Not only can it have 24x7 camera access, it can read your texts and call logs.
And with it coming pre-installed on android phones, it may even have root permissions which means that it can do anything on the device.
Note the ability to read and modify storage. This is entirely so the government can plant anything on your phone and arrest you later. Perfect solution to curb any political dissent since most courts in India are controlled by the RSS now and you won’t even get a trial for years.
They have made it “deletable” officially but if it has root access then it won’t go away. It still comes pre-installed and the tech illiterate population won’t do shit against this.
I know it’s cliche, but imagine if one of America’s designated Bad Guy Countries did this. The news media would never shut up about evil authoritarian China, even more than they already don’t.
It’s kinda funny that the state sanctioned spyware is just politely documenting itself in the Android app manifest. I’m sure if they asked Google nicely they’d be allowed to bypass that shit entirely.
Also, Android’s success has been in part due to the prevalence of budget-friendly options, such as those promoted under the the android one program: https://www.android.com/one/ … what’s gonna be the deal when these devices start chugging and burning up coz theyre processing gigabytes of sensor data?
The BJP is mostly incompetent except for when they have the opportunity to fuck Indians over. I doubt that they would ask Google to install Spyware on the OS end with the shit going on between Trump and Modi.
Their tech incompetency makes this situation worse because I am 100% sure that their backdoor already has multiple backdoors which will allow anyone to steal data from anyone else’s phone or just hold your phone hostage.
India being the dystopia libs think China is
Everyone including libs think India is a shithole where people defecate on the streets and bathe in shit. That’s worse than being thought of as a surveillance state.
Racism against China is pretty minor relatively speaking
Remembering how “designated shitting streets” became gospel truth among a large section of Reddit despite literally being based solely on an anonymous 4chan post.
All of reddit’s gospel truth comes from hearing it from u/1488OmegaHitler
OmegaHitler is badly in heat and can barely function at all, can a strong alpha relieve him before he shoots himself in frustration?
I think I’ve seen this with alpha Stalin on AO3… more than once… libs who just think of Stalin as a bloodthirsty auth-center dictator sure do love that ship. Ugh.
Honestly surreal how Pewdiepie had like over a billion views for the street shitting song and nobody found it fucked up
My then-middle school teacher buddy can attest to the casual pewdiepie racism pandemic of circa 2018-2019
libs think the worst thing about india is there are too many indian people there
What even is this app?
Government Spyware that’s mandatory on all mobile devices in India as of yesterday.
It’d be great if you did a post on the news mega explaining this app and the reaction to it
Ok. Give me some time though
You mean it’s just for spying, or does it serve some function for the user, but also acts as an backdoor?
It’s Spyware.
The app basically replicates the capability of Apple Find My. It also lets users check if they have any other phone numbers attached to their identity. Nothing major.
It doesn’t need background Camera permissions, the ability to read your texts and the ability to read/write on your file system. The latter is very problematic because dissent is basically illegal in India right now.
Why tf do they want flashlight access lmao
strobe light to find hiding journos
I think it’s an “Access? Yes” situation.
i don’t think even system apps have root access on android. but they have access to more permissions. but yea, sus af.
Android market is huge in India. Manufacturers will bend over backwards to sell in India right now. BJP has already used Pegasus to attack journalists and opposition members, this is them attacking the entire population.
“Biggest democracy in the world” my ass
I would suggest a flip phone or brick type phone, but does India do a lot of app-based payment? I know that going without a smartphone in a place like China where everything in the cities is Wechat or Alipay would be impossible.
Digital Payments are popular but not Wechat popular. So you can manage with cash.
But you need whatsapp for all communication nowadays so a rooted android or iPhone seems to be the only option now.
…and…people will certainly figure out a way around it as always…I hope (:
Sure, but raising the bar for privacy means that most people will not bother to find a workaround. Your repression doesn’t need to perfect, it just needs to bigger and better than what you had before.
This is exactly why GrapheneOS needs to become more popular
