Database Users

This free security app already picked up an app trying to access my contacts!

This free security app already picked up an app trying to access my contacts! I just installed it, didnt have too but rebooted my phone and it picked an app up trying to access my contacts!
Description
This application requires a ROOTed phone, please make sure your phone has been unlocked and ROOTed.
Welcome to use LBE Privacy Guard, the most powerful privacy protection software for Android platform.
With the state-of-the-art API interception technology, LBE Privacy Guard provides great enhancement to Android permission system, now the first time you are able to:
- Protect your privacy by controlling the permission of each application to access your sensitive data.
- Block malicious operation from Mal-wares and Trojans.
- Block unwanted network traffic if you don’t have a unlimited data plan.
- Find out which application is trying to steal your privacy by checking the security log.
- And even more...
LBE Privacy Guard - free
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.lbe.security&feature=search_result
Enjoy

Out of curiosity what was the app that was looking at your contacts?

rstuckmaier said:
Out of curiosity what was the app that was looking at your contacts?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1.
It would be very useful to know.

phone.apk ?

I've already used LBE privacy on my A501 and SGS2, but on A501, it crash randomly.
This app is very useful but have battery consumption on my SGS2.
I've unistalled on all devices .... for the moment

Access to contacts does not mean the app is trying to "steal" your privacy data. You're not mentioning the app's name anyway but it would be nice to do so - there might be an explanation. Let me give you an example of completely harmless app behavior that requires access to your contacts.
Keyboard - some keyboards might offer a contact as a word suggestion when typing an email.
Nanny - a babyphone app, designed to call a predefined number in case your baby starts crying. The app offers to pick a contact instead of entering it manually - that's why it requires an access to your contacts.
Photo app - contact access is required if the program offers an option to share a photo with your friends
I can think of more but need to get back to work

but how do we know
How do we know this app is not stealing the information we install it to do.buyer beware.they give for free.with nothing in return.
Conspiracy. Giggles.
Its probably OK but well do we ever really know.

Im personally a fan of the webroot free app.
I used the beta the moment it came out and have ran it on my desire ever since and now run it on my iconia.
it doesnt touch the battery or give me slow downs, thats why i like it... because it doesnt bug me or drain the phone of power or speed. (the only noticeable thing it does is scan on sd card file operations like copy/delete)

Jellybean Paid App Encryption

Heads up for those who bought apps and are using them on Jellybean. Jellybean introduces an app encryption technique to assuage app pirating. this negatively affects many apps especially those involving keyboards and widgets. Google has said that they issued a work around that allows the apps to be used but it prevents some settings from properly saving in the case of a reboot. This is because the apps are now installed to /mnt/asec, instead of the normal /data/app folder, which means that the app loads before some needed services like account manager. This causes data loss on reboot for the app. This negatively affects apps such as swiftkey, which loses its default keyboard setting upon reboot and beautiful widgets which results in the loss of the widget on the screen.
Here is the workaround:
1.Backup paid app with titanium, romtoolbox or other
2.Uninstall Paid app
3. restore paid app from backup
4. reboot
this works because it installs the app to /data/app folder which allows it to access needed services. Google has this issue marked to be fixed at later android update.

irule9000 said:
Heads up for those who bought apps and are using them on Jellybean. Jellybean introduces an app encryption technique to assuage app pirating. this negatively affects many apps especially those involving keyboards and widgets. Google has said that they issued a work around that allows the apps to be used but it prevents some settings from properly saving in the case of a reboot. This is because the apps are now installed to /mnt/asec, instead of the normal /data/app folder, which means that the app loads before some needed services like account manager. This causes data loss on reboot for the app. This negatively affects apps such as swiftkey, which loses its default keyboard setting upon reboot and beautiful widgets which results in the loss of the widget on the screen.
Here is the workaround:
1.Backup paid app with titanium, romtoolbox or other
2.Uninstall Paid app
3. restore paid app from backup
4. reboot
this works because it installs the app to /data/app folder which allows it to access needed services. Google has this issue marked to be fixed at later android update.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been doing this since Froyo!

Wow talk about a total F*ck up GOOGLE!!!
Its like any time company's try to do anti Pirating crap they F there paying customers over. I MEAN REALLY GOOGLE WTF
Rocking cm9

thanks for the info... just curious will this work for go launcher themes and such that have been paid for??? seems that paid themes on go launcher no longer show up on the jb roms =( that sux

Privacy & app permissions

Could someone tell me how privacy is managed in WP8?
When I install an app, I have to give some permissions to it or I can't install that app. Is there any way to install the app with only part of the requested permissions approved?
Once installed, can't I revoke some of that permissions? (assuming that the app could loose functionality or crash)
Is there any option to manage application's permissions? (from system or 3rd party application)

Nope. Eventually with interop unlock maybe. But not before.
Sent from my RM-893_nam_tmous_201 using Tapatalk

Technically, I think it *is* actually possible with interop-unlock. I haven't tried yet - not much point modifying the permissions of another app when I can already just *install* an app with whatever permissions I want - but the question raised is a good one. With that said, apps getting access-denied exceptions when attempting things that should just work is unlikely to be useful; it will almost certainly just make the app crash.

I have an idea, which worked on a test app.
How about creating a registry editor, but deploy without adding ID_CAP_INTEROPSERVICES to the WMAppManifest.xml , then the app, once successfully deployed, will replace the WMAppManifest.xml with one that has ID_CAP_INTEROPSERVICES and the PlayReady Header.
I tried it with Fruit Ninja (which I bought), I backed up the XAP, deployed it. XBL svcs were disabled but once I put the PlayReady Header, I could connect to XBL and earn achievements.

That *might* work for apps that are supposed to be signed to enable certain features (as your experiment appears to show), but modifying the app capabilities in the manifest has no effect at all once the app is installed. I tested that already. If there's any part of the manifest that is parsed at launch (rather than install) - and there may not be - it's not that one. As for the PR manifest, my guess is that unless the PlayReady header actually matches the app in question, it won't help. Could be wrong there, though.

AlvinPhilemon said:
I have an idea, which worked on a test app.
How about creating a registry editor, but deploy without adding ID_CAP_INTEROPSERVICES to the WMAppManifest.xml , then the app, once successfully deployed, will replace the WMAppManifest.xml with one that has ID_CAP_INTEROPSERVICES and the PlayReady Header.
I tried it with Fruit Ninja (which I bought), I backed up the XAP, deployed it. XBL svcs were disabled but once I put the PlayReady Header, I could connect to XBL and earn achievements.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now go generate valid WMPRHeader Actually, it won't work. Capabilities aren't checked on start, they are checked on deployment.

Apk copy/extracting/backing up protection

I hope that this is not the wrong place for my post.
I am trying to protect an apk from being copied/extracted/backed up off the phone and installed later, on another phone.
I have to mention that the app is not (and will not be) for sale on PlayStore or on any web store, being sold along with the phone. This is why I can not use apk protection offered by GooglePlay, which is anyway cracked at his time.
But I want to take advantages on this situation: every single phone will pass trough my hands (I will install myself the app) before hitting users. How can I use this advantage in order to protect my app?
At this time my app is not visible in Running Apps drawer, is having a default Android icon and the name is disguised in something pretty innocent. GUI access by dialing a code. No worries, is not malware but only a security app regarding GSM connection security.
Also, is running as a system app, which make it invisible for apps like Astro file manager, thus impossible to copy/back up by such file manager apps. Unfortunately there are a bunch of system app managers, that can convert a system app on user app, and then copying the apk file is easy.
I know that security sucks big time when it comes about Android OS, but I am determined to find a way to protect my app.
I know also that even a licensing scheme based on IMEI, WiFi MAC or Bluetooth MAC addresses can be bypassed by some skilled crackers. This values can be spoofed or even null.
I have tried apk encryption. Doesn't work: some apps supposed to encrypt other Android apps are actually encrypting only app libraries, not the apk file itself. By encrypting apk file, the app obviously will not work.
Code obfuscation is not an option as long the app can be duplicated off the phone and installed later on another phone.
The last idea that I had: pulling some app resources (like drawables) from a server. What do you think?
At this time I'm in a dead end. I have no more ideas how to protect my app. That's why I need your help. Can you give me please some feasible ideas, based on your huge experience?
Thank you very much for your time.

theres a thread
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2279813
where we're discussing about methods to protect apps from piracy u can post it there
Sent from my GT-S5302 using Tapatalk 2

Thanks
Thx a lot sak-venom1997.

[Library] Android Bubbles: Facebook like chat bubbles for Android

Hi everyone! I would like to share a library I've been working on for the last few days called Android Bubbles. It is an implementation of Facebook's chat bubbles that are used in Messenger.
Even though there are a few libraries out there that do that, I felt that the animations and level of detail were not on par with Facebook's implementation, so I decided to develop my own.
Android Bubbles focuses on smooth animations for a similar user experience to Facebook's, and has extremely easy implementation.
You can find the project here: github.com/RodrigoDLPontes/AndroidBubbles (I can't post links as I am a new user).
Tell me what you think!

"Draw over apps" permission on Marshmallow
How does this library deal with the "draw over apps" permission for marshmallow?

ponnex said:
How does this library deal with the "draw over apps" permission for marshmallow?
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ponnex, as far as I know, Marshmallow requires the user to give explicit permission for apps to draw over everything. That means the user would have too allow your app through Settings. You could add an Intent to Settings.ACTION_MANAGE_OVERLAY_PERMISSION, so that the user could easily enable your app, and call Settings.canDrawOverlays() to check whether or not permissions have been granted before you do anything else. After that you should be able to use the library with no problems.
Since I had developed for a device running Lollipop, I didn't have those steps in mind when I developed the example app in GitHub. I will update it as soon as I can.
Edit: Example app has been updated.

RodrigoDLPontes said:
ponnex, as far as I know, Marshmallow requires the user to give explicit permission for apps to draw over everything. That means the user would have too allow your app through Settings. You could add an Intent to Settings.ACTION_MANAGE_OVERLAY_PERMISSION, so that the user could easily enable your app, and call Settings.canDrawOverlays() to check whether or not permissions have been granted before you do anything else. After that you should be able to use the library with no problems.
Since I had developed for a device running Lollipop, I didn't have those steps in mind when I developed the example app in GitHub. I will update it as soon as I can.
Edit: Example app has been updated.
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Yes, I know that, all the information you cited above. I guess it would be great if you can include that in the library itself or use a notification along with the service so that it won't need a permission. e.g. Facebook Messenger and other app

ponnex said:
Yes, I know that, all the information you cited above. I guess it would be great if you can include that in the library itself or use a notification along with the service so that it won't need a permission. e.g. Facebook Messenger and other app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry about the late reply ponnex, I got sidetracked by some other things. I will look into implementing that!