Ag no man ! Xiaomi is my fav android phone brand.
Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use
171–180 of 254 posts
Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
With some fleshing out, this is an excellent rendition of the { DRM, malware, spyware } evolutionary path, pretty close to what was described to me by RealNetworks back in the dotcom era. Need to add anti-reverse-engineering techniques - obfuscation, self-modifying code, custom and hard to reason about embedded VMs, etc. other than anti-debugger and test harness detection. I think earlier on.
I thought it went: DRM, spyware, then co-opted for malware by others.
Unfortunately I tend to think RM Stallman is right - smartphones are a prison with tracking enabled. We're all foolish to yield that much power to vendors.
Most software on the smartphones aren't under our control, we aren't able to stop them, disable them, inspect them, or see the source code.
I think we should undo everything done in the smartphone since 2008 and come up with a true open source smartphone.
Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use
#173For those more expert than I, is Apple any better in this regard? If not, which mobile is ideal?
> For those more expert than I, is Apple any better in this regard? Yes, and unequivocally so. Apple is not know to track browsing behavior, search terms, etc. Most of the data that your phone collects about you either remains in your phone (that’s why they’ve been shipping with NPUs for several years - they do A lot of machine learning in device rather than in-cloud) or is analyzed using differential privacy mechani…
You ignored iCloud though, which isn't E2E reencode and uploads personal photos, contacts, location and some other data to Apple. They can decrypt this data and regularly share it with the governments.
So your post is kinda misleading when you leave these details out - it creates a false sense of safety.
(And before someone complains: Yes, Apple is infinitely better at privacy than Xiaomi. We still shouldn't hide privacy risks though.)
Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use
#174Many comments here boil down to “if you want privacy, buy an iPhone.” While true, this is another exhibit of privacy now being only for people who can afford it.
>While true Is it? I never understood the reasoning. What makes you think Apple is better than Xiaomi/Samsung/Google/whatever?
As Apple & Samsung(an ally) falls in slow motion behind Huawei soon behind Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo - Chinese intelligence gets a strong advantage against US Intelligence in backdooring. So I think beyond the occasional bashing of Lenovo, Huawei, now Xiaomi we shall see more fight going on and same should be happening in Chinese press too.
- https://www.gsmarena.com/counterpoint_smartphone_sales_in_q1...
The draconian smartphone (as a a backdoor & tracking device) beloved by the intelligence officers are now an area of a bitter fight.
Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use
#175Xiaomi produces one of the best bang for your bucks hardware in the market. Their software is crap though. Ads in the system apps, ui customization that arguably looks worse than stock android, and now blanket tracking like this, though it was always pinging their tracking servers frequently. My pihole logs pretty much full with blocked xiaomi requests until I flashed the phone. Best thing to do when you got an andro…
Ha! As a Chinese myself, when I buying a new phone, the first thing I do is to Google whether or not the phone can load custom ROM.
Buying a phone that allows custom ROM is really beneficial. Not just it gives you more freedom and choose, it can also expand the lifespan of the device and thus save you a bit of money.
A side note: Fairphone looked quite nice, but that €450 price tag pushed me out far far away :(
Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Problem is lately many banking app required you to use non-root phone, at least in my country. There used to be workaround, but it is not work anymore. I have Redmi phone and I hates it as soon as I found that there is ads in their rom. It's so disappointing. I mean, other Chinese brand have their own crapware yes, but ads? I then flash my phone to pure Pixel rom and never been happier, until the bank app incident ha…
Actually, I installed LineageOS but skip installing root binary (it's an optional step when flashing LineageOS) as I don't need root anymore. Without root I can still use my banking app because Google safetynet is passing on my phone.
I use LinageOS myself but I would never use a smartphone for anything related to personal finance.
Without an extensive research project there is no telling what's going on under the hood imho.
Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use
#177How does Windows 10 compare? It also tracks and reports which websites you visit, but maybe it doesn't in private browsing mode? Edit: People asking for sources, go to Settings -> Diagnostics & Feedback. See the part where it says "Send ... info about websites you browse"? You might also be interested in the setting below it; when you enable it "Microsoft will collect samples of the content you type"[1]. [1] https://…
Citation needed. The device telemetry does not include browsing history.
Citation needed. Microsoft's documentation says it includes "information about the websites you browse".
It also says that "data items collected in Windows diagnostics are subject to change to give Microsoft flexibility to collect the data needed", so even if they aren't collecting that data today, they reserve the right to take whatever they want whenever they feel like it.
Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why, without fail, I buy iPhones.
And then you can't install anything Apple doesn't want you to install. I like being able to run gameboy emulators on my phone for games I already paid 20 years ago, change my launcher/dialer, browser, etc.
Luckily my interests and Apple's interests are aligned in that regard. I already waste enough time on my phone every day without having gameboy emulators and spending time (too much time, if my teenage years are any indication) customizing the OS.
Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Checkm8 is a tethered exploit, so probably not super useful if you want to sideload another OS and not have a bad time.
I remember back in the days of the iPhone 3G(s?) there was an attempt at a battery-powered dongle that could re-jailbreak a phone in the field in case of a reboot. The same technology could be built into a battery case or similar, not to mention recent technological advances mean it can be done in a small package the size of a Lightning connector or a Yubikey and you can carry it on your keyring.
Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use
#180Just wait till they: - start encrypting all the data they collect (with real encryption, not base64 encoding) - saving up the data for hours or days at time and sending it in bursts (so there is no immediate connection to a remote server) - sending the data to plausible U.S.-registered domains (rather than to Singapore and Russia) - monitoring at the kernel or firmware level so that it doesn't matter what browser or…
You can still open the firmware update file in ghidra, cutter or ida pro. But yeah the trend is troubling. I also believe that it's only a matter of time once the "smart" devices (fridges, TVs, etc) start shipping with 5G modules enabled that send data to the mothership whether you set up WiFi for them or not. Because while you can't buy non-smart TVs, many users don't enable smart features by not connecting them to…
Until the chip prevents copying out the firmware…