Legal Manga App User Banned After Taking 'Fraudulent Screenshots' (torrentfreak.com) 68
A user of a legal manga app operated by one of Japan's largest publishers claims they were locked out of the service after being accused of fraudulent activity. TorrentFreak: While using Shueisha's YanJan! app, the user's smartphone began vibrating before displaying a message that their account had been suspended. It was later confirmed that taking screenshots, even inadvertently, can lead to being banned.
Yes apps can detect when a screenshot is taken. (Score:1)
I think in principle a mobile OS shouldn't allow this, but it does, so that means screenshotting manga and snaps notifies some other party. Oops!
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Then why can't the app BLOCK the screenshot function?
Re:Yes apps can detect when a screenshot is taken. (Score:4, Insightful)
Apps should not be able to block or prevent screenshots. It's the user's device. The user decides policy.
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In most cases yes, but I think most people if given the choice between "unable to accidentally take a screenshot" and "able to accidentally get yourself banned" would choose the former.
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The "being banned" should be possible because the apps should not be able to find out.
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It's a tradeoff. Streaming services would have never existed without HDCP. Take a screenshot of Netflix on your PC and you get a black screen because the data is on a secure content path. It's your device, but it's not your data.
What we need are safe, secure and reliable ways to hand over partial control of our devices in return for actually having content available. Or, we choose to hand over no control and companies choose to hand over no access to content. It should not be based on watching screensh
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Seems like nonsense to me, did very quick research HDCP 2.2 is cracked https://www.neogaf.com/threads... [neogaf.com] and that would be supported by may torrents available.
Streaming services exist because they make companies money if HDCP didn't exist the companies would still want to make money and they would just eat the extra risk. Frankly if I wanted to copy a movie I am sure I could, or simply download a torrent, the reason I and most people don't is it is simply not worth their effort.
Even if you could copy a movi
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HDCP was broken from day one. All you needed was a HDMI splitter, which would necessarily strip it in the process of duplicating the signal.
That said, all the torrent releases are using hacked streaming clients that decrypt the data and spool it to disk. There's no need to use the HDMI hole, and ripping the stream directly allows them to save all the metadata like chapter markers and subtitles.
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All you needed was a HDMI splitter, which would necessarily strip it in the process of duplicating the signal.
A cheap HDMI splitter that isn't certified and is using cracked keys, maybe. A manufacturer with an actual US presence would get sued under the DMCA if it wasn't using its own key provided under license and building HDCP connections to each sink. You can probably guess that nobody wants to pay that much.
Still, none of what people use every day would exist without at least the illusion of security - or a path to sue.
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On the early ones you had to tap into the unencrypted steam between the receiver and transmitter ICs.
You could also get devices that downgraded the HDCP version or removed it, for compatibility. Lots of TV broadcasters used them to play things like movies they had licenced from Blu-ray discs.
They were legit devices, with their own keys.
After a while they gave up even trying to control things like that.
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No, we need a hard line against DRM. These companies need to accept that, just like in the age of VCR, people might record whatever they want. They'll still show up because they won't be able to pass up on the profits, and customers should keep control over their devices.
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You're speaking for all consumers. People actually want reasonable and limited DRM because otherwise many products simply won't be available digitally. And people here on Slashdot definitely want the option not to use it at all. That choice should be there.
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[citation needed]
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Everyone who subscribes to Netflix and/or Disney+ and the ultimate impending death of cable TV
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Do they want DRM, though, or do they just want their prolefeed and are apathetic and/or ignorant about the DRM applied to it?
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Not defending...
Uh... huh.
I know how Steam works, and I know that DRM-free games have never been officially supported. You are talking about workarounds, third-party lists of "DRM free" titles. Lists which are probably mostly accurate, but there's no way to really know and there's nothing you can do about it if they're wrong or if the developer decides to change their mind and change their game, or if that third-party list maker has their own esoteric notion of what it means to be "DRM free." (I've noticed that a lot of
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You are talking about workarounds,
Mostly not.
third-party lists of "DRM free" titles. Lists which are probably mostly accurate, but there's no way to really know and there's nothing you can do about it if they're wrong
Incomplete, perhaps, but not inaccurate. If it's on one of the lists, it's verified.
or if the developer decides to change their mind and change their game,
Well, you just said it. "If the developer". It's the developers and/or publishers that decide whether or not to use any DRM. Why be mad at about Steam when you should be mad at the individual developers and publishers that choose to use the DRM? Steam, as a service, doesn't care either way whether a game has it or not. So, I guess, you can be mad that the DRM exists at all? But that's meaningless.
or if that third-party list maker has their own esoteric notion of what it means to be "DRM free."
Good thing they d
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Why be mad at about Steam
Because I bought the thing from Steam. I bought it through Steam's proprietary storefront software which I had to install on my computer (an affront in itself, but unrelated), and I bought it based on Steam's advertising and promises. Their description and screenshots and system requirements. System requirements which do not mention DRM, and certainly don't enforce that.
When those system requirements, et al, turn out to be false, it's Steam that I complain too because it's Steam who has sold me a product
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Ok, so now I can see more of your point rather than just "Steam is DRM". While store pages list prominently if the game requires 3rd party DRM like Denuvo or such, it doesn't include if the game requires other Steam components, and, yes, unfortunately no way to search based off of that information - or, at least, not a way that I'm aware of. The toll booth analogy is good. I was thinking more like an art gallery that works off commissions. Neither the artist (dev) nor the gallery (Steam) makes money unless
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Practically all those products would still be available digitally because anything else would be too great an opportunity for vendors to avoid. DRM is a scourge. It is a net minus for consumers.
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That's not HDCP, that's GPU framebuffer tricks. HDCP works only on the cable.
AFAIK the video decoder places decoded frames into a memory zone which is accessible only from the scanout buffer. Screenshot apps (any software for that matter, barring GPU drivers, maybe) don't have access to that buffer.
SEV related technologies AFAIK play a role in this pipeline.
> What we need are safe, secure and reliable ways to hand over partial control of our devices in return for actually having content available.
To do t
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Apps should not be able to block or prevent screenshots. It's the user's device. The user decides policy.
It's up to the user to choose an app with a certain functionality. You're right it is the user's device, and it's an app creator's app. If the two don't agree, don't use it. There's legitimate security reasons to prevent something from being screenshotted, especially given the ability to read a screen can come from other apps.
I don't care enough about your freedom to want to risk the device I use for financial transactions. Don't install the app and leave other people alone.
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I don't care enough about your freedom to want to risk the device I use for financial transactions. Don't install the app and leave other people alone.
Your confidence in your position is betrayed by your weak relative standing.
Perhaps he does not care enough about the device you use for financial transactions, to want to risk his freedoms?
Perhaps the two options you offer, are not the only ones available?
Alas, the endeavor is completely futile.
You can make it inconvenient, but can you ever truly stop someo
Re:Yes apps can detect when a screenshot is taken. (Score:5, Informative)
There are apps that do, and honestly, this pisses me the fuck off. For instance, my banking app prevents it. But ya'know what? I'd like to have a fast snapshot of my finances that I can drop somewhere as a record for personal reasons... but NOPE! (unless of course I hack around it, but that's a pain in the ass, and at that point I just hop on a desktop and download/screen cap there)
Re:Yes apps can detect when a screenshot is taken. (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that a mobile OS even HAS a feature that allows an app to detect that a screenshot was taken or block screenshots from being taken is the problem.
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Example: I'm attending a private webinar for my company and financial outlooks are being discussed weeks in advance of a quarterly profits announcement. I take a quick screen shot and send it to my friends.
This is a situation where certain users need the ability. The problem here is that the APP shouldn't have that permission without being granted it specifically.
Re:Yes apps can detect when a screenshot is taken. (Score:4, Insightful)
Fine, but in that case your device should be enrolled in an MDM and be subject to administrative policy.
If your device is not in an MDM, then you should be able to do whatever you want on it (as in, you are the one determining policy, not someone else).
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How about enrolling just the app in question in that MDM? Instead of the whole phone?
Because this is effectively what they are doing.
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Work device policy? Give me a work device.
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Work device policy?
A policy manager specified by the owner of the data. For a work device, it's the whole phone. For some other data, the policy manager is basically wrapped around the associated app. You can use your phone for whatever else you want. But the manga app controls access to their data with that app level policy manager. Don't like it? Don't view their manga.
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Fine, but in that case your device should be enrolled in an MDM and be subject to administrative policy.
And that fixes personal banking how? Security isn't just for corporations you know.
Re:Yes apps can detect when a screenshot is taken. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm mostly just joking around, but limiting the ability to take a screenshot on the device does very little to combat this type of behavior. This is the "analog hole" DRM problem. If you can see it, you can photograph it.
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The analog hole can't be automated. A digital hole can. The issue is not you circumventing something by recording the screen with another device, the issue is you installing some random unknown software that is recording your screen using the OS's screenshot ability to exfiltrate data.
I mean this is literally the M.O. of scammers, getting users to share a session with their banking software openly visible. It's good that we have OS features that can prevent this on a per-app basis.
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So instead you take a close up of your phone using a burner leaving no forensic evidence on your primary phone....
Might as well just not mess with your screenshot capability.
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No. No it's not. To allow ANY secure work on a phone, corporations need controls to prevent exactly this from happening.
First, the owner of the phone (the corporation that bought the phone) being able to block something is entirely orthogonal to whether an arbitrary app should be able to detect you doing something. Those are entirely unrelated questions. Both are privacy issues, and therefore both should be resolved in favor of the owner of the device. If you can't figure out how to do that, then your architecture is flawed.
Second, preventing something is orthogonal to detecting it. Setting a "Do not allow screen capture
But having an OS level API may run into ADA issues (Score:2)
But having an OS level API may run into ADA issues unless that api can block screen capture but not block the stuff that an screen reader needs to be able to run.
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But having an OS level API may run into ADA issues unless that api can block screen capture but not block the stuff that an screen reader needs to be able to run.
Screen readers don't use OCR. They use accessibility text attached to UI elements. The two are entirely orthogonal.
Does not make any difference (Score:2)
That's idiotic. You can use another device to take a picture of your phone's screen easily. Stopping screenshots is just an attack on the user and not a real security measure.
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Oh, if you could only take a photo of the screen with a camera...
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The main use of the anti-screenshot feature seems to be banking apps. For some reason they don't want you to take a copy of your screen in their app. It's likely that they insisted on the feature, because banks are dumb and don't understand security.
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Why is it a problem if the app detects (or blocks) screenshots of its own display? It's very probably copyrighted material and this is just DRM.
I'd rather just have the screenshot capability blocked than an app tattle-tailing about them. It gets around the whole butt-dialing a screen shot by accident excuse.
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But you might briefly display an account number that could be screenshotted by a rogue app.
That's why screenshot should be a user permission and secure content paths for display (like streaming video sites would use) should be how it's handled on the app side. So that when a bank account number is displayed and screenshotted, that one text block is blacked out but the rest comes through. However, I still want to be able to use Google Lens to copy/paste the numbers It just should require some sort of add
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If you dislike the security features of your phone please buy a model with less security. Also, give me your home address so I see this lack of features, not so I can steal your phone.
Given that most phone security is a keys-to-the-kingdom model, you should be worrying that your phone-unlock PIN isn't enough, not demanding obvious security holes are permitted.
My banking service allows me to download a history of transactions for a particular week. When I do an in-app activity, it allows me to download
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But ya'know what? I'd like to have a fast snapshot of my finances that I can drop somewhere as a record for personal reasons...
I'd like a fast snapshot of your finances as well. Bonus points if your credit card number is visible. Thanks.
Your post is an example of convenience over security. It's one thing to bitch about a random website, but quite another to complain about the app that could literally drain your finances having less security. Let me guess, your password is 12345?
blocking screen readers can lead to ADA issues (Score:2)
blocking screen readers can lead to ADA issues.
and having an OS level DRM system can get the people makeing the OS have to deal with makeing it so that screen readers will work.
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but for apples IOS or googles android to allow / have an DRM system that can force blocking / disabling / must uninstall screen readers?
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Well I guess I’ll go for the premium options (Score:3, Insightful)
Reading the manga off a pirate website or torrenting it and using some incredibly full featured open source comic book reader that’s had more time and passion poured into it than all similar commercial offerings combined.
As an added bonus it’s also free.
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open source comic book reader that’s had more time and passion poured into it than all similar commercial offerings combined.
That are generally as bad as the commercial offerings.
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No idea what world you live in, where cdisplayex reading your downloaded files is "as bad" as a shitty native website/app.
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No idea what world you live in, where cdisplayex reading your downloaded files is "a library app" while having basically zero library functions beyond being able to set a bookmark.
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I also have to click on storage to see it.
The included file browser is a bunch of trash
App doesn't use any of the meta data. Just file names.
Very limited file support.
There is also the problem with the menu not being at the top like it should.
The animations that cannot be disabled even though the dev says you can.
I will stick with Libera. That is a bunch of suck as well, but better than what you recommended.
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What the heck did you download? Cdisplayex is basically a remake of original cdisplay after original author died. It has no library functions at all. It's a comic book viewer.
It has no file browser beyond windows native one. File support is images and most common compression formats used for comics and nothing else. There are no menus visible by unless you specifically want one for some reason (right click - options - check "toolbar visible"), because it's a comic book viewer that expects you to want to see
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To be fair, automated screenshotting utilities is probably how these get onto torrent sites in the first place.
This is why I pirate things (Score:3)
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Right. Illegal apps are always better than legal ones.
Glad I have two phones (Score:1)
One of which has a very good camera on it.
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And before someone asks "but it's on such a tiny screen": Remember that you can plug almost any phone into a USB-C docking station today and enjoy it in 30" glory.