ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Michael Zanetti <michael.zanetti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday 25 October 2013 08:13:20 Marc Deslauriers wrote:
> On 13-10-25 06:43 AM, Michael Zanetti wrote:
> <snip>
> 
> >> In short, your use case falls into the category of 'backup software' and
> >> backup software is not supported by the appstore at this time.
> > 
> > Just to add some more unsupported use cases:
> > 
> > * A Music downloader
> 
> That's supported with the "music_files" policy group.
> 
> > * An alternative Camera app that allows making funny pictures like the
> > google hangout toolbox
> 
> That's supported with the "picture_files" policy group.
> 
> > * An office suite
> 
> Wouldn't an office suite store it's files in its own directory?
> 
> > * An app like the Parrot AR.Drone controller wouldn't be able to store
> > pictures taken with the drone's camera in a place where a user can ever
> > find it again.
> 
> That's supported with the "picture_files" policy group.
> 
> > I personally think this should be considered higher priority than after
> > 14.10. Also I don't really see why allowing access to arbitrary
> > subfolders in $HOME (granted by policy ofc) is more problematic than
> > allowing access to location, address book, microphone or camera.
> 
> It's not more problematic, but it currently leads to a manual review process
> because allowing an app to access all the user's files is
> security-sensitive and defeats being able to install and trust arbitrary
> applications from the store.
> 
> In the future, I hope we'll be able to remove the manual review process step
> by adding appropriate content providers for those items that will prompt
> the user on first access.
> 
> > A policy "write_pictures" that gives write access to $HOME/Pictures
> > doesn't
> > sound like the end of security to me.
> 
> We have that already, it's called "picture_files".
> 

Oh, nice. What is the problem then why Robert's use cases don't work?

I understood Jamie's explanation as this is not supported (and won't be in the 
foreseeable future).

Cheers,
Michael