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Smartphones with Qualcomm chip secretly send personal data to Qualcomm

nitrokey.com

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Re: Smartphones with Qualcomm chip secretly send personal data to Qualcomm

#61

Post by bee_rider »

fckgw wrote: post #36
freedomben wrote: post #21

This seems like much bigger news than it's being received as. Sure, other chip makers do sketchy things, but is that really where we're at in 2023? We're so beaten down by proprietary user-disrespecting hardware/software that we just shrug it off? This makes me mad. I'm so sick of this type of thing. It's a horrible time too because the embedded 5G chips are about to be part of everything , sending telemetry back abo…

This article just has little to no information in it, at least not enough to get all up in arms about. Supposedly this nefarious information is sent in the clear but no analysis was done to see what it actually happening? They're just guessing? The whole article is "Qualcomm privacy policy says they can do xyz" and then extrapolating from there.

Every time there’s some giant violation of privacy, the rejoinder is “well, it was in the privacy policy, you all agreed to it.” The moral of the story is that we have “to extrapolate from there.”

And they have clever lawyers to write their privacy policies. We don’t, so we have to “round up” in a sense unless we want to be blamed for agreeing to things.

The Qualcomms of the world created this situation, we just have to deal with it.

Re: Smartphones with Qualcomm chip secretly send personal data to Qualcomm

#62

Post by gabereiser »

gabereiser wrote: post #56
oefnak wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I block the ads, how could I block this? Also, just because evil ad companies exist, why should we accept this?

You can't. Every call you make to a server includes your browser's user-agent/client-hints as well as your IP. Those cookie consent screens are provided by 3rd party but integrated via 1st party. So the company's website you visit doesn't even have to know it's going on, all they have to do is setup the MarTech correctly with the vendor and create a DNS entry. This, while being used to track you, could be used for go…

Challenge: Open up your favorite website (not HN :D) and watch the XHR's and network calls in your browser's devtools. How many of those are for the same origin? How many of those are ad calls being blocked by your extension (which also has access to your data)? How many of them are calls for a single pixel gif? Some javascript? favicon.ico? Do some spelunking on WHOIS for each of those domains. All it takes is one of them to proxy the headers. Proxy the headers and check if ad was served by looking at logs of both ad request and page request, if no ad request was found, require them to disable adblocker...

Re: Smartphones with Qualcomm chip secretly send personal data to Qualcomm

#64

Post by Bud »

trustingtrust wrote: post #7
stonekyx wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apparently Apple is doing the same. Just curious, where did you find this?

iPhone involves a lot of telemetry which Apple sends it to itself. We don’t know what kind of contract Apple has with Qualcomm but if it involves Apple anonymising and sending the data to Qualcomm for using its chips then it’s likely going to be the same just in a different form. I’m pretty sure Qualcomm would like some kind of telemetry from its partners it sells chips to.

That's actually not likely at all. There's no reason for Apple to trash its reputation by doing something stupid like this for Qualcomm's benefit.

Re: Smartphones with Qualcomm chip secretly send personal data to Qualcomm

#66

Post by 27fingies »

freedomben wrote: post #21

This seems like much bigger news than it's being received as. Sure, other chip makers do sketchy things, but is that really where we're at in 2023? We're so beaten down by proprietary user-disrespecting hardware/software that we just shrug it off? This makes me mad. I'm so sick of this type of thing. It's a horrible time too because the embedded 5G chips are about to be part of everything , sending telemetry back abo…

> That's what is happening when you "buy" a device and the device maker uses it to run code that serves only themselves (without receiving permission), to the detriment of your privacy. I can only hope RISC-V combined with people willing to care can lead to a return to a time when people actually own stuff and ownership is something we respect.

I dont understand how this would change anything.

Re: Smartphones with Qualcomm chip secretly send personal data to Qualcomm

#67

Post by prottog »

yakireev wrote: post #53
freedomben wrote: post #21

This seems like much bigger news than it's being received as. Sure, other chip makers do sketchy things, but is that really where we're at in 2023? We're so beaten down by proprietary user-disrespecting hardware/software that we just shrug it off? This makes me mad. I'm so sick of this type of thing. It's a horrible time too because the embedded 5G chips are about to be part of everything , sending telemetry back abo…

> Imagine if you bought a car from somebody, and they secretly kept a spare key and periodically used your car to run their personal errand. This is happening already. Teslas can be controlled remotely, and it does not have to be the owner of said Tesla. Yes, somehow people are okay with that. The world we live in gets scarier and scarier every year.

> The world we live in gets scarier and scarier every year.

One could accurately summarize progress since the Industrial Revolution as asking whether we could (and how), and not whether we should (and why). You can see this expressed in the growing focus on STEM education vs. the liberal arts and results in things like remote-controlled Teslas.

Cave Johnson said, "science isn't about why; it's about why not". The traditional counterbalance of that "why not" -- classical education, religion, etc. -- have all been falling behind.

Re: Smartphones with Qualcomm chip secretly send personal data to Qualcomm

#68

Post by RecycledEle »

There has been talk of a war on encryption.

I wish to point out this alternative: Let's increase transparency instead.

Require all data sent and received to be in a common well-documented format (XML.)

Require the following be documented in the XML (1) The program sending it, (2) the program receiving it, (3) what it means, and (4) what it is used for.

There should be a single place to go to see all data coming and going so the administrative user of the device can review all data coming and going.

A lot less shenanigan's would happen online if every value sent and received had to be well documented with

Because that a new Windows install sends and receives so much complicated garbage that that networking people can not understand what is going on, this would require rewriting everything. I'm willing to do it.

Re: Smartphones with Qualcomm chip secretly send personal data to Qualcomm

#69

Post by hospitalJail »

dlivingston wrote: post #24
jruohonen wrote: post #2

This kind of restates what was discussed here yesterday. Android's constant leaking of data to Google is hardly any news, but Qualcomm's firmware doing the same in plain text to izatcloud.net is newsworthy. Apparently Apple is doing the same. Someone has a nice geolocation database of practically everyone in the world.

> Apparently Apple is doing the same. I need a source for this, because my personal security model rests on the idea that Apple is NOT doing something like this.

Uh... They have 0 transparency and were caught in PRISM handing over data to the government. They have worked with multiple authoritarian regimes to give data on their customers.

Number 1 in marketing according to ChatGPT.

Re: Smartphones with Qualcomm chip secretly send personal data to Qualcomm

#70

Post by smallpipe »

gabereiser wrote: post #41

This is all assumptions. Just because izatcloud.net is owned by Qualcomm = they must be exfiltrating personal data? c'mon! Then you go and peddle your own NitroPhone as a "Qualcomm free" alternative? You're just gaslighting your customers to buy. This is a very short-sighted article based on lax assumptions and NO WIRESHARK to back it up. Just because a firmware makes a call home doesn't mean it's sending your person…

Did you read the article? Qualcomm legal team replied saying "yes we exfiltrate data, see this privacy policy".

What else do you need ?

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