On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 7:42 PM, Jim Straus <jstr...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> On Apr 16, 2012, at 10:24 AM, Adrienne Porter Felt wrote:
>
> > -- Changing the wallpaper or ringtone: Let all apps do it, but provide an
> > "undo" mechanism in Settings that changes it back to what it was prior to
> > that app altering it.
>
> Or have the API throw up a confirmation dialog.  A wallpaper app can
> preview wallpapers as much as it wants (even going full screen with the
> wallpaper image).  Then when the user asks to set their wallpaper , a
> system dialog comes up with the wall paper and a confirmation dialog.
>  Similarly for ringtones.  Thus these settings don't need permission
> control.s
>

What do you mean by a confirmation dialog?  I am imagining that you mean a
preview of what the phone will look like with the new wallpaper for a
second, followed by an OS dialog that says "Keep this new
wallpaper/Revert". Is that right?  If so, I like that idea.


> > -- Adding words to the dictionary: Only let apps do this if they are
> > installed as IME apps; there should only be one IME app at a time.
> >
> Do you mean only one IME in use at a time or installed at a time?
>

I mean in use at a time, mostly because I cannot imagine what it would mean
to have multiple IMEs operational at once.  (If you have 2 keyboards
installed, some setting must control which one is shown to the user when a
keyboard is needed.)


> > -- Connecting or disconnecting from WiFi: Apps can connect to known
> > networks, or disconnect from any network.  If an app is connecting to a
> new
> > network, ask the user with the standard OS prompt for connecting to new
> > networks.  The Settings WiFi control panel should have some small text
> that
> > says what app last disconnected you from the network if the current state
> > of the phone is disconnected.
> >
> I don't want arbitrary apps disconnecting my wifi.  Doing so may interrupt
> background processes and I may not notice it for a while.  Why should any
> app besides a Settings app need to muck with my networks?
>

There are apps out there that try to save you battery life by disconnecting
WiFi when it doesn't seem needed.  I personally wouldn't use one but they
do exist, so I see why it might be desirable to have that as a setting.

Is there any motivation for an app to abuse the ability to disconnect WiFi?
 I can see buggy applications screwing up (in which case you can look at
Settings and then uninstall them), but unlike the SMS API there is nothing
to gain by intentionally disconnecting WiFi against the user's will.  Even
if there were some malware out there that did this as a way to annoy you,
the audit mechanism (showing who last disconnected WiFi) would let you fix
the problem by immediately identifying and uninstalling the annoying app.


> > *Whenever I say "apps" in this e-mail I mean trusted/certified apps, not
> > arbitrary web sites.
>
> Do you mean trusted, certified and granted permission to use the Settings
> API or any trusted, certified app?


Any trusted, certified app.  I was saying that there should not be any
single way to grant permission to the Settings API as a whole, but rather
the privilege to use individual settings should be handled on a
per-Settings basis.  (Controlling WiFi via Settings is very different from
changing your wallpaper, so I don't think it makes sense to grant an
application access to do both with a broad "Grant access to settings?"
permission.)
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