> Our global map of ant abundance expands our understanding of the geography of ant diversity and provides a baseline for predicting ants’ responses to worrying environmental changes that currently impact insect biomass.
Would it be possible to see that map without shelling out the $10? The people need to know!!!
1. In order to achieve this functionality, the app explicitly requires permission to receive SMS [1] [2]
2. I agree that the general population likely isn't fully aware of the implications of granting permissions for such things. Having said that, I think that privacy/security/transparency is one of the things constantly being worked on with subsequent Android OS updates [3] [4], and I think that things are getting better.
Personally, I don't grant access to sensors like microphone/camera/location to apps that I don't want using them (most apps), and I think people should be aware of potential hazards here. Then again, people are openly inviting Amazon Alexa and Google Home into their homes ...
On the other hand, as a developer I like having the ability to build this, for me, and potentially for others who find use for what I wrote, with full transparency/visibility into the source.
I tried doing something like this, but it didn't work for Bank of America, as their minimum alert level is $100.
When I lived in Slovenia, I could set SMS alerts from my bank there (UniCredit). I wrote an Android app [1] that intercepted those SMS messages and parsed out the relevant bits. Those were the days...
https://www.barneyhill.com/pages/emoji/index.html