• muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    Google has decided you cannot turn off Gemini in their newer versions of Android. You cannot install other roms that do either, Google is killing those too. But yea, Apple is the bad guy. Ignore the Google rug pull.

      • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        Apple never opened that door. Google did, but they never intended to keep it open. it was there to catch up with apple. they never intended to do any good here. it was there to speed up development and win people over, then after they are already there, google can close the door and screw them all. That’s what’s happening now. It was a bait and switch.

    • Tja@programming.dev
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      6 months ago

      Apple never even tried to allow it, so yeah, Apple IS the bad guy. Google is becomeing it, Apple is the mayor of bad guy town.

    • Khrux@ttrpg.network
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      6 months ago

      As much as I don’t disagree, I think the “Apple is closest to Nazism” comment touches on something different. Other massive American companies have awful practices but they don’t care particularly how their way of making money looks. Apple wields a specific aesthetic power that generally dictates a hegemonic uniformity, that strays the line of being to their detriment at times. I don’t think any other big tech company would care in the same way if not for their desire to copy Apple.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      I mean it’s not just that. Probably not even mostly that. Security is really not great on Android far beyond the AI. I’ve been running Android for years and probably won’t change until Linux with LUKS is a reasonable alternative, But from a hardware level on through to the software, there are so many holes in the OS and ways to access privileged information. Even the top end of the Samsung line is largely rootable at this point, not without concessions, mind you, but as far as an enemy getting a phone and gaining access, or the company itself getting your data even without AI, I’d probably be concerned enough for ANY military org not to allow them to be used.

      Apple has a hell of a lot of issues, might even be overly friendly with Israel, but from a security standpoint, it’s probably safer for secrets than android at the moment.

      I really just want an encrypted portable linux device with a cellular modem. I don’t even care if it can SMS or VOLTE, I just need it to run a secure chat client, support Bluetooth headphones and last all day on a charge.

      • skaffi@infosec.pub
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        6 months ago

        I really just want an encrypted portable linux device with a cellular modem. I don’t even care if it can SMS or VOLTE, I just need it to run a secure chat client, support Bluetooth headphones and last all day on a charge.

        Then you’re in luck, because that’s something you can already have by now! Just get yourself one of the more recent-ish phones that are well supported by PostmarketOS. The things Linux phones struggle the most with these days, are the more traditional phone-things, such as text messages or calling, which may not be ready for production, as they say (although, both texts and calls have actually worked well for me as of late). But if all you want is a pocket Linux computer/PDA, and intend to carry another phone for calls and texting, that’s something you can have, for the grand price of an old, second-hand phone. I’ve been loving my (LUKS-encrypted) OnePlus 6T, and I do actually use it for calls and texts as well!

      • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        You actually turned off geminis ability to serve YOU. You never turned off Gemini itself. Google won’t allow that. It’s still running in the background send your data to Google and its advertising partners. Google has publicly stated this is the intended design and they will not allow turning that off.

            • titanicx@lemmy.zip
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              6 months ago

              No. They provided me a nice little button that allows me to disable Gemini, and they have allowed me to opt out of any usage. So again. Show me that it is still active after I have disabled it.

      • bss03@infosec.pub
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        6 months ago

        I’ve lost features that used to work without Gemini, but I believe it is disabled on both my Pixel 7 Pro and the Pixel 8 I have access to.

        • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Nope, it’s still running in the background. You just turned off its ability to interact with you but can and does still interact with others.

              • bss03@infosec.pub
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                6 months ago

                Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me either way. There IS a lot of telemetry and other BS that is definitely still on my phone, included in OS updates, and not uninstallable (I can “uninstall updates”, but that would also give me back any security issues). But, I don’t think that it is Gemini, or at least predates that naming convention.

                To get free of Google telemetry, I’d have to install a non-Google ROM, and I haven’t ever tried that.

                Telemetry certainly can be abused, and Google should be legally (by regulation) required to provide a simple opt-out. BUT, telemetry really is a fairly normal thing to include in “web-scale” deployments and is primarily used to discover issues that have escaped into production without affecting a testing environment–or, at least, that what the telemetry systems I’ve interacted with as an software developer were for. So, I’m not too worried about non-personalized data collection.

                EDIT: I confirmed that Google says I have no Gemini activity to delete, so while I’m sure my phone is reporting stuff, it’s not to Gemini.