131–140 of 500 posts
Samsung Phone on Australia, it was present on my device also. So not just West Asia and Africa. I was able to disable it but not remove it, unclear if it will re-enable itself. It had sent about 35mb of data since March 1st, and was enabled as a background service.
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You can default to a hardened, secure setup but provide an option to override to those who want to. I don't think anyone is against secure defaults, but many people have a problem with designs that say you must not even have an option to override.
It creates a Hobson's choice of no tinkering and less malware, or tinkering and greater risks from malware. There should be a "maintenance mode", but the onus of responsibility for breakage should be on the user for system update compatibility without the user being held hostage. This is a false choice and ostensible customizability. If the manufacturer wants to add an "OS warranty void sticker" flag because things m…
Isn’t this just a second device? How can you hold a manufacturer liable if the user was given unsupervised time as root?
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In favor of what? The Android ecosystem is pretty lousy. Which manufacturers allow you to easily migrate to a new phone (Samsung has Smart Switch) and have, let's say, 4+ years of security updates? Genuine question. In my case I also wanted an SD card slot so it was slim slim pickings indeed. (And still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress!)
LG back in the day. I miss my V20. What a weird, but wonderful phone.
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We need regulation which defines that any hardware device capable of running software developed by a third party different from the hardware manufacturer qualifies as a general purpose computing device, and that any such device is disallowed to put cryptographic or other restrictions on what software the user wants to execute. This pertains to all programmable components on the device, including low-level hardware co…
> any such device is disallowed to put cryptographic or other restrictions on what software the user wants to execute Won't this also forbid virus scanners that quarantine files? > This pertains to all programmable components on the device, including low-level hardware controllers. I don't think it's reasonable to expect any manufacturer to uphold a warranty if making unlimited changes to the system is permitted.
There might be a couple messy edge cases if applied at the software level but I think it would work well.
Applied at the hardware level it would be very clear cut. It would simply outlaw technical measures taken to prevent the user from installing an arbitrary OS on the device.
Regarding warranties, what's so difficult about flashing a stock image to a device being serviced? At least in the US wasn't this already settled long ago by Magnuson-Moss? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...
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> Seriously, you never had to provide tech support to a parent, relative, or friend whose computer got totally fraked because they had root? I accept this metric. It means non-rooted devices are unsafe. I'm career IT support. In the entire age of smartphones, 100% of the malware/crapware I've seen was on non-rooted devices - most of it pushed on users by manufacturers, carriers and OS devs.
Same here. It's manufacturers and software vendors such as Google and Microsoft that we need to most guard against.
Fully agree wirh your second paragraph, I've only seen viruses on non-rooted devices and I've never had a virus on any of the many rooted phones I've owned over the years.
Sure there are viruses and they can be troublesome but when you look below the surface much of the hype about locking down one's devices comes from manufacturers and software vendors, Google, MS et al, who benefit financially from not allowing users to control what runs on their phones.
It's not only phones, what Microsoft has done with TPM and Windows 11 and the deliberate obsoleting of millions of perfectly good PCs/forcing users to buy new hardware when it's unwarranted is simply outrageous.
Microsoft ought to be sued for committing environmental vandalism. …And that's just for starters.
making it nearly impossible for regular users to uninstall it without root access, which voids warranties and poses security risks Stop parroting the corporate propaganda that put us into this stupid situation in the first place. Having root access on devices you own should be a fundamental right, as otherwise it's not ownership.
How is the security risk propaganda?
I own a $50 Android tablet just for the required certificates to run DUO for work and other than that just use a UMPC with a modem card and VOIP for everything.
making it nearly impossible for regular users to uninstall it without root access, which voids warranties and poses security risks Stop parroting the corporate propaganda that put us into this stupid situation in the first place. Having root access on devices you own should be a fundamental right, as otherwise it's not ownership.
We need regulation which defines that any hardware device capable of running software developed by a third party different from the hardware manufacturer qualifies as a general purpose computing device, and that any such device is disallowed to put cryptographic or other restrictions on what software the user wants to execute. This pertains to all programmable components on the device, including low-level hardware co…
1. Devices should be allowed to display a different logo at boot time depending on whether the software is manufacturer-approved or not. That way, if somebody sells you an used device with a flashed firmware that steals all your financial data, you have a way to know.
2. Going from approved to unapproved firmware should result in a full device wipe, Chromebook style. Possibly with a three-day cooldown. Those aren't too much of an obstacle for a true tinkerer who knows what they're doing, but they make it harder to social engineer people into installing a firmware of the attackers' choosing.
3. Users should have the ability to opt themselves into cryptographic protection, either on the original or modified firmware, for anti-theft reasons. Otherwise, devices become extremely attractive to steal.
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Or just don't get Samsung? I guess I don't know for sure that my phone brand doesn't do anything similar, but it at least hasn't hit the news yet.
> AppCloud—pre-installed on Samsung’s A and M series smartphones. Samsung’s A and M series smartphones are their cheapest models so their buyers probably cannot afford better phones. I don’t know of any other brands selling in the region with similarly priced models that have better privacy practices than Samsung either—they’re all the same at that price point I’m afraid.
If you're in the middle east, I'm sure you'd rather be spied on by China.
Do you imagine that shit? You're a nuclear scientist, working on a program for generating electricity, your country is open to being audited and complies with the restrictions and has no weapon's program, one day you come home and then a fucking rocket comes right inside your appartment and kils you and your whole family.
Ain't that a bitch? I get Khamas was hiding there too... And since they have all that precise rockets that can take a single appartment down, why did they reduce Gaza to rubble?
The ramifications of this make me sick: evil not only wins but also writes history... And yeah the midwits here will unironically look you in the eye and explain how killing children is ok because of this of that... You being able to explain horrors doesn't make you smart or pragmatic, it makes you have no self respect and makes your personal boundaries weak, and the same mind that finds arguments to cope with the horror his tax money funds will find arguments to cope with a lot more until it's his turn on the grinder and by then it'll be too late.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We need regulation which defines that any hardware device capable of running software developed by a third party different from the hardware manufacturer qualifies as a general purpose computing device, and that any such device is disallowed to put cryptographic or other restrictions on what software the user wants to execute. This pertains to all programmable components on the device, including low-level hardware co…
> any such device is disallowed to put cryptographic or other restrictions on what software the user wants to execute Won't this also forbid virus scanners that quarantine files? > This pertains to all programmable components on the device, including low-level hardware controllers. I don't think it's reasonable to expect any manufacturer to uphold a warranty if making unlimited changes to the system is permitted.
Yes. If I really _want_ to execute malware on my device, I should be allowed to do so by disabling the antivirus or disregarding a warning.
> I don't think it's reasonable to expect any manufacturer to uphold a warranty if making unlimited changes to the system is permitted
It is very reasonable and already the rule of law in "sane" jurisdictions, that manufacturer and mandated warranties are not touched by unrelated, reversable modifications to both hard- and software.