Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Can Google read my Signal messages on stock Android? (lemy.lol)

submitted 6 days ago by flork@lemy.lol to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

50 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I recently asked the /c/Android community what information Google has access to on stock Android, assuming the user is not using any Google apps, and was told Google has full "unstoppable" access to the entire device, including Signal messages, the microphone, duckduckgo search history and anything displayed on the screen at all times.

Does this mean that encrypted messaging is essentially pointless to use on Android? I'm a newb here so go easy on me.

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[–] who@feddit.org 19 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

So just to confirm the answer to my question question: Its pointless to use encrypted messaging on an Android device?

Of course not. End-to-end encrypted messaging protects against eavesdroppers in transit. It's an opaque envelope.

(Edit: Keep in mind that Google is not the only potential eavesdropper out there.)

What it cannot do is protect a message from someone reading over your shoulder when you write a message or open an envelope. On mainstream Android, that could be Google, if they choose to abuse their system-level access. On iOS, it could be Apple. And so on.

Those companies might be eavesdropping on sent/received messages already, either at a large scale or in a minority of cases, or regionally, or they might not be doing it at all... yet. But they have the capability. You'll have to decide for yourself whether that risk is acceptable.

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

End-to-end encrypted messaging protects against eavesdroppers in transit.

But if the ENDS are both compromised... I wish there were more/better custom ROMS out there. Hopefully Linux Phone gets some love.

[–] who@feddit.org 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

But if the ENDS are both compromised…

If either end is compromised, then there is someone reading over the proverbial shoulder, and the conversation should be considered compromised.

Hopefully Linux Phone gets some love.

That would be a welcome step in the right direction, as would open hardware.

[–] tehmics@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Do you have an issue with graphene?

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Me personally I don't have a Pixel but I looked into Graphene and I'm told banking apps don't work and also tap to pay.

Linux works on pretty much every PC ever and every app can be installed. It would be nice to have that for phones!

[–] pmk@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

My banking apps just work(tm) without any work or fiddling. (Sweden) You can have a separate space for apps that need google play and all that and it has no access to your private data.

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 1 points 5 days ago

Oh that's great to know!