January 17th, 2012, 05:06 PM
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#2 (permalink)
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With those permissions an app could potentially upload every file on your external storage to an Internet server. It could also log every phone call you make to an Internet server.
That's why you've got to be careful. Install software only from reputable developers. Avoid software that would be too good to true; that is, that killer app that's amazingly free.
But here's what they're most likely used for.
Phones have limited internal storage. Users get upset if an app uses internal storage arbitrarily. So developers try to much as much of their data onto external storage as they can. But they need storage permission to be able to do that.
Apps, and games in particular, will want to access the Internet. Think game networks. Think ad networks. They need internet permission to be able to do that.
Speaking of ad networks, they like to know if ads are being served to the same user and what ads a user chooses to click through. For that, it needs some kind of user token for you. Every phone has such a unique user token, the IMEI. To access the IMEI, an app needs permission to read the read the phone state.
Personally I think the Android permission system is rubbish. The permissions are two broad. And as you say, every app asks for the same set of permissions. Users quickly get blasé about these permissions and so the permissions become very weak. And you get paranoid users making developers have to explain why they're asking for permissions in their market descriptions.
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Last edited by jiminaus; January 17th, 2012 at 05:14 PM.
Reason: Added rant
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Allow this application -WHY?
