Read this as "Chinese people come preloaded with spyware". Was disappointed when my brain debugged it's sensory input.
Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware
11–20 of 45 posts
Re: Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware
#12How are we doing for FOSS cell phones again?
Re: Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware
#13The NSA deliberately weakened crypto keys/code. How is that any different?
Re: Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware
#14Of course, if you buy an iPhone in Europe, and you want to use it any significant manner, you're getting spied on by US agencies as well: - GPS: the wifi and celltower db queries that optimize the service are transferred into a foreign country. - use Siri: uploads your whole address book to US servers before use - use iCloud tabs: every URL you visit it uploaded to Apple's US servers - turn on the only cloud backup s…
This is just speculation, although possible. Whereas if you buy an Android phone in Europe, you know for certain that your data and behavior are being examined by Google, and are available to US agencies.
That also is just speculation, although possible.
Re: Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware
#15I wouldn't try to minimize this issue - it's terrible that the Chinese are trying to fit spyware into unbranded phones like this. Perhaps the bright side here is that when the Chinese do try to commit electronic espionage, they're pretty clumsy about it. BUT... Given the way smartphones everywhere are made - China and elsewhere - it's impossible for even technical users to know that their phones aren't spying on them…
False. The software running on your Android phone's application processor is not open source. A significant fraction of it is based on a closed source fork of AOSP. The rest (both the Google Mobile Services layer, and the manufacturers customizations) are all closed source and have never been open.
On top of that, there are baseband firmware which runs a realtime OS, which is completely closed source.
Re: Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware
#16Of course, if you buy an iPhone in Europe, and you want to use it any significant manner, you're getting spied on by US agencies as well: - GPS: the wifi and celltower db queries that optimize the service are transferred into a foreign country. - use Siri: uploads your whole address book to US servers before use - use iCloud tabs: every URL you visit it uploaded to Apple's US servers - turn on the only cloud backup s…
- GSM/CDMA: location and communications peers can be tracked neatly, over time, forever, in a manner that can be used to easily determine social interactions even based on proximity. Data very frequently extracted from your carrier for 'outsourced billing' purposes to Mossad/NSA via http://amdocs.com/
Re: Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware
#17I'm currently using an offbrand Chinese Android phone, so this news has made me very very nervous.
Re: Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware
#18Am I the only one to find this article really thin ?
Where is the disassembled code ? To whom the public key that signed the software belongs too ?
Which server it sends the info to exactly ?
If you start to get as paranoid as the entire forum is at the moment accusing blindly Apple, Google, Qualcomm etc. Why nobody asks for a simple piece of evidence for anything ? This could really be a cheap manipulation ...
Edit: grammar
Re: Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware
#19The NSA deliberately weakened crypto keys/code. How is that any different?
Even if it were the same, it would still be news.
Re: Report: Chinese phone comes preloaded with spyware
#20Of course, if you buy an iPhone in Europe, and you want to use it any significant manner, you're getting spied on by US agencies as well: - GPS: the wifi and celltower db queries that optimize the service are transferred into a foreign country. - use Siri: uploads your whole address book to US servers before use - use iCloud tabs: every URL you visit it uploaded to Apple's US servers - turn on the only cloud backup s…
These are cases of making trade-offs for capability, not outright malware. And why limit it to the iPhone? Do you honestly believe Google is capturing less information?