Privacy-focused bitcoin wallet Samourai is having its hand forced by Google.According to a Samourai blog post, the wallet provider is disabling privacy features that are key to its design before its latest version, 0.99.4, hits the Google Play store tomorrow. The removed features include Samourai’s Stealth Mode, remote text message (SMS) commands, and SIM Switch Defense (a measure to protect against sim swaps).The privacy restrictions only affect the version of the wallet available on Google Play. To bypass these restrictions, users can also download what Samourai calls the “non-nerfed version” of the wallet client’s latest version directly from the project’s Github. Down the road, the team also hopes to get the wallet, privacy features fully-enabled, listed on F-Droid and other alternative, open-source app stores, as well.“In October, Google announced changes to their policies regarding SMS and Dialer permissions that apps are allowed to use. The way that our Stealth Mode, Remote SMS commands, and SIM Switch Defense work require use of these permissions,” a Samourai Wallet representative told Bitcoin Magazine in an email correspondence.Samourai proceeded to file for an exemption, but they were notified of their exemption’s rejection just “a few days ago,” according to the representative.“Unfortunately, they didn't tell us anything specifically, we learned of everything through automated emails tha...
