> Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2013 16:57:57 +0100
> From: m...@canonical.com
> To: ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Privacy features in Touch (cyanogenmod)?
>
> > I agree this is a good model. Still, I worry about the possibility
> > of having a lot of "are you sure" dialogs in a nicely integrated
> > application.
>
> That's a reasonable concern. But I haven't thought of a case where an
> app would needfully request more than one or two privileges at a time.
> Have you?
>
>
> Cheers
> - --
> mpt
I too am concerned about a lot of "are you sure" dialogs. I think people are
just looking for a way to learn/know what apps are connecting to the internet
(and why). Like I described how VLC asks to connect for downloading album
art/info and tells you why it would be connecting to the internet. Once the
user responds to this dialogue there are no more dialogues--ever. The App asks
for permission to connect to the internet for a specific purpose. If the user
says No, it would be up to the user to go into settings and reset this. The
user should not be presented this prompt each time the App starts/runs.
I think users want control over whether an App connects or not. Not that they
want a prompt for each event (which can get annoying). They simply want an App
to ask for the privilege of internet access and state the reason why. From this
point forward the user does not experience any more prompts--but the user still
has some means (via the OS) of monitoring App internet connection behavior in
general. The user can discover (has some interface I guess) that can inform of
what Apps are connecting and based on a previous dialogue presented to the user
can explain/understand those connections he/she is seeing.
With many Apps, not allowing internet access doesn't impair the App. But the
App itself keeps trying to connect to the internet to do non-essential
functions. This is bad App design, and I choose not to use Apps that behave
this way.
The TRICK is how to learn that the App is behaving this way!
It can be hard for users to know what Apps are behaving this way. When I learn
of this behavior, I uninstall the App and find a better behaving one. For other
Apps, I use an App setting (preferable) or OS setting (not desirable) to say
"don't connect to internet for this"--and once I do this I do not have to deal
with anymore prompts. It is the best balance between smooth OS experience and
constant nagging that makes OS unusable.
So I think the most useful OS service is to somehow give users awareness of App
internet connection behavior so users CAN learn that they need to make a
settings adjustment IN THE APP or simply uninstall the App and look for one
that isn't so promiscuous with the internet. This I think is the
privacy/security function of the OS that is so important--providing some means
of "finding out" which Apps are connecting to the internet, which informs the
user and allows him/her to decide whether to adjust settings in the App or
uninstall it. The OS having to block an App from internet access or access to
the Contacts list seems like it is having to compensate for bad App design
(cause the settings that control this should really be in the App). Not to
mention a resource drag on the OS having to do this. So I would think the OS
really shouldn't deal with this or devote resources to it.
So I think the main point is: the most important OS function here is find some
means/interface/mechanism to apprise users of App Internet Connection Behavior.
Android in a way does this: this App will access So & So--informing the user of
what to expect which allows user to make an informed decision about whether to
install the App or not. But MPT is absolutely right in saying this design is
incomplete. Because Android says nothing to whether the App has settings that
can adjust how it behaves with respect to the internet. And the user won't
fully understand the Apps behavior and what options it has with respect to this
behavior until he/she installs and uses the App for a time.
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