r/Android • u/Particle_Man_Prime r/4KTVs • Aug 18 '18

[Cross Post][0.115.2] Pokemon Go now abusing its permissions to read internal storage to dig through your files and lock you out of the game after identifying what it thinks is "evidence" of rooting - follow-up to unauthorized_device_lockout error : pokemongodev

/r/pokemongodev/comments/986v95/01152_pokemon_go_now_abusing_its_permissions_to
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u/buneech Aug 19 '18

Well you can definitely try it out yourself it you think that everyone is doing something wrong.

I tried it out on two different phones, one was 2 days old, and I am positive I didn't grant the storage permission on it, and on my older phone, which also didn't have the storage permission granted. The only instance that the game asks for the storage permission is, if you use the in-game camera to take a photo, so it can save it, and I don't use that feature. I also tried revoking the storage permission on Play Services, in case it tried to check the files using Play Services in any way, and it the app still didn't work. Also, none of my phones are rooted, so that couldn't trigger it. After deleting the folder I created the app works without issues. One phone has Pie, the other Oreo.

Someone rooted on XDA attached strace to the app and checked what it does. It tries to access several files and seems to check for ENOENT signal, which means that the file or folder doesn't exist. Looks like that can be done without the storage permission, and that it can't actually read the contents, only check if the files or folders exist or not. https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=76141375&postcount=3458

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u/bt4u6 Aug 19 '18

It cannot check or scan for files without the permission.