If you care deeply about the privacy of you data, don't hand your data on a physical device to anyone.
Samsung’s “repair mode” lets technicians look at your phone, not your data
51–60 of 94 posts
Re: Samsung’s “repair mode” lets technicians look at your phone, not your data
#52Companies (apple included) can invest all they want in features and press releases claiming that said features are to ensure customer privacy but - unless these features are open sourced and subject to public and recurrent scrutiny - it is just faith that they expect from customers. If you care deeply about the privacy of you data, don't hand your data on a physical device to anyone.
Re: Samsung’s “repair mode” lets technicians look at your phone, not your data
#53Companies (apple included) can invest all they want in features and press releases claiming that said features are to ensure customer privacy but - unless these features are open sourced and subject to public and recurrent scrutiny - it is just faith that they expect from customers. If you care deeply about the privacy of you data, don't hand your data on a physical device to anyone.
Re: Samsung’s “repair mode” lets technicians look at your phone, not your data
#54Companies (apple included) can invest all they want in features and press releases claiming that said features are to ensure customer privacy but - unless these features are open sourced and subject to public and recurrent scrutiny - it is just faith that they expect from customers. If you care deeply about the privacy of you data, don't hand your data on a physical device to anyone.
Something is better than nothing. And the smoke and mirrors can still help. I agree OSS would be better, but I'll take what I can get. Even if that is just a moving ecosystem.
Re: Samsung’s “repair mode” lets technicians look at your phone, not your data
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s also bs. The promise is only as good as the maker and the technology. Has it been vetted? Are there independent evaluations? Is Samsung willing accept any liabilities in the event of failure? All hype, no substance. Delete your data (with no way of verifying) and restore it on return.
What would make you feel it's sufficiently vetted?
Re: Samsung’s “repair mode” lets technicians look at your phone, not your data
#56Curious, why does Samsung need to have Phone booted up for battery repair? I recently had a battery replacement done for my iPhone and I had similar concerns if I need to give them Phone unlocked, but they asked me to turn off Phone. That is what I expect from battery repair!
You want to turn it back on to validate everything is working right and it’s all plugged in correct. You also want to validate you didn’t break anything else while attempting the repair
Re: Samsung’s “repair mode” lets technicians look at your phone, not your data
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would make you feel it's sufficiently vetted?
You didn't ask me, but my input is that the two most obvious to me are: open source, so the effort can be vetted in good faith--or a insured guarante, so the consequences can be abated
If it does anything to add privacy it’s a good thing, even if it can be sidestepped, it’s a good thing.
Just because a lock is easily broken that doesn’t make it useless, it can still act as a deterrent for opportunistic crimes.
One time I took a bike to festival. The first few days I was locking it up safely with a bike lock and chain, as I’m used to doing in the city. Eventually I decided to just use some rope to tie it to the rack with a basic square knot. I would always half expect to come back and it would be gone, but I rode that bike home from the festival.
Even if the software is open source and provably secure (hahaha) you should probably assume that there is a way for a MOTIVATED actor to extract data from your internet connected device that THEY have possession of! Moral of the story is be smart and/or don’t put stuff on your phone you don’t want other people to see.
Re: Samsung’s “repair mode” lets technicians look at your phone, not your data
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn't ask me, but my input is that the two most obvious to me are: open source, so the effort can be vetted in good faith--or a insured guarante, so the consequences can be abated
Tl;dr some security is better than none If it does anything to add privacy it’s a good thing, even if it can be sidestepped, it’s a good thing. Just because a lock is easily broken that doesn’t make it useless, it can still act as a deterrent for opportunistic crimes. One time I took a bike to festival. The first few days I was locking it up safely with a bike lock and chain, as I’m used to doing in the city. Eventua…
That said, I agree something is better than nothing, but if they want praise from a more technical audience (hacker news for this example) they're gonna need to do more than tie the proverbial square knot.
Re: Samsung’s “repair mode” lets technicians look at your phone, not your data
#59Curious, why does Samsung need to have Phone booted up for battery repair? I recently had a battery replacement done for my iPhone and I had similar concerns if I need to give them Phone unlocked, but they asked me to turn off Phone. That is what I expect from battery repair!
You want to turn it back on to validate everything is working right and it’s all plugged in correct. You also want to validate you didn’t break anything else while attempting the repair
Diagnosis software is built into iPhone so I can put a trust on it that it ain't sharing private data to the store employees.
Similarly they ran a diagnosis again at the end of repair. They did boot up the phone my themselves and ran it. Looks like they can run diagnosis on locked Phone.
This is overall much better than asking to unlock Phone.
Re: Samsung’s “repair mode” lets technicians look at your phone, not your data
#60Curious, why does Samsung need to have Phone booted up for battery repair? I recently had a battery replacement done for my iPhone and I had similar concerns if I need to give them Phone unlocked, but they asked me to turn off Phone. That is what I expect from battery repair!
When I had my iPhone battery changed, they explicitly said it should be unlocked and / or I should give them the code. So I went through the trouble of backing everything up, wiping the phone clean, and then reinstalling everything when I got it back. If there was some kind of "status debug port" or whatever, the technicians could've done the various checks the sibling talks about without needing full control of my p…
This is how my repair went through. At no point they asked for my passcode or to unlock Phone.