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Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

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Re: Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

#261
post #120

it's now a case of choosing between who you least care about spying on you - think I'll choose a Chinese phone next time, at least they're not currently engaged in genociding children

They're currently engaged in doing all kinds of awful things that we know about, and no doubt lots of even worse things that we don't. Try looking up Xinjiang, Tibet, or the Falun Gong for a taste. There are no innocent world superpowers.

Was situation in Tibet really good before China came?

I've recently learned that movie "7 years in Tibet" is full of lies, starting with the fact that the main character was hardcore Nazi follower in real life.

There are a lot of things that we don't know because media are not interested in enlightening people. They are interested in pushing the current agenda.

E.g. Tibet was a poor feudal state with slavery, but you won't easily find this information, because all you can find now if you search for it is: "China is bad, bad, and Tibet is very good, enlightened people, very warm and kind". It is not like that.

Re: Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

#262
post #147

THEY WILL TARGET YOU too if you ever find yourself against western and/or Israeli interests. Capitalist technologies are the surveillance state incarnate. They must study people in order to manufacture consent. Remember democracy is majority rule, when have you ever had true control over your political destiny? You KNOW the answer is never. Democracy =/= trust. Democracy = control.

Many 'democracies' are not democracies, as you can only really vote for one of 2 parties. The system is fully designed to supress smaller parties and independents. Only countries with regular coalition governments can be classed as a actual democracies.

For Europe that hosts many democracies the exact opposite is happening. Previous systems with two main parties are becoming 5-6 parties system, making decisions and agreement, and just plain majorities, harder.

Re: Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

#263
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mistake to assume that a very capable country can't get into a network that uses Chinese equipment/software.

It's also a mistake to assume that a very capable country can't get into a network that uses US equipment/software... especially Cisco equipment with all the "forgotten" hardcoded logins. Iran is better off with Chinese equipment than American or Korean.

Not if you know math…

Re: Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

#264
post #6

Would sufficient people change purchase decisions in ways which they could recognise this as a root cause?

There not much of choice if you don't have money.

Used premium phones often cost as little as new entry-level phones. There may be some markets where things get weird because of carrier subsidies though.

Re: Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel, like any other state, must be using a variety of methods including good old "human intelligence" so it's not either-or. In addition, saying that > someone approached a low level employee at the MEAF who turned over a USB stick with the governments org charts and payroll records in exchange for their kids getting a full ride to a prestigious foreign university is an oversimplification on multiple levels: 1. Lo…

> 1. Low-level employees typically don't have access to sensitive information. You would think, but when I was interning (well, it was a paid internship) for a company, I was fixing an excel spreadsheet with payroll information for an entire department of a few hundred people. Not the best piece of "opsec", but when you are in a hurry (pay was due in a couple of days) and most people are on vacations "hey the junior…

Yeah I recall being a new hire at a defense contractor, getting a login, and accidentally opening an excel sheet with a ton of management user names and logins. People are sloppy.

Re: Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

#266
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not that rooting is difficult, it's that in most cases now it permanently renders parts of the phone inoperable or makes it impossible to use contactless payments or any banking apps or content streaming apps etc. These additional restrictions are not there for security despite what we are told.

They're for the bank's (and other customers') security, not yours. I think they're supposed to prevent people from reverse-engineering banking app APIs and writing bots that perform millions of requests per second, trying to brute force their way into peoples' accounts. As an extra protection, SafetyNet also makes it harder to distribute apps that repackage your genuine banking app, but with an extra trojan added.

Every bank of repute also has a web portal for internet banking. If it were about security, leaving this open while closing the mobile route doesn't make sense. The web is also vulnerable to scammers hosting trojan websites but somehow that doesn't seem to be a big problem.

If a bank (or any entity for that matter) needs to control the client in order to make their systems secure, then it's bad security. The system must be secure despite the client.

Re: Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all of Iran's cell network system was originally installed by S. Korean firms. They've changed some to Chinese brands, but apparently the compromised S. Korean brands are still around.

Changing from SK to CN is a trade from intentional vulnerability to unintentional vulnerability. I’ve yet to see a secure piece of software come out of China in my 30+ years of coding.

>I’ve yet to see a secure piece of software come out of China in my 30+ years of coding.

SW coming out of Korea's domestic industry giants isn't any better. Because they used to treat SW like a cost center or another item on the BoM.

IIRC, the only way to do online banking in Korea years ago, was you needed Internet explorer and some active-X plugin that supported encryption.

Some Korean giants do have good SW, but a lot of it is developed internationally by offices outside of Korea.

Re: Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like someone who knew no one other than fellow practitioners in the field. My God, the 2000s were the Wild West in every kind of way - were you even there to see it? I note you do not say that you were.

I got started with my first computer as a child over 40 years ago. I'll take the Wild West over the Matrix any day.

That's an interesting contrast, in that the Wild West is a halfway house for Civil War burnouts and the Matrix is a deliberately and expensively constructed and maintained, largely successfully hyperreal (in the original sense, ie so convincing that whether it's 'real' ceases to be either distinguishable or meaningful) simulacrum of what the Wachowskis were astute enough in its own historical moment to recognize as the highwater mark of American hegemony.

Oh, the Matrix is also parasitic, certainly; before it was smoothed over for mass appeal it was I think a story much more obviously inspired by They Live, the central conceit being that the system both runs on and exploits human neural cognitive capacity, ie the brains are the thing being farmed as components of the Machines' own computers, with the rest of the human (including consciousness and experience!) basically tolerated as the best available life support system for the 500 grams or so of brain tissue that's actually worth having. But a cow can live a long and happy life on a farm, be genuinely loved, and still end up as cutlets. Looking at it even from Daisy's end, how unjust can we honestly call that deal?

For you and me, the gunslinger's life has a decided appeal, sure. If that and Buy-n-Large World are the only two options on the table - which so far they have been, though I agree the real answer is to add a better third - can we really say that, for everyone, the Matrix isn't the less worse of the two?

Re: Samsung embeds IronSource spyware app on phones across WANA

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeal and outlaw drm. It was a mistake that violates everyone's constitutional rights.

“constitutional rights” Words written on toilet paper. Only thing that exists today are “billionaire rights”.

Are there billionaires in the room with us right now?
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