[aerogear-dev] Storing the payload of the push notification

Fri Feb 6 05:54:18 EST 2015

On 2015-02-05, Matthias Wessendorf wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 10:51 PM, Sebastien Blanc <scm.blanc at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 9:57 PM, Summers Pittman <supittma at redhat.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>  On 02/05/2015 02:24 PM, Matthias Wessendorf wrote:
> >>
> >> While working on the doc for AGPUSH-1258, I found this in Apple's "iOS
> >> Developer Program License Agreement":
> >>
> >>  ...
> >> Further, as a condition to using the APN, You agree not to transmit
> >> sensitive personal or confidential information belonging to an individual
> >> (e.g. a social security number, financial account or transactional
> >> information, or any information where the individual may have a reasonable
> >> expectation of secure transmission) as part of any Push Notification, and
> >> You agree to comply with any applicable notice or consent requirements with
> >> respect to any collection, transmission, maintenance, processing or use of
> >> an end user’s personal information.
> >>  ...
> >>
> >>  That means, if an app-developer sends something like "Your blood
> >> donation appointment is tomorrow" to a user of his mobile app, the
> >> app-developer is breaking the Apple terms _and_ the law in a lot of
> >> countries (at least in all EU countries) :-)
> >>
> >> What we have to remember is that large amounts of information in
> >> aggregate can become personally identifying even if any individual message
> >> is not.  So the law in this case doesn't help since it is only the data in
> >> context which becomes personally identifying or protected.
> >>
> > Good point.
> >
> >>
> >> I don't think anyone is advocating for sending sensitive information via
> >> push, but what we are advocating is not putting a big target on our (or our
> >> user's) backs out of the gate by storing all of the messages by default.
> >>
> > Only the alert is stored (PR has been merged) . But, and this is just an
> > idea that just popped  out, couldn't we encrypt the value of the alert that
> > is stored? It could be by default or a config thingy ...
> >
>
> yes, I am totally fine it making this a configurable option, which needs to
> be enabled, for safety reasons. Those that want it, need to enabled it.
>
> I will work on the JIRA tickets for this, if we are all cool with this.

So the decision of storing messages is up to the admin?

>
>
> Greetings,
> Matthias
>
>
>
> >
> >>
> >
> >>  BTW. for Google I don't seem to find a similar paragraph, but IMO they
> >> are not that thoughtful on privacy terms (compared to Apple).
> >>
> >>
> >>  Now, for our UPS guide (or documentation), I will add a few sentences
> >> to make it clear that our app-developers should NEVER submit sensitive
> >> personal or confidential information with a push.
> >>
> >>  Regarding a "Privacy Policy", I will also make clear what data of the
> >> push we store, for analytic reasons.
> >>
> >>  You'll see a PR during my Friday.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>  Greetings,
> >> Matthias
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 2:53 PM, Matthias Wessendorf <matzew at apache.org>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I have created AGPUSH-1257 and AGPUSH-1258
> >>>
> >>> On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 3:22 PM, Matthias Wessendorf <matzew at apache.org>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>  Hi,
> >>>>
> >>>> earlier this week there was some discussion about storing the payload
> >>>> of the push notifications ([1]).
> >>>>
> >>>> Right now, we store some metrics (e.g. client that send the push,
> >>>> number of devices, deliveryStatus etc) *and* the entire content of
> >>>> push notification. This includes custom key/value pairs, the name of the
> >>>> sound file or even the size of the badge.
> >>>>
> >>>> Is all of that, storing the entire push notification payload really
> >>>> needed? *No!*
> >>>>
> >>>> What do we need, and why?
> >>>>
> >>>> For counting the number of sent pushes (over time), the metrics are
> >>>> good enough. We do *NOT* need any of the push content for that, that's
> >>>> correct!
> >>>>
> >>>> But we want to do more on the 1.1.0 release. We want to introduce some
> >>>> analytic features, to give our app developers (our users) a better
> >>>> understanding of their push usage (see [2]).
> >>>>
> >>>> In order to see details on how successful a push was (or not), we need
> >>>> to only store the value of the alert key:
> >>>> https://aerogear.org/docs/unifiedpush/aerogear-push-ios/img/PushMessage.png
> >>>>
> >>>> Ok, let's change that (see [3])!
> >>>>
> >>>> For our app developers, using the UPS to reach out to their mobile app
> >>>> users ("user engagement"), it's important to understand which push was more
> >>>> successful:
> >>>>
> >>>>    - "Get 10% discount today" (sent on a Monday)
> >>>>    - "Our shop got new site, check it out and get 5% discount" (sent
> >>>>    on a Friday)
> >>>>
> >>>> With the upcoming analytics we can help them to improve usage of their
> >>>> app. User interaction is very important to a successful mobile application
> >>>> and push is a key driver here! Our app developers want an app that is
> >>>> actively used by their users (Nobody wants his app sitting on the last page
> >>>> of the device or, even worse, in a folder together with Apple-Maps).
> >>>> Therefore it's critical for our app developers to understand the relevance
> >>>> of their push messages sent and how it impacts the usage of their app.
> >>>> That's why we do the analytics described in [2]. And, yes - only the alert,
> >>>> not the entire payload is needed for that.
> >>>>  <https://gist.github.com/matzew/b6459083f39394a892c5#privacy>Privacy
> >>>>
> >>>> On the mentioned PR there was also some discussion about privacy
> >>>> violations and stuff, when we store the content of the notification. An
> >>>> example where *sensitive* data was sent over push was given. Something
> >>>> like: "Dear Mr. Joe, your blood donation appointment was scheduled for 3
> >>>> p.m"
> >>>>
> >>>>    1. This is not how push notifications are used for mobile apps.
> >>>>    Push is to signal, not carry actual (sensitive) data around.
> >>>>    2. In a lot of countries, at least almost all European countries,
> >>>>    you are not even allowed, by EU law, to give "data" to 3rd party providers
> >>>>    (like the push-networks of Microsoft, Apple or Google).
> >>>>
> >>>> How does the actual (sensitive) data come to an app?
> >>>>
> >>>> As said above a push is used to signal/ping an app, to indicate that
> >>>> there is real data for the mobile app user. In the background the mobile
> >>>> app tries to connect to the backend of the company, running/maintaining the
> >>>> mobile app. After the real data was fetched, "local notifcations" are used
> >>>> to give the user a visible notification, like "Dear Mr. Joe, your blood
> >>>> donation appointment was scheduled for 3 p.m", or simply "New appointment
> >>>> scheduled".
> >>>>
> >>>> If the app was a chat system (and not a blood donation app from the Red
> >>>> Cross), it would be the same: After a signal, the app connects to "chat
> >>>> server" and receives the actual chat message from there. A reply would go
> >>>> over the same "chat server" connection. None of this would go over a 3rd
> >>>> party push network provider like Google, Microsoft or Apple.
> >>>>
> >>>> What would we store from these silent notifications?
> >>>>
> >>>> Nothing, since there is no alert, we would just store the metrics (e.g.
> >>>> client that send the push, number of devices, deliveryStatus etc). If the
> >>>> signaling is actually done with an alert (e.g. alert:"you got a new Chat
> >>>> text" or "New appointment scheduled"), we would store that.
> >>>>
> >>>> I hope this helps a bit to understand what is stored and also why we do
> >>>> need a little bit of information.
> >>>>
> >>>> BTW. our documentation already says that push is used for signaling,
> >>>> not carrying actual data around, but based on this email I will update it
> >>>> to have explicit information on best practices. Also, the documentation
> >>>> will be clear about what (the alert only) is stored by the UPS, and why.
> >>>> (see [4])
> >>>>
> >>>> Greetings,
> >>>>
> >>>> Matthias
> >>>>
> >>>>    - [1]
> >>>>    https://github.com/aerogear/aerogear-unifiedpush-server/pull/478
> >>>>    - [2] https://issues.jboss.org/browse/AGPUSH-971
> >>>>    - [3] JIRA TO CREATE: to only store ALERT and not the full payload
> >>>>    - [4] JIRA TO CREATE: update doc regarding push message storage and
> >>>>    best practices
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>  --
> >>>> Matthias Wessendorf
> >>>>
> >>>> blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
> >>>> sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
> >>>> twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>  --
> >>> Matthias Wessendorf
> >>>
> >>> blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
> >>> sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
> >>> twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>  --
> >> Matthias Wessendorf
> >>
> >> blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
> >> sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
> >> twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Summers Pittman
> >> >>Phone:404 941 4698
> >> >>Java is my crack.
> >>
> >>
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> >> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev
> >>
> >
> >
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>
>
>
> --
> Matthias Wessendorf
>
> blog: http://matthiaswessendorf.wordpress.com/
> sessions: http://www.slideshare.net/mwessendorf
> twitter: http://twitter.com/mwessendorf

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