Android 17 has now officially launched, bringing with it a slew of new privacy and security upgrades like the new Contact Picker and post-quantum app signing.
Does anyone know what this is all about? From the Android 17 features and changes list:
Category Type Name Privacy Change (all apps) Restricted message access
Most apps now cannot access end-to-end encrypted messages.
Clicking on the “Restricted message access” link takes me to the Behavior changes: all apps page, but it doesn’t appear to make any mention of this change. It does mention that more detailed information is available in the Android 17 release notes, but I read through them and still couldn’t find anything.
If “most” apps cannot access E2EE[1] messages, then “some” still can. What are those “some”? Obviously, apps performing E2EE can access their own messages, but if that’s all that’s happening, surely there are better ways to word this, no? It seems to imply other apps not responsible for the messages still can. Why? What E2EE messages are we even talking about here? RCS[2] specifically? Any and all E2EE messages (including those sent from Signal, for example (seems unlikely, but this is awfully vague))?
If anyone knows anything, I’d be interested in knowing.
Do you guys have intrusion logging enabled?