Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Motorola cell phones are regularly phoning home

beneaththewaves.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 117 posts

Re: Motorola cell phones are regularly phoning home

#11

Post by javert »

[deleted] wrote: post #7

[deleted]

> Fortunately, I already removed most of those apps when I first got the phone (it was loaded with enough bloatware),

Lucky you. I can't remove, for example, my NFL application (which came installed by default), without rooting the phone. I do enough Linux stuff everyday that I really don't want to bother with it on my phone.

Honestly, this kind of stuff makes me want to get as far away from engineering as possible. I simply do not want to make complete shit and sell it to people for a living. I'm very thankful that Steve Jobs showed us that there are still people who want to make beautiful products.

Re: Motorola cell phones are regularly phoning home

#12

Post by soundgecko »

javert wrote: post #8
cmircea wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you DO have something to hide? Company secrets can be very, very valuable for someone.

Use encryption all the time, and don't use any Microsoft products. All companies that have valuable secrets should already have this policy in place.

Any Microsoft product? They shouldn't use any Google product by the same token.

Report: Android malware up 614% as smartphone scams go industrial http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/26/android_malware_bloo...

From http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee...

In at least four cases, Barksdale spied on minors' Google accounts without their consent, according to a source close to the incidents. In an incident this spring involving a 15-year-old boy who he'd befriended, Barksdale tapped into call logs from Google Voice, Google's Internet phone service, after the boy refused to tell him the name of his new girlfriend, according to our source. After accessing the kid's account to retrieve her name and phone number, Barksdale then taunted the boy and threatened to call her.

In other cases involving teens of both sexes, Barksdale exhibited a similar pattern of aggressively violating others' privacy, according to our source. He accessed contact lists and chat transcripts, and in one case quoted from an IM that he'd looked up behind the person's back. (He later apologized to one for retrieving the information without her knowledge.) In another incident, Barksdale unblocked himself from a Gtalk buddy list even though the teen in question had taken steps to cut communications with the Google engineer.

Re: Motorola cell phones are regularly phoning home

#13

Post by antoncohen »

I noticed that my Droid 4 running 4.1.2 was opening an XMPP connection to Motorola servers a month ago. I was watching the logs trying to diagnose another problem, and the XMPP connection happened to be failing at the time. The XMPP connection is no longer failing.

    D/CheckinProvider(  507): insertEvents Process tag not allowed: XMPPConnection
    I/XMPPConnection(  772): Preparing to connect user XXXXXXXXXXX to service:
        jabber1.cloud2.sdc100.blurdev.com on host: jabber-cloud2-sdc100.blurdev.com and port: 5222
    E/PacketReader(  772): 	at org.jivesoftware.smack.PacketReader.parseXMPPPacket(PacketReader.java:503)
    D/CheckinProvider(  507): insertEvents Process tag not allowed: XMPPConnection
    I/XMPPConnection(  772): Shutting down connection for user XXXXXXXXXXX to host jabber-cloud2-sdc100.blurdev.com
    W/System.err(  772): 	at org.jivesoftware.smack.PacketReader.parseXMPPPacket(PacketReader.java:503)
    E/XMPPConnectionManager(  772): Failed to connect user 'XXXXXXXXXXX' to host 
        'jabber-cloud2-sdc100.blurdev.com on port 5222: Connection failed. No response from server.:

Re: Motorola cell phones are regularly phoning home

#14

Post by javert »

soundgecko wrote: post #12
javert wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use encryption all the time, and don't use any Microsoft products. All companies that have valuable secrets should already have this policy in place.

Any Microsoft product? They shouldn't use any Google product by the same token. Report: Android malware up 614% as smartphone scams go industrial http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/26/android_malware_bloo... From http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee... In at least four cases, Barksdale spied on minors' Google accounts without their consent, according to a source close to the incidents. In an…

I completely agree. If you want to keep something secret, do not use Google products.

I don't recommend taking the time, but if you were to trawl through all my posts on Hacker News, you'd find that I've said this about Google several times in the past, before the breaking of the NSA scandal.

Re: Motorola cell phones are regularly phoning home

#15

Post by corresation »

cmircea wrote: post #4
speeder wrote: post #3

Since lots of this data is sent through not encrypted HTTP, this means that NSA (and any other intelligence agency) can also get all this data... Then people wonder the "nothing to hide" well, you might not, but will everyone you know be bothered you are sending their e-mails around to intelligence agencies?

What if you DO have something to hide? Company secrets can be very, very valuable for someone.

This is where modern intelligence is going. We know that one of the most common targets of Chinese intelligence gathering now is industrial espionage -- stealing trade secrets. I hardly think China is alone in this, and if the NSA or anyone else can get a heads-up that advantages US firms against Chinese, Canadian, or EU firms, you can bet your ass that is going to be communicated to the necessary people.

From a "hacker" perspective, even metadata on the key employees of a corporation is incredibly valuable -- imagine knowing with what firms a company is communicating, giving inside lines of investment-impacting activities like acquisitions. This is enormously valuable stuff.

Re: Motorola cell phones are regularly phoning home

#17

Post by lawnchair_larry »

javert wrote: post #10

Wait, am I understanding correctly that your Facebook password (for example) is being shared with Motorola?

Yes, they're taking all of your logins and passwords, including your Google account, and their back end servers are even occasionally logging in with them.

"Also interestingly, while testing Picasa and/or Youtube integration, Motorola's methods of authenticating actually tripped Google's suspicious activity alarm. Looking up the source IP in ARIN confirmed the connection was coming from Motorola."

Re: Motorola cell phones are regularly phoning home

#18

Post by lawnchair_larry »

speeder wrote: post #3

Since lots of this data is sent through not encrypted HTTP, this means that NSA (and any other intelligence agency) can also get all this data... Then people wonder the "nothing to hide" well, you might not, but will everyone you know be bothered you are sending their e-mails around to intelligence agencies?

Who cares about the NSA when all of your logins and passwords are literally being stolen and are sitting on Motorola servers in plaintext. This is extremely egregious, and I'm expecting there will be some major fines from the FCC. How can they be this dumb?

I guess since Google bought them, this is their disaster now.

Re: Motorola cell phones are regularly phoning home

#19

Post by benedikt »

antoncohen wrote: post #13

I noticed that my Droid 4 running 4.1.2 was opening an XMPP connection to Motorola servers a month ago. I was watching the logs trying to diagnose another problem, and the XMPP connection happened to be failing at the time. The XMPP connection is no longer failing. D/CheckinProvider( 507): insertEvents Process tag not allowed: XMPPConnection I/XMPPConnection( 772): Preparing to connect user XXXXXXXXXXX to service: ja…

What logs were this?
Post reply on HN