if the law allows it, which it currently does not) it should be possible for you to purchase an item online completely anonymously, at least to the vendor. There would no longer be a possibility of leaked address, etc. as the vendor would not have it. All the vendor has are signed tokens. When they send a package they send it with a token to the post office and only the post office knows your address.

[1] https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/kassensturz-espresso/espresso/m...

Switzerland is currently dealing with a 39% and Brazil with a 50% tariff because Trump has a personal problem with them. It would not be far fetched for an administration to have another states app removed.

An app can read the content of notifications if the appropriate permissions are granted, which includes 2FA codes sent by SMS or email. That those are bad ways to provide 2FA codes is its own issue.

I want that permission to exist. I use KDE Connect to display notifications on my laptop, for example. Despite the name, it's not just for KDE or Linux - there are Windows and Mac versions too.

powerful stuff has room for abuse. I didn't really think there's much of a way to make that not the case. it's especially true for anything that you grant accessibility-level access to, and "you cannot build accessibility tools" is a terrible trade-off.

(personally I think there's some room for options with taint analysis and allowing "can read notifications = no internet" style rules, but anything capable enough will also be complex enough to be a problem)

It's not news, both iOS and Android sandboxing are Swiss cheese compared to a browser.

People should only install apps from trusted publishers (and not everything from the store is trusted as the store just gors very basic checks)

Protecting their app store revenues from competition exposes them to scrutiny from competition regulators and might be counter productive.

Many governments are moving towards requiring tech companies to enforce verification of users and limit access to some types of software and services or impose conditions requiring software to limit certain features such as end to end encryption. Some prominent people in big tech believe very strongly in a surveillance state and we are seeing a lot of buy in across the political spectrum, possibly due to industry lobbying efforts. Allowing people to install unapproved software limits the effectiveness of surveillance technologies and the revenues of those selling them. If legal compliance risks are pushing this then it is a job for voters, not Google to fix.

- Just yesterday there was a story on here about how Google found esoteric bugs in FFMPEG, and told volunteers to fix it.

- Another classic example, about how Google doesn't give a stuff about their user's security is the scam ads they allow on youtube. Google knows these are scams, but don't care because they there isn't regulation requiring oversight.

How much they spend is no indicator of how and where they spend it, so is hardly a compelling argument.

And factory reset when it's impossible to backup and restore everything, or anything at all without a Google account

I always thought this is a very weird flow, it adds hoops yet accomplishes nothing because the hoops are all trivial and the same for every app.

In my humble opinion, in the design of a UI or any type of system, kind of have to go where the users take you to some degree. And Android, being an OS for consumer devices, should be geared toward the masses and the mistakes they'll make.

Users have an inherent legal right to unconditionally access the full advertised functionality of devices they purchase. Any agreement after that is inherently suspect and I wouldn't be surprised to find out it was ruled unconscionable by some court if it came to that.

Too many people are in denial about what they actually own, and seem to refuse to accept this battle isn't starting or coming up, we're already in the process of losing it.

Clinging to material ownership feels great on the moment, but that's absolutely not what we need to deal with right now. It's kinda like being so proud to be the registered owner of your car, while it's getting impounded and you'll be spending the next 10 years trying to get it back.

If there is no other alternative, buying hardware and licensing software are not two different steps. Its just buying a device.

The idea that we allow companies to go "Yes, you paid for this product, but it's not really yours. We still control it and can do whatever we want with it regardless of what you want." is asinine.

They announced the $25 "verification" plan awhile ago. The new part in this article is that they're going to have it remain possible to install software that didn't do that "verification".

> Based on this feedback and our ongoing conversations with the community, we are building a new advanced flow that allows experienced users to accept the risks of installing software that isn't verified.

None of my banks have complained to me because I'm running a patched YouTube app.

But of course I'm talking about non-commercial apps, but commercial app developers would already be on Google Play.

As to relevance to the article - I'm not cheering that much because if Google made "stock OS" even worse then maybe more users would flock to LineageOS/GrapheneOS which would be a great thing and make it harder to push Play Integrity.