pls post at least 1 paragraph of the article into the post body, to get a quick overview what it’s about.
I think it can be removed, at least for my phone, in the settings > Google or just use adb.
If they really care about users’ security, they should make Graphene OS’s GMSCompact and explicit permissions the new standard instead of restricting what apps can they use and forcing invasive system apps. And centralized censorship and requiring an account is not what makes apps secure. Source available and reproducible build is.
just hoping my current phone survives ling ebough that my next one can be a linux phone
2027 is year of the Linux phone for sure
Meanwhile, in 2357 AD…
hey folks i got graphene, do i need to worry about this or is this what the sandbox is for?
Google cannot install apps in Graphene without explicit, app by app permission (due to the sandboxes Google play). We are safe
Apple already uses machine vision for photo searching, that weird auto categorization it does and such. They have for years.
I would bet the photos app already classifies nudes, but silenty, mostly so it doesnt add your nudes to an auto album.
Aren’t viruses and spyware illegal?
Technically it’s neither. Viruses spread and spyware sends your data to an attacker. This app does neither. The third party feature however does make it easier for spyware to identify sensitive content on your phone, but then you have a problem anyway because you gave a spyware app access to all your media.
I can see actual digital cameras are going to become popular again…
If you are rich and powerful, everything you do becomes legal. Because rich and powerful people are all trustworthy and would never do something for only their own interests.
what the fuck? I had no idea about this. I never opted into this.
No shit. The billionaires at the top worry about public safety, would you believe it? (giant fucking sarcasm tag goes here for all my asperger ftiends)
Who owns the (fully paid up) phone that’s in my hands right now? I try to tell myself I do, but…
Yea, I am not a happy camper.
You can uninstall it and install this so that Google can’t get it back on your system.
kicks can
Won’t install for me
Uninstall the existing app first
Already did. Even rebooted to be safe.
Open an issue on GH
If we weren’t so fucking weak and unorganized, we’d be burning their companies and their homes to the fucking ground.
Thankfully, I switched to Droidian at the start of this year. I am NOT looking back.
Never heard of Droidian, but I’ve been loooking into the status of Linux phones lately. Mind giving a run down of your experience with it?
What phone do you have
I can see a promising market for ‘dumb’ point-and-shoot digital cameras reemerging.
-
Doesn’t automatically upload your pictures to train AI on, no internet-based privacy risks whatsoever
-
No AI nanny telling you that your pictures are too naughty
-
Never needs updates, can never be enshittified by new updates
-
No risk of the government getting their hands on your pictures, unless they physically confiscate the device
-
Can never be hacked without physical access to the camera
-
Doesn’t listen to you or watch you or otherwise spy on you
-
Most models have easy to change user-replaceable batteries
-
Most models are compatible with SD cards for easily upgradeable storage
-
Can take advantage of a larger lens and more adjustable focus/zoom to take better pictures (Even a relatively cheap digital camera could potentially take better pictures than the ultimate flagship phones that cost 4-figures.)
Those kinds of cameras didnt disappear.
But Canon already enshittifies their bodies some, with links to the canon.cloud subscriptions in-camera (which is a front for RAW training if you read the ToS), a subscription for linked editing software, and some feature crippling to push them.
There is actually healthy competition in the space, though.
It has already reemerged as part of the retro trend among young people.
Instant photo cameras are pretty popular
I still use my Canon SD1000. 20 years and it’s still going! The resolution is lower (only 7.1MP), but the photos still look really nice. And that was a relatively cheap camera for the time.
It has a resolution advantage with a long zoom, or going very wide.
I went on vacation with an ancient Rebel XS and a 50-250 lens, and 250mm shots are still better than the iPhone 17 Pro.
Or you could use an open camera app
For now. Until Google says those apps aren’t “verified” or whatever and blacklists them. Until the next Android update makes it scan and upload every photo file anywhere on the device, not just ones used or made in particular apps.
We should consider divorcing Goggle from Android via something like GrapheneOS or /e/OS.
Yeah, I can tell that since I do tests for Amazon (Amazon Vine).
There is more and more camera being put to test, ranging for cheap bellow €100 ones to miniaturized keyring sized ones (with tiny screens).
I tested some of them (and have another one coming next week), the quality of the pictures are good, but the build quality of sub-100 ones are kinda bad (cheap plastics, no optic zoom, no hardpoints for better lenses, sd cards smaller than their advertised size)Eh, they are alright. Issue is they dont get better than smartphones until the cameras are expensive.
Anyone who has paid over $500 for a phone, if they did it for the camera, they wasted money. For the same amount of money one can get an old second hand pro camera and a more basic phone.
The camera will be infinitely better and the smartphone will still smartphone just fine.
Old “pro” cameras like full-frame SLRs are bulky though. That’s not always ergonomic to have.
And honestly, modern phones/gadgets with a lofic sensor (like Xiaomi or Hisense now, Apple soon) are absolutely crazy. They blow the dynamic range and shadow noise of old full frame sensors out of the water, and give new ones a run for their money:
Don’t get me wrong; you are preaching to the choir here. I love cameras. I am trading in my Canon and buying a Fuji or Panasonic ILC soon.
But I think its a mistake to underestimate modern smartphones based on how bad older phones were. The sensors have gotten big, their sensor tech is a few years ahead of dedicated cameras, and you can bypass the overprocessed look with 3rd party apps. That, and lofic is the biggest jump in sensor tech in a decade+, and its only coming to small sensor cameras for now.
Ricoh, Leica, Olympus. There are pro level compact alternatives. Ricoh’s are almost as small than a smartphone while being more ergonomic to use and better featured. The reason there needs to be such technologies as LOFIC for tiny sensors is precisely to compensate the size and achieve what larger sensors already achieved decades ago by shear force of being larger. But you don’t need to go that much larger, just a micro four thirds camera with mediocre glass from a decade ago already blows away anything that big tech put last year on flagship phone cameras.
Well each has its quirks. Leica is hilariously expensive. Ricoh is fixed lens, fixed focal length. I nearly got an OM-3 myself, but honestly it is big, and M43 lenses and sensors are starting to show their age.
I’d probably point the average person to an L10, an X-E5, an S9, or the A6700 with a pancake lens if they can swallow the price.
I think the S9 in particular is a glorious “smartphone replacement.” Its a full frame ILC, its connectivity app is fantastic, yet with a pancake lens it is no bigger than an OM or Leica.
MFT is far from dead though. Their glass is top tier even in the plastic bodies. And the point of buying a second hand old cameras is to not have to swallow the price. For most people just trying to replace a smartphone camera, even a fixed lens is a massive improvement. There’s a reason dedicated point and shoot like the PowerShot are coming back en force. I recently kit up with an old EM-1 and a pancake lens, and the thing is not only pro level features with good quality glass. All in all, it cost me less than $500 including postage. And though it won’t fit in my pocket, it weighs almost nothing and is absolutely tiny for the power it packs.
And that market will destroy itself because “investors” want MRR and so you’ll have to plug your camera into your computer so proprietary software can send the images to the cloud to get “processed” so you can actually view them. You’ll be thankful for the opportunity to pay $9.99USD for that.
You may come off as hyperbolic, but this is exactly what Canon is trying to do.
They already try to funnel users into a canon.cloud subscription with cloud editing features, and a DPP editing software subscription. Their HDR mode uses a weird curve that makes using anything but their software annoying. They made their crappy free webcam app subscription only, and neutered many cameras so that’s the only option to use.
Not to speak of locking the RF mount out of third parties…
But to be fair, Canon is only doing that because they are #1 in marketshare, though. Panasonic, Fuji, OM aren’t behaving so badly. And the Chinese pocket cam makers are rapidly catching up (though obviously they have their own enshittification issues).
-
Time to start shooting nudes on film I guess.
That does sound fun actually, maybe make a thing of it with some other women…
You can develop black and white film at home using coffee. Developing nudes this way sounds kinda hot.
I like my coffe cold
Okay, thinking on this more, I have a very hot take here.
What’s the big deal?
Google is seemingly offering a locally processed machine vision API to other apps, as far as I tell. This might manifest as some messaging service nagging you if you try to send nudes to someone, or filtering porn out of a feed. Or other “safety” features I suppose, like classifying slur-laden messages as abusive.
…But Google was most certainly doing this with Google apps already. Like the stock photo library most apps use.
If people are already using unprivate services for this kind of thing, honestly, they were digging their own grave, and this hardly moves the needle. All it does is make the spying/censorship more apparent.
I say those users need a cold bucket of water to the face, and this may provide it.
…But otherwise, it wont affect apps that dont use the API, right?
I don’t want the infrastructure built and forced onto users, even if it’s supposedly for benevolent reasons.
Software forced on me should manage necessary services for the functionality that I bought the hardware for.
Forcing this functionality through my phone means you’re dedicating some of my phones compute, memory, and storage toward something I don’t want. I’m paying for it every time I charge my phone.
Not to mention the fact that the actor in question, Google, isn’t trusted. I don’t want to help them beta test their shit on my hardware. I don’t want to help them succeed in whatever vision they have for this things future. I don’t trust that it won’t eventually be used to infringe on me.
If I wanted this functionality, I’m sure I could have downloaded it. That option wasn’t given, though… so I have to wonder why. Why am I being forced to have this shit?
Not gonna lie, this is a great meme…
I did say it was a hot take. I am not caffeinated yet.
Sphynx cats trigger it and you get an unwarranted alert that Google is very disappointed.
Reportedly, the app uses an on-device machine learning model to classify the content.
Using your shiny new phone to train AI…
For now its only supposed to check Google Messages, so not if you use a different text app.
But one vulnerability already is side loaded versions with super high version numbers so they won’t be auto updated. Those will scan everything and do whatever with it. Considering the apps point is to scan for nudes, likely sending all your nudes to the hacker.
Reportedly, the app uses an on-device machine learning model to classify the content.
Using your shiny new phone to train AI…
I would think the models are already trained, and then deployed to phones to do on-device inference. The models should be fixed and static by the time they end up on a phone (in large part because phone hardware is just not technically suitable for training, whether pre training or post training).
The dummy version is an empty app.
For now its only supposed to check Google Messages, so not if you use a different text app.
Shameless plug for Textra as a much, much better alternative.
No RCS (not their fault, but still).
Does Textra support RCS?
The RCS interfaces (APIs) on Android are currently only available for Google internally to use, no other third party developer has access.
We are hopeful Google will make these RCS interfaces available in the near future to all developers (in the spirit of Android open source), so that Textra SMS can also offer RCS functionality.
TIL
This is why I’m not buying a new phone until my current one literally breaks down. It’s in the hardware nowadays.
