[ubizmo]

I don't claim any expertise, or even competence, in the things I'm about to discuss. That, after all, is the CrackBerry tradition!

I was reading the following thread at the AquaMail forum: android 6. AquaMail, for those unfamiliar with Android, is a third-party email client with a great developer and a lot of nice features. For those who don't feel like reading the thread or the linked conversations in it, here is the tl;dr, as I understand it:

The Doze feature in Android Marshmallow, put there to extend battery life by shutting down background app activity, causes problems for at least some email clients. Doze apparently prevents them from pushing email to the phones, or even fetching at specified intervals. It does not intefere with Gmail, which uses Google's own proprietary Google Cloud Messaging. Google is well aware of the problem and has made it clear that the intended solution is for developers to rewrite their apps to use GCM instead of some other push/fetch service. The "price" of doing so, if you will, is that all emails that are handled by GCM, from whatever email provider to whatever email app, will "pass through" Google's servers.

The vast majority of people will be okay with that, since they are already using Gmail anyway. But some won't be happy about it at all.

As I see it, the Hub is, among other things, an email client. I therefore wonder whether email to and from the Hub on the Priv will also pass through Google's servers, starting with Marshmallow. I don't see this as a security issue since, as far as I know, Gmail is considered quite secure. But I expect it does raise privacy issues for any (including some Priv owners, no doubt) who might prefer not to have their email data-mined by Google.

So I'm throwing it out there for discussion.

Edit: I think the tl;dr needs a tl;dr.

[Prem WatsApp]

Thanks for the heads up....

Chen said, they're working with Google. Hope that means something. :-D

  Ahoy, Privateers...! :-)  

[vladi]

Thanks for the heads up....

Chen said, they're working with Google. Hope that means something. :-D

•   Ahoy, Privateers...! :-)   •

Or absolutely nothing. This is something like a half a battery mode on BB10 and its screwed up from the get go. How come no one thought about this is again beyond me.

[bh7171]

Thankfully BlackBerry 10 will still be around for a bit. I hope to hell BlackBerry does not abandon it. I am NOT a fan of all things Google. People should be leary of their level of intrusion.

The White Knight-BlackBerry Passport

[midnightdoom]

I was actually wondering the other day how data will be handled in situations like these. Hope there's an other solution than everything having to go through google first

*-* BBM Channel : Netflix Newsroom C003BA5E3 | facebook.com/NetflixNewsroom*-*

[Q10Bold]

Thats not good for Priv owners in the future...

Posted via PP

[darkehawke]

Thankfully BlackBerry 10 will still be around for a bit. I hope to hell BlackBerry does not abandon it. I am NOT a fan of all things Google. People should be leary of their level of intrusion.

The White Knight-BlackBerry Passport

They wont.
The UK government has only just started embracing BB10 properly and i doubt Blackberry will want to risk pissing off their target audience by shutting down BB10 all of a sudden

[darkehawke]

Interesting point OP
I dont use that email client but i use a 3rd party one, so i will pay attention to their updates to see if they switch to GCM.
It may be that there are other solutions besides GCM, it will be interesting to see how it pans out

[crackbrry fan]

I don't claim any expertise, or even competence, in the things I'm about to discuss. That, after all, is the CrackBerry tradition!

I was reading the following thread at the AquaMail forum: android 6. AquaMail, for those unfamiliar with Android, is a third-party email client with a great developer and a lot of nice features. For those who don't feel like reading the thread or the linked conversations in it, here is the tl;dr, as I understand it:

The Doze feature in Android Marshmallow, put there to extend battery life by shutting down background app activity, causes problems for at least some email clients. Doze apparently prevents them from pushing email to the phones, or even fetching at specified intervals. It does not intefere with Gmail, which uses Google's own proprietary Google Cloud Messaging. Google is well aware of the problem and has made it clear that the intended solution is for developers to rewrite their apps to use GCM instead of some other push/fetch service. The "price" of doing so, if you will, is that all emails that are handled by GCM, from whatever email provider to whatever email app, will "pass through" Google's servers.

The vast majority of people will be okay with that, since they are already using Gmail anyway. But some won't be happy about it at all.

As I see it, the Hub is, among other things, an email client. I therefore wonder whether email to and from the Hub on the Priv will also pass through Google's servers, starting with Marshmallow. I don't see this as a security issue since, as far as I know, Gmail is considered quite secure. But I expect it does raise privacy issues for any (including some Priv owners, no doubt) who might prefer not to have their email data-mined by Google.

So I'm throwing it out there for discussion.

Edit: I think the tl;dr needs a tl;dr.

"Gmail is considered quite secure "? Do I hear oxymoron there?

Posted via CB10

[ubizmo]

"Gmail is considered quite secure "? Do I hear oxymoron there?

Posted via CB10

Have gmail's server ever been hacked?


Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

[OTCHRussell]

Have gmail's server ever been hacked?


Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

As long as I can disable app permissions, I'm OK with that. Why should Kindle have to know who I get emails from or where I am?

9000 > Q10 > Z10 >Z30>Z30>

[DenverRalphy]

The "price" of doing so, if you will, is that all emails that are handled by GCM, from whatever email provider to whatever email app, will "pass through" Google's servers.

I'm curious as to how they came to this conclusion, as I don't think it's really accurate.

With GCM, all that's sent through Google's servers is what the developer tells it to send to the user's phone. It's just a trigger to wake the app with a custom message to be parsed by the app. All they need do is send a "Wake up, there are new messages on the mail server" message to the device and app. The app then wakes, checks the designated mail server, and then pops a notification to the user. All without having to pull the emails themselves through Google's servers. If an email app developer chooses to send the entire contents of the mail through GCM, that would be a poor design choice.

[crackbrry fan]

Have gmail's server ever been hacked?


Sent from my A0001 using Tapatalk

Again I'm hearing another oxymoron in that question.

Posted via CB10

[ubizmo]

Interesting point OP
I dont use that email client but i use a 3rd party one, so i will pay attention to their updates to see if they switch to GCM.
It may be that there are other solutions besides GCM, it will be interesting to see how it pans out

I am in a similar conversation on Android Central and a knowledgeable person called crashdamage linked to something he'd posted on another Android forum: Email: Which apps keep it private?. It's a good read.

I didn't start this thread to stimulate paranoia, but I know that people have different tolerance for their email being data-mined. At least some people are using paid email services precisely to avoid that. But you still need an app/client to get your email from that paid service, unless you're willing to give up notifications and use the browser, which not many are prepared to do. If Android email apps are going to stop working properly unless they use GCM, and if GCM allows Google to data-mine all email that passes through, these people are going to have a problem.

As per my disclaimer in the first post, I don't claim to understand the arcana of email. I'm just reporting on conversations taking place elsewhere, as possibly relevant here. I don't know whether, for example, ActiveSync will be affected by Doze, or only IMAP. It looks like both would be affected, but I'm far from certain. And how will this affect forked versions of Android, such as FireOS or just plain AOSP, that don't use Google Services? In addition, there's discussion about being able to whitelist apps from Doze, although this doesn't appear to work the way you'd want.

I think it's interesting to note that this new behavior in Android will mimic the way iPhone has worked from the start. Background sync/push is handled by iCloud or not at all.

I don't know how the BB10 Hub handles email. I assume the email is routed strictly between the BB10 device and the email provider, and doesn't go through any BlackBerry servers (unlike BIS). If that's going to be different on the Priv, I would think BlackBerry would have to make some kind of public statement about it, since it would be a change to the Terms of Service. Maybe it'll be mentioned in the fine print in a Priv setup screen.

[darkehawke]

Again im hearing another oxymoron in that question.

Posted via CB10

Can you please provide an example of a time when Gmail servers were compromised?

[crackbrry fan]

Can you please provide an example of a time when Gmail servers were compromised?

The "compromise" comes from within, have a read :
http://www.theguardian.com/technolog...-terms-clarify

Posted via CB10

[Jahcure]

Can you please provide an example of a time when Gmail servers were compromised?

..........i believe the Chinese hacked them a few times

Posted via CB10

[darkehawke]

I am in a similar conversation on Android Central and a knowledgeable person called crashdamage linked to something he'd posted on another Android forum: Email: Which apps keep it private?. It's a good read.

I didn't start this thread to stimulate paranoia, but I know that people have different tolerance for their email being data-mined. At least some people are using paid email services precisely to avoid that. But you still need an app/client to get your email from that paid service, unless you're willing to give up notifications and use the browser, which not many are prepared to do. If Android email apps are going to stop working properly unless they use GCM, and if GCM allows Google to data-mine all email that passes through, these people are going to have a problem.

As per my disclaimer in the first post, I don't claim to understand the arcana of email. I'm just reporting on conversations taking place elsewhere, as possibly relevant here. I don't know whether, for example, ActiveSync will be affected by Doze, or only IMAP. It looks like both would be affected, but I'm far from certain. And how will this affect forked versions of Android, such as FireOS or just plain AOSP, that don't use Google Services? In addition, there's discussion about being able to whitelist apps from Doze, although this doesn't appear to work the way you'd want.

I think it's interesting to note that this new behavior in Android will mimic the way iPhone has worked from the start. Background sync/push is handled by iCloud or not at all.

I don't know how the BB10 Hub handles email. I assume the email is routed strictly between the BB10 device and the email provider, and doesn't go through any BlackBerry servers (unlike BIS). If that's going to be different on the Priv, I would think BlackBerry would have to make some kind of public statement about it, since it would be a change to the Terms of Service. Maybe it'll be mentioned in the fine print in a Priv setup screen.

Wow
Great Link

I'm off to change my email app lol!

[ubizmo]

The "compromise" comes from within, have a read :
Gmail does scan all emails, new Google terms clarify | Technology | The Guardian

Posted via CB10

We're talking about privacy, not security, with respect to Google. As far as I know, Google's servers are quite secure. But as everybody knows, Google data-mines email. Up to this point, this has been confined to its own Gmail, but if, going forward, it's going to include all email being passed through GCM, that's a big change.

[ubizmo]

Wow
Great Link

I'm off to change my email app lol!

I like AquaMail, but it doesn't have ActiveSync or conversation view. I also like Type Mail, but it's one of the worst offenders in terms of possible privacy and security concerns.

[darkehawke]

The "compromise" comes from within, have a read :
Gmail does scan all emails, new Google terms clarify | Technology | The Guardian

Posted via CB10

Is there an example of a time when they were compromised externally?

The reason for asking is because i've only started using Gmail in the last few years so never really followed their history.
I know that emails are scanned for targetted ads purposes internally already, which is why i use it as a secondary account.

[crackbrry fan]

We're talking about privacy, not security. As far as I know, Google's servers are quite secure. But as everybody knows, Google data-mines email. Up to this point, this has been confined to its own Gmail, but if, going forward, it's going to include all email being passed through GCM, that's a big change.

That's the problem many separate privacy from security, when they both go hand in hand.

Posted via CB10

[darkehawke]

I like AquaMail, but it doesn't have ActiveSync or conversation view. I also like Type Mail, but it's one of the worst offenders in terms of possible privacy and security concerns.

Yeah i was using Typemail
Just downloaded Aqua and will give it a go

[ubizmo]

With GCM, all that's sent through Google's servers is what the developer tells it to send to the user's phone. It's just a trigger to wake the app with a custom message to be parsed by the app. All they need do is send a "Wake up, there are new messages on the mail server" message to the device and app. The app then wakes, checks the designated mail server, and then pops a notification to the user. All without having to pull the emails themselves through Google's servers. If an email app developer chooses to send the entire contents of the mail through GCM, that would be a poor design choice.

I hope you're right, in which case this is a tempest in a teapot. But then, I don't see why developers, such as the K-9 email team, would be concerned about GCM.

[darkehawke]

That's the problem many separate privacy from security, when the both go hand in hand.

Posted via CB10

Blackberry are not exactly supporters of privacy