I have 78 or 79, including system apps that have read permission to my contacts, although none of them can get even a single contact from me.
Maria Sophia wrote:
I have 78 or 79, including system apps that have read permission to my
contacts, although none of them can get even a single contact from me.
Wow, you need to use a terminal command to find out something this
How many do you have?
Most people have no idea how many apps can read their contacts.
adb shell dumpsys package > dump.txt
grep -Ff pkgs.txt dump.txt | grep "READ_CONTACTS: granted=true" > read.txt
On 2026-02-10 13:51, Maria Sophia wrote:
I have 78 or 79, including system apps that have read permission to my
contacts, although none of them can get even a single contact from me.
How in the hell does that sentence make sense?
Can someone help me out here?
On 10/02/2026 21:56, Alan wrote:
On 2026-02-10 13:51, Maria Sophia wrote:
I have 78 or 79, including system apps that have read permission to my
contacts, although none of them can get even a single contact from me.
How in the hell does that sentence make sense?
Can someone help me out here?
From what I remember has been previously written, there are no contact names stored anywhere on Maria Sophia's phone. I guess it means that
when a message is received (eg email or SMS), and the Contacts app
offers to store the senders name as a contact, that offer is refused
every time.
The contacts could instead be stored in a text file with email addresses
and phone numbers next to them.
BICBW...
Jeff Layman wrote:
On 10/02/2026 21:56, Alan wrote:
On 2026-02-10 13:51, Maria Sophia wrote:
I have 78 or 79, including system apps that have read permission to my >>>> contacts, although none of them can get even a single contact from me.
How in the hell does that sentence make sense?
Can someone help me out here?
˙From what I remember has been previously written, there are no
contact names stored anywhere on Maria Sophia's phone. I guess it
means that when a message is received (eg email or SMS), and the
Contacts app offers to store the senders name as a contact, that offer
is refused every time.
The contacts could instead be stored in a text file with email
addresses and phone numbers next to them.
BICBW
Hi Jeff Layman,
Long time no see. Good to hear from you again on the Android newsgroup!
Can you please check how many apps (including system apps!) can read your contacts database for this group-wide survey. Just make sure you include system apps because most people don't realize they abound on Android.
The act of storing other people's information on a smartphone is not a private act as it's a shared responsibility steeped in courtesy & respect.
People who THINK about privacy know which tools are privacy aware, whereas people who just do what the marketing organizations tell them to do, can't.
I use a privacy-respecting contacts app because it keeps my friends' and family's information out of the 70+ apps on my phone that have permission
to read the system contacts sqlite database via Contacts
ContentProvider. </data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/ contacts2.db>
Most people would claim they only have a half dozen or so, but nobody who claims that small a number ever has any idea whatsoever how to even check.
They just guess.
They think the GUI is going to tell them the truth. It won't. It can't.
It's not designed to tell them the truth.
That's why in this thread I used adb dumpsys to get at the truth.
And the fact my phone has over 70 apps with read permission on the contacts is meaningless on my phone because I'm rather intelligent about my setup.
It's impossible for any app on the planet to get to my contacts even if
they have full read permission, because my sqlite database is empty.
On purpose.
Although I could populate it with false data using apps designed for that. Fake Contacts, MIT License, by Bill Dietrich <https://f-droid.org/en/packages/me.billdietrich.fake_contacts/>
˙"The idea is to feed fake data to any apps or companies who are
copying ˙ our private data to use or sell it. This is called data- poisoning."
But I've kept my contacts database empty for years, and I can use a phone
as well or better than anyone else on the planet in terms of communication.
That's what respect for people & courtesy looks like in the digital world.
I know of you so I know you don't think always the way you're told to think (e.g., when we discussed the "fused provider" years ago as one example).
So I'm hoping you understand that it's a mark of respect to preserve the sanctity of privacy as contacts are NOT our data to share to 3rd parties.
Contacts are other people's private information. Treat them as such.
Contacts are not ours to share on the Internet without express permission.
The fundamental way most people store contacts privately is they use apps which are specifically sandboxed so that no other apps can get the data.
Hence a privacy-respecting contacts app stores its data in its own sandbox. a. Other apps cannot access that sandbox.
b. Therefore, our contacts remain private.
These FOSS apps are designed by intelligent people who care very much about privacy, so they're not like the standard Google apps which do not.
A FOSS privacy-aware contacts app is "DOpen Contacts" for example.
*DOpen Contacts* (Dialer + Open Contacts) <https://f-droid.org/en/packages/opencontacts.open.com.opencontacts/> <https://gitlab.com/sultanahamer/OpenContacts> debug APK available
"Even though we are not having any problem sharing our mobile number
˙with all third parties, people in our phone book might have. ˙We
should not be sharing their contact information online.
˙This app saves contacts in its own database separate from android
˙contacts. This way no other app would be able to access contacts.
˙Can be used in place of your default phone(dialer) app. ˙It can import contacts from vCard files. ˙So we can export Android contacts and import into this app.
˙Maintains call log as well. ˙Also shows the person's name upon
receiving call"
It's used by people who are courteous to others because it stores the contacts in its own database that the other 50 or so apps can't get to.
BTW, is this you:
<https://xdaforums.com/m/galaxya325g.11604613/>
I read a couple of posts, and it sounds exactly like you, Arlen!
How in the hell does that sentence make sense?
Can someone help me out here?
Most people have no idea how many apps can read their contacts.
adb shell dumpsys package > dump.txt
grep -Ff pkgs.txt dump.txt | grep "READ_CONTACTS: granted=true" > read.txt
I wonder if some other person might have been able to figure out that Android has a method that is just as easy? I bet there is.
Jeff Layman wrote:
On 10/02/2026 21:56, Alan wrote:
On 2026-02-10 13:51, Maria Sophia wrote:
I have 78 or 79, including system apps that have read permission to my >>>> contacts, although none of them can get even a single contact from me.
How in the hell does that sentence make sense?
Can someone help me out here?
From what I remember has been previously written, there are no contact
names stored anywhere on Maria Sophia's phone. I guess it means that
when a message is received (eg email or SMS), and the Contacts app
offers to store the senders name as a contact, that offer is refused
every time.
The contacts could instead be stored in a text file with email addresses
and phone numbers next to them.
BICBW
Hi Jeff Layman,
Long time no see. Good to hear from you again on the Android newsgroup!
Can you please check how many apps (including system apps!) can read your contacts database for this group-wide survey. Just make sure you include system apps because most people don't realize they abound on Android.
On 2026-02-11 02:03, Alan wrote:
BTW, is this you:
<https://xdaforums.com/m/galaxya325g.11604613/>
I read a couple of posts, and it sounds exactly like you, Arlen!
Yes, it is him.
This time he wrote a post where he said his new name.
Still, it's a great datapoint where the next question I'd ask of you and anyone who has any apps with read permission to their contacts, is are you surprised at the number which you found out that "could" read contacts?
I'm giving up on this group. Well done "purposely helpful" Arlen.
My point is for you to "confirm" the idiocy of someone like Alan claiming
to have figured out what was never hidden, is an insult to me and others.
For you to insult our intelligence so openly and readily is disconcerting.
Carlos E. R. wrote:
For you to insult our intelligence so openly and readily is
disconcerting.
Not insulting. But now you are insulting me by saying I insulted you.
Well, I apologize but what you did, in my humblest of opinions, was
affirm the idiocy of Alan Baker who claimed, after me saying so for many years, that he finally figured out who I was on the XDA developers web
site.
If it take both of you five years to figure out that which was never
hidden, then you have no right to insult me like you did in your response.
I could insult you, but I won't because my reason for posting to you was
to ask you to stop responding to Alan Baker's idiocy as if he's making a claim that holds water.
He was intimating I was trolling by having a different moniker on a different web site & you affirmed that idiocy, where both of you acted
like children.
I take offense when you act like a child when trying to insult me.
Since you're so desperate to insult me, at least have a cause by God.
Especially as your attempted insult is because I used a name on the XDA
site which is the name of my phone and I said so for five years here.
It's insulting that you agreed with Alan Baker's insults, especially as
your insult is that I used the name of my phone on XDA's web site.
1. I've said so for five years here.
2. I've posted my own thread links scores of times here.
3. I post the same images there and here.
4. The same text.
5. The same phone.
The same everything.
And yet, you are so desperate to insult me, you call me a troll.
For that?
Nobody is as transparent on that as I am, Carlos.
And yet, you are so desperate to insult me that you back up Alan?
I already dealt with s|b who is desperate to insult me today.
And I dealt with Kerr-Mudd who is also desperate to insult me.
All you guys have the same inferiority complex apparently.
Get rid of it.
Or at least focus your inferiority complex on someone else.
I'm trying to make progress here with this privacy thread.
Which you are desperate to derail with untoward insults.
By acting like a child.
If it takes you five years to figure that out, there's a problem, but I don't mind you acting like a child if you weren't so desperate to insult
me by doing so.
At least have a real reason for insulting me, Carlos.
It's actually insulting you can't even come up with a valid insult.
With the XDA threads, I did everything right.
At least try to insult me for something that I actually did wrong.
Carlos E. R. wrote:
For you to insult our intelligence so openly and readily is
disconcerting.
Not insulting. But now you are insulting me by saying I insulted you.
Well, I apologize but what you did, in my humblest of opinions, was
affirm the idiocy of Alan Baker who claimed, after me saying so for many years, that he finally figured out who I was on the XDA developers web
site.
s|b wrote:
On Tue, 10 Feb 2026 16:52:54 -0500, Maria Sophia wrote:
Most people have no idea how many apps can read their contacts.
˙adb shell dumpsys package > dump.txt
˙grep -Ff pkgs.txt dump.txt | grep "READ_CONTACTS: granted=true" >
read.txt
We get it; you're (pretending to be) 1337.
I just go to
Instellingen > Beveiliging en privacy > Privacyopties > Rechtenbeheer >
Contacten en accounts
Everybody can do that.
I never disagree with anyone, no matter who they are, if/when they make a logically sensible statement which is based on evidence and fact.
Jeff Layman wrote:
Still, it's a great datapoint where the next question I'd ask of you and >>> anyone who has any apps with read permission to their contacts, is
are you
surprised at the number which you found out that "could" read contacts?
I'm never surprised by anything in Android which compromises privacy.
It's interesting to compare the approach to giving information about
an app in the Google Play Store and F-Droid. The latter clearly has a
section entitled "Permissions" which show what the app will be able to
access (and perhaps modify). Not so the Play Store, which has a vague
section called "Data Safety".
Hi Jeff,
I agree with anyone who makes a logically sentient statement,
s|b wrote:
On Tue, 10 Feb 2026 13:56:45 -0800, Alan wrote:
How in the hell does that sentence make sense?
Can someone help me out here?
Arlen is hallucinating.
There's an entire thread on the Windows newsgroup about your incessant trolling where once you trolls infest a newsgroup, you ruin the threads.
This is an Android newsgroup. Not your personal troll forum.
This is an Android question about contacts privacy.
Not your personal troll repository.
I'm going to ask you nicely, s|b, that if you have no capability of contributing to the contact-privacy topic, then please stop trolling us.
We're adults
Jeff Layman wrote:
Still, it's a great datapoint where the next question I'd ask of you and >>> anyone who has any apps with read permission to their contacts, is are you >>> surprised at the number which you found out that "could" read contacts?
I'm never surprised by anything in Android which compromises privacy.
It's interesting to compare the approach to giving information about an
app in the Google Play Store and F-Droid. The latter clearly has a
section entitled "Permissions" which show what the app will be able to
access (and perhaps modify). Not so the Play Store, which has a vague
section called "Data Safety".
Hi Jeff,
I agree with anyone who makes a logically sentient statement, where I agree that the Google Play Store is inferior to F-Droid in listing pernicious permissions, and, let's be clear, Aurora's replacement to the Google Play Store client at least lists which apps incorporate GSF which is helpful.
There's a reason I uninstalled the Google Play Store app years ago. :)
And I have no problem installing apps from the Google Play Store repo
without a Google Account on the phone, so it works better w/o it.
To your very point, on F-Droid?s website or within the client, each app?s page lists the permissions it requests.
For example, the open-source
Contacts app explicitly states it requires permission to ?read your
contacts. <https://f-droid.org/packages/com.vayunmathur.contacts/>
Interestingly, your comment made me dig a bit, which is refreshsing after having responded to the trolls attempting to derail this discussion because they can't add any value, it turns out that F-Droid hosts an app called Permissions Summary which scans your installed apps and lists which ones
have access to sensitive permissions, including Contacts (read/write). However, it only shows user-installed apps with ?dangerous? permissions
(like contacts, camera, microphone, location, etc.) that require explicit runtime approval. <https://f-droid.org/packages/com.simpol.permissionssummary/>
I just downloaded it but it will take a while to test it for the team.
<https://f-droid.org/repo/com.vayunmathur.contacts_6.apk>
Name: com.vayunmathur.contacts_6.apk
Size: 24131675 bytes (23 MiB)
SHA256: A348428B9C0E8526C021C49366B44563C6851FCEE8480C9046B516F466EE75C6
Drat. It crashes every time. Can you (or someone also helpful) test it
for the team? It seems like a decent app to get the "real" permissions.
In addition, you have Muntashirakon App Manager, which everyone on this newsgroup is well aware of as the best of the best of FOSS Android apps.
For any installed app, AM shows:
Requested permissions
Granted vs. denied
Whether the permission is runtime, dangerous, signature, or special
Whether it was auto-granted by the system
So we can instantly see if an app has:
android.permission.READ_CONTACTS
android.permission.WRITE_CONTACTS
android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS (related to contacts
But of course, that's on an app-by-app basis, so it's good, but manual.
Carlos E. R. wrote:
For you to insult our intelligence so openly and readily is
disconcerting.
Not insulting. But now you are insulting me by saying I insulted you.
Well, I apologize but what you did, in my humblest of opinions, was
affirm the idiocy of Alan Baker who claimed, after me saying so for many years, that he finally figured out who I was on the XDA developers web
site.
If it take both of you five years to figure out that which was never
hidden, then you have no right to insult me like you did in your response.
I could insult you, but I won't because my reason for posting to you was
to ask you to stop responding to Alan Baker's idiocy as if he's making a claim that holds water.
He was intimating I was trolling by having a different moniker on a different web site & you affirmed that idiocy, where both of you acted
like children.
I take offense when you act like a child when trying to insult me.
Since you're so desperate to insult me, at least have a cause by God.
On 2026-02-11 02:03, Alan wrote:
BTW, is this you:
<https://xdaforums.com/m/galaxya325g.11604613/>
I read a couple of posts, and it sounds exactly like you, Arlen!
Yes, it is him.
This time he wrote a post where he said his new name.
Andy Burns wrote:
Maria Sophia wrote:
Did you get that number from the GUI or from dumpsys?
The Permissions Manager in Settings.
Thanks. I don't trust that GUI for the stated reasons.
But even so, your number (17) is more realistic given how many system apps have read permission on the contacts that can't be revoked sans rooting.
Since this question is really all about basic human decency, and since I'm well aware what everyone else but me does, the thread is really opened to learn more about contacts and to help teach why they're so dangerous.
There were people on the other thread who claimed they had complete control of their contacts, where this thread pretty much proves that a fallacy.
On 2026-02-12 01:03, Maria Sophia wrote:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
For you to insult our intelligence so openly and readily is
disconcerting.
Not insulting. But now you are insulting me by saying I insulted you.
Well, I apologize but what you did, in my humblest of opinions, was
affirm the idiocy of Alan Baker who claimed, after me saying so for
many years, that he finally figured out who I was on the XDA
developers web site.
If it take both of you five years to figure out that which was never
hidden, then you have no right to insult me like you did in your
response.
I could insult you, but I won't because my reason for posting to you
was to ask you to stop responding to Alan Baker's idiocy as if he's
making a claim that holds water.
He was intimating I was trolling by having a different moniker on a
different web site & you affirmed that idiocy, where both of you acted
like children.
I take offense when you act like a child when trying to insult me.
Since you're so desperate to insult me, at least have a cause by God.
Arlen, I was not even trying to insult you. I only commented on
something he said, which wasn't either insulting. You may not agree with him, you may have a past history with him, but he made a question and I replied, that's all.
Carlos E. R. wrote:
he made a question and I replied, that's all.
Hi Carlos,
Given both you and I have added tremendous value to the technical knowledge level of this newsgroup, and given you replied to Alan Baker, who has
not, allow me to only ask you this question since we need to stay on
topic here.
Q: What value has Alan Baker ever added to this Android ng in his life?
A: ?
Do not respond if you can't answer that question, since it's about you amplifying off-topic trolls, so it's not actually a simple question.
There's a reason I plonk Alan Baker, Snit, Joerg Lorenz and others.
My request to you is not to amplify their trolls so that we can stick to
the topic of this thread, which, clearly, is all about contact management.
Once you answer the question above about your amplification of trolls,
then I would like to ask you to explore your point of view on contacts.
In one of your rare on-topic posts in this thread, you said (verbatim):
"That a number of apps have read access to the contact list is
˙of no consequence at all. My privacy and that of my contacts is safe."
Staying on topic and ignoring your previous unwarranted trolling as water
Jeff Layman wrote:
Drat. It crashes every time. Can you (or someone also helpful)
test it for the team? It seems like a decent app to get the
"real" permissions.
I installed that Contacts app (Vayun Mather) but on running it
crashes for me too with an error message: "Contacts keeps
stopping".
Hi Jeff,
Thanks for adding on-topic technical value to the privacy
discussion.
Wow. I appreciate that you tested the app for the team. Most people
on Usenet aren't as helpful as you and I am in that respect. Much appreciated. Sorry it was a waste of your valuable time, but we
saved others' time.
Carlos E. R. wrote:
he made a question and I replied, that's all.
Hi Carlos,
Given both you and I have added tremendous value to the technical knowledge level of this newsgroup, and given you replied to Alan Baker, who has
not, allow me to only ask you this question since we need to stay on
topic here.
Q: What value has Alan Baker ever added to this Android ng in his life?
A: ?
Carlos E. R. wrote:
you do not decide who I answer or why or what I write. Not even what
is of value to others.
My request to you is not to amplify their trolls so that we can stick to
the topic of this thread, which, clearly, is all about contact management.
Once you answer the question above about your amplification of trolls,
then I would like to ask you to explore your point of view on contacts.
In one of your rare on-topic posts in this thread, you said (verbatim):
"That a number of apps have read access to the contact list is
˙of no consequence at all. My privacy and that of my contacts is safe."
Staying on topic and ignoring your previous unwarranted trolling as water under the Usenet bridge, I openly state that I agree with your first
sentence if you also append "to me" at the end (meaning, you don't care
about others' privacy - which is fine - as that's your prerogative).
But you not being respectful of other people's privacy does not equate to
you claiming, sans any evidence, that your "contacts are safe".
Since we don't need to disagree with your first sentence, as you don't have to give your friends and relatives any respect, the latter is an issue.
Q: Why do you think your "contacts are safe"?
A:
Do you even *know* what apps are uploading your contacts to the net?
On 2026-02-13 18:34, Maria Sophia wrote:[...]
That's your claim, and we do not accept it. We are all respectful of
other people privacy when using the Android contact app.
Frank Slootweg wrote:[Carlos' missing attribution.]
That's your claim, and we do not accept it. We are all respectful of
other people privacy when using the Android contact app.
I think it's rather disrespectful of 'Arlen' to put the names and
e-mail addresses of his contacts "on the cloud".
And no 'Arlen', this is not trolling, this is just exposing the inconsistency in your argument.
And yes 'Arlen', I've made this argument before and you ignored it and silently snipped it. We wonder why.
Hi Frank,
You are misrepresenting what I actually do with contacts.
I do not store my contacts in any public cloud service.
Yes, you do store the names and e-mail addresses of your contacts on a public service, you just don't realize it. The public service you use is
as liable to leaking contact information as the Google service you don't (want to) use. That's the inconsistency in your argument.
Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> writes:
Yes, you do store the names and e-mail addresses of your contacts on a public service, you just don't realize it. The public service you use is
as liable to leaking contact information as the Google service you don't (want to) use. That's the inconsistency in your argument.
That's not the way I read it. I read it as he doesn't use the contacts
app, he puts his contacts somewhere else, presumably somewhere which is
not stored or backed up to the cloud.
(Although Google Contacts are
encrypted in the cloud anyway, so it is only on the phone where apps
have permission to read them that it matters).
Richmond <dnomhcir@gmx.com> wrote:
Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> writes:
Yes, you do store the names and e-mail addresses of your contacts on a >> > public service, you just don't realize it. The public service you use is >> > as liable to leaking contact information as the Google service you don't >> > (want to) use. That's the inconsistency in your argument.
That's not the way I read it. I read it as he doesn't use the contacts
app, he puts his contacts somewhere else, presumably somewhere which is
not stored or backed up to the cloud.
I'm not commenting on what he says, but on what he does *not* say, but still *does*, without realizing it.
Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> writes:
Richmond <dnomhcir@gmx.com> wrote:
Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> writes:
Yes, you do store the names and e-mail addresses of your contacts on a >> > public service, you just don't realize it. The public service you use is >> > as liable to leaking contact information as the Google service you don't >> > (want to) use. That's the inconsistency in your argument.
That's not the way I read it. I read it as he doesn't use the contacts
app, he puts his contacts somewhere else, presumably somewhere which is
not stored or backed up to the cloud.
I'm not commenting on what he says, but on what he does *not* say, but still *does*, without realizing it.
OK, what is it he does without realising it, and how did you know about
it if he didn't?
And for the record, his veiled hint about "putting email addresses on the cloud" does not even land. I do not use a mail client on my phone at all.
The bottom line is simple, he cannot point to any inconsistency because
there is not one.
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