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Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

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21–30 of 299 posts

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#21
I used to work for a carrier and yes, there are some settings that can be changed. If your phone is locked to a carrier it can even hot-replace applications without you noticing (useful for embedded carrier applications that donwload a full APK when you open the one installed in the device by default)

I believe these varies by country, since this was done for a limited set of countries my Company sas operating on

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#22

I used to work for a carrier and yes, there are some settings that can be changed. If your phone is locked to a carrier it can even hot-replace applications without you noticing (useful for embedded carrier applications that donwload a full APK when you open the one installed in the device by default) I believe these varies by country, since this was done for a limited set of countries my Company sas operating on

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Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#23
These are emergency broadcast alerts. Different countries have different laws on these - and in some countries you might not even be able to disable them.

Just because its listed under "Apps & notifications"/"Wireless emergency alerts", it doesn't mean they are "user settings". Its not necessarily the local "carrier" that turned the settings on, its more that connecting to a cell tower in a particular jurisdiction can enforce receiving emergency alerts.

More on the EU alerts systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU-Alert

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#24
Back in the day my phone carrier in Argentina would send me ultra-high-priority alerts with ads several times a day.

A lot of people in this thread are understandably okay with good carriers doing this for good reasons, but it's very easy to abuse if there aren't strong enough communication laws. From the amount of spam I got when I lived there, I'm surprised this is not happening in America.

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#25
post #2

(1) No, but not surprised, (2) don't have a phone, (3) I don't like it, that's why I don't have a phone.

How do you manage w/o a phone? Some of our bank accounts require using an Android (or iPhone) app, for example. Messengers like Signal don't work w/o a smartphone. COVID-related apps for traveling. I could continue. Genuinely curious.

Note really an issue, I've never had one. Banking is mostly on paper, sometimes I phone them up. Not bothered with messengers, travelling in the EU, there was always a paper-form alternative for that. The main upside is the looks of disbelief (and occasional panic) when you respond "don't have one" to a demand for mobile number :-)

Re: Tell HN: Your Android carrier can remotely turn settings on

#30

Absolutely they can. Carriers have access to the system partition aka We do what we want (hopefully they do what makes sense). This is how bloatware is installed (the things you can't get ride of).

Are you sure this is the case? All the carrier app loading implementations that I am aware of (this is a small number) explicitly whitelist some carriers or even some apps by certain carriers. For instance, the implementation I worked on myself (as a reviewer) only granted a single carrier to load one of their apps when the SIM card was inserted.

With that implementation, it would not be possible for any random carrier in a foreign country to load random bloat onto my phone just by me crossing the border to that country.

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