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 controllers.
These restrictions extend outside the particular device. It must also be illegal as a commercial entity to enforce security schemes which involve remote attestation of the software stack on the client device such that service providers can refuse to service clients based on failing attestation. Service providers have other means of protecting themselves, taking away users control of their own devices is a heavy handed and unnecessarily draconian approach which ultimately only benefits the ad company that happens to make the software stack since they also benefit from restricting what software users can run. Hypothetically, they might be interested in making it impossible to modify video players to skip ads.
It wouldn't forbid shipping the device with a virus scanner. It would only forbid refusing the user control over what software does and does not run.
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.
> Won't this also forbid virus scanners that quarantine files?
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.
I agree, but I think three extra conditions would need to be added here.
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.
Didn't we backslide hard enough at this point that it is now architecturally ensured that there is a security downside to rooting? Prevents verified boot for example, since the attestation is tied to said corporations, and not you.
Not having verified boot is not a security downside for most people. Unless your threat model includes the evil maid attack, which it doesn't for thr vaaaaaast majority of people, verified boot is just another DRM anti-feature.
AFAIK that's true for many vendors but for example Pixels (and IIRC also OnePlus at least a few years ago) you can relock the bootloader with other keys.
The crazy thing is that on all the devices I've had AVB is implemented on top of secureboot. Being able to set your own secureboot keys is bog standard on corporate laptops. The entire situation makes absolutely no sense.
Also for the record I think it's a silly attack vector for the average person to worry about. A normal person does not have secret agents attempting to flash malicious images to his phone while he's in the shower.
> AFAIK that's true for many vendors but for example [on] Pixels you can relock the bootloader with other keys
Oh that's pretty cool, wasn't aware.
> The crazy thing is that on all the devices I've had AVB is implemented on top of secureboot. Being able to set your own secureboot keys is bog standard on corporate laptops. The entire situation makes absolutely no sense.
Hold on, could you elaborate a bit on this? I thought it was an either/or type deal cause they do the same thing.
Many devices if you load up fastboot mode (is that the right name?) it will give you chipset and other information and it will have secureboot info there. It's permanently locked to chain into the AVB image. AVB is a much more complicated beast that specifies the existence of multiple partitions including (IIRC) one for storing authorized keys, one for the recovery, and a bunch of other stuff.
It's possible this has changed or was never widespread in the first place. I have a very limited (and historic) sample size.
I'm pretty sure the recent switch 2 "license to use the hardware" has entirely killed any notion that you actually own the hardware and are free to do anything with it.
Especially in Africa, where privacy and consumer rights are probably less relevant than the US/EU.
Malware van persist across reboots regardless of verified boot. What it can't do is persist through a factory reset.
But if you really want a thorough reset, simply re-lock the bootloader and flash stock firmware from there. Nothing can persist through that without an exploit in the verification chain and if you have that kind of exploit, you don't need the bootloader to be unlocked in the first place.
Also, there are devices out there that let you enroll your own keys, like the Google Pixel series.
This is a good point. While there is nothing factually incorrect in the statement “rooting your phone can void your warranty and pose a security risk”, if you imagine factual statements are the same thing as value judgments it becomes very problematic.
Similarly it is pretty messed up when people say stuff like “fire can burn you if you aren’t careful” because so many people rely on fire for food and warmth.
Having your vehicle serviced by someone other than the dealer could void your warranty and poses a safety risk.
Cooking animal products at home poses a health risk. You should be sure to only ever consume animal products prepared by a duly licensed establishment.
The chauffeur's union would like to take this opportunity to remind you that amateurs operating their own motor vehicles risk serious injury and even death.
The FSD alliance would like to point out that hiring a licensed chauffeur also poses a non-negligible risk. Should you choose to make use of a personal vehicle it is strongly recommended that you select one certified by the FSD alliance. Failure to do so could potentially impact your health insurance premium.
Do you want every phone on earth to be in a botnet? Do you really think the average person is informed enough to make good decisions security wise with technology? The average person says "hur hur im not good with tech computers hate me" even though personal computers have been around for 40 years and cellphones for 30.
I am all for right to repair and ownership and whatnot, but I really think you underestimate how little people care about basic security and the baseline aptitude with computers.
I'm not trying to be the jaded IT person, but if you've never worked in IT, you have no idea how helpless and clueless people really are with electronics. They could be a brilliant engineer but want to install The Shopping Plus App that will give them Great Super Deals And Savings!
Edit: I should clarify, this is a bad thing, but giving everyone easy root on their phones isn't the solution and would have far worse outcomes.
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 maybe broken from tweaking, that's cool, but leaving the user less secure as punishment is wrong.
It is my experience that this is what Google does with their Pixel phones. It is really quite simple to unlock the bootloader and do whatever you want on a Google Pixel you own (i.e unlocked, no carrier). They even give you this really handy Android flash tool which uses WebUSB to fully restore your device when you mess up. Heck, custom ROMs like GrapheneOS and CalyxOS are even able to sign their own images and allow you to lock the bootloader with a non Google OS.
However, all this comes with the caveat that SafetyNet will flay you alive. The cat and mouse game with Magisk and other methods to maintain root undetected is moot when I've used apps these days that make a fuss when you have developer settings enabled. To be honest, that seems acceptable to me, I can do what I want with my device, software vendors like banks and the like have a say in how I choose to access their more convenient services. I can play nice with them if I want, even using a second phone perhaps, but I have a choice.
>banks and the like have a say in how I choose to access their more convenient services
I disagree. I don't understand how it's fine that I can access my banking services with my Gentoo machine, with everything compiled from source by myself, but it's somehow a problem when I'm not using either Apple or Google certified OS on my phone.
I'm sure they want to prevent the first scenario, like various streaming cartels already do, but I hope something like EU throws a fit if they do.
> 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
Isn’t this just a second device? How can you hold a manufacturer liable if the user was given unsupervised time as root?
"How can you hold a manufacturer liable if the user was given unsupervised time as root?"
PCs had root access by default, so why wasn't it a significant problem for them? Banking is possible on a PC without a banking app.
As Noam Chomsky has said, as in politics, manufacturers and OS vendors such as Google and Microsoft have been deliberately "manufacturing concent" — a widespread belief in the population of users that benefits them to the disadvantage of many of said users.
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.
> 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.
I've had to cloak the rooted state from an app or two or they'd choose to withhold functionality. That was a couple of phones ago. I've not had trouble with banking, payments, etc since.
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.
Root access is an outdated security concept from the previous century. Trying to mandate such a concept is parroting UNIX propaganda. Users can be given control of devices without them having a "root" account.
> Users can be given control of devices without them having a "root" account.
Can be given control [by handset manufacturers] is an unfulfilled potential. And it will always be unfulfilled - because otherwise, users could protect themselves from manufacturers/providers foistware.
By following the principle of least privilege. Like with apps the user should only have privileges for what they are allowed to control and nothing more. So if the user should have privilege to disable apps, then the settings app could expose a way for the user to do so.
Yes, this is kind of approach of coming up with a design to security instead of going with the easy route of everything being allowed is harder to do and takes more time, but it leads to better security.
I believe that the top-level comment you replied to is making the point that there should not be any authority that either allows or disallows what a user can do with the device they own. Purchasing a device should make one that authority, free to decide how much security to trade for how much privilege.
You're projecting your meaning of it, not mine. Not if it can't be undone in a way other than reinstalling everything. A mode that allows changing things with a temporary reduction of security system-wide and restoring them later, but putting all of the upgrade and support liability on the user without sacrificing functionality. Think VMware ESXi. If tech support wants to not support it, that's fine, but payments and such should still work.
Stop parroting orthodox agenda without thinking of what it means. If everyone had root access it would be heaven for ransomware/spyware/malware operators.
Having root access is not in the interest OR benefit of most regular users. Rooting your phone is a footgun for 99% of people who install random apps and will get hacked and have their life savings transferred or ransomed.
For them the article does the right thing. For everyone else, like you or me, we will not care what this article says anyway.
That's why what Samsung does is double bad. Noot rooting phone is good hygiene if your phone respects you. But if it comes with malware then thats a stab in the back.
Computer usage and consequently threat landscape went through a crazy change from 40/50 years ago. Desktops are a minority of devices. If you take personal devices even more so. Most people in the world with a computer have just a pocket one. Especially in WANA countries discussed
If you talk to regular non IT savvy people many of them don't bother and correctly assume that at some point it will "get a virus" or something. And it is fine for them because almost no one uses desktop for critical stuff like payment or finance. But majority do use phones for that. They jumped from cash straight to phones and now it's a lucrative attack vector.
Edit to reply because throttled by downvotes: yea I'm in your boat, we live in a bubble. It's hard to believe. But now I'm using a payment system that literally has "get app" on its site and no other way to manage money or even sign up. And apps like that can be the only way for many people to get some sort of plastic card to pay cashless
And I see how it happened. Many people have no personal desktop computers. Many payment vendors don't trust desktop computers because an ordinary person's windows machine is a malware breeder.
So many people in the world depend on mobile security (especially underprivileged people). Anyone who wants them all to get fucked for own libertarian ideal of "hardware ownership" is basically a psychopath to me. Especially considering that he is literally free to root his device and not make it a problem for others.
Worked on some financial stuff before, and dashboards showed the opposite of your experience, if I’ll be honest. An average user is very different from us.
Corporate propaganda? How out of touch can you be?
Seriously, you never had to provide tech support to a parent, relative, or friend whose computer got totally fucked because they had root?
You missed the countless stories about how no matter complex it is to turn off the protections, people will be tricked or forced into it? You’ve really never seen it first hand?
You people don’t know or have forgotten what a god damn wasteland computers were 20 years ago.
And equating root to ownership is laughable on its face. By that standard, root is never ownership for most people — the moment their machine is compromised because they had root and couldn’t protect, they’ve lost ownership.
> Seriously, you never had to provide tech support to a parent, relative, or friend whose computer got totally fucked because they had root?
Literally 0 here, have you really?
Like I literally do not know anyone who is even using Linux to begin with but also people do have “root” in their Windows and MacOS systems. I do not see anyone destroying their computers at random.
Also to steal someone’s information you don’t need root access or any administrative access - if you already tricked the user into running your code then you can steal their passwords or whatever, all of that is user-level data.
> 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.
> 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.
To add on, almost all the money people I know who have lost to scams have been through non-rooted devices. Sending an OTP or making a bank transfer because "you're under police investigation" is cheerfully easy even without the user knowing what "root" is.
Also see: the recent phish on Krebs (on security). A malicious email and entering a password to a webpage does not need root access, for better or worse. In fact, a rooted device might block your bank app, actually making money transfer scams tougher, ironically.
"I accept this metric. It means non-rooted devices are unsafe."
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.
I cannot fathom how you can hold this position. It is such an authoritarian view to willingly give up control to let some higher power protect you, at the expense of having absolutely no way out of that higher power suddenly starts acting against your interests. Sure, when people are in control of their own lives they sometimes fuck up and get hurt, but that is absolutely not an excuse to take away their freedoms.
20 years ago (2003-2006), Welchia, Blaster, Code Red... Windows boxes that weren't patched were infected within about 35 ± 5 seconds when connected to lightly-filtered Internet when it was still a capitalized proper noun. Ask me how I know and used JScript and psexec to mass remote into LAN machines to try to stop some of the madness and downtime.
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 suspect a strong link between mass surveillance (by corporations for advertising or by states for intelligence purposes) and the very recent targeting of the senior Iranian nuclear scientist and military officers at their homes in Iran.
Wherever you are from or whatever side of the conflict you are on, I think we can all agree that it’s never been easier to infer so much about a person from “semi-public” sources such as companies selling customer data and built-in apps that spy on their users and call home. It allows intelligence agencies to outsource intelligence gathering to the market, which is probably cheaper and a lot more convenient than traditional methods.
“Privacy is a human right” landed on deaf ears but hopefully politicians will soon realise that it’s a matter of national security too.
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 suspect a strong link between mass surveillance [...] and the very recent targeting of the senior Iranian nuclear scientist and military officers at their homes in Iran.
We all like to imagine this super cool clandestine hacking operation using peoples mobile phones to secretly track people who visit nuclear facilities back to their homes.
The much more logical explanation is 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.
I suspect Israel has backdoor access to most CPUs.
Here is how Pegasus seems:
- China has 1.5 billion people, lots of resources, would profit a lot economically if they found a way to hack iOS, etc. But yet couldn't hack it.
- Israel with its 7 million people, not only hacks iOS multiple times, but does it to spy on its allies.
Now I've seen the threads analysing Pegasus' complexity, I don't know if it's been reproduced, and if it has then I guess it logically proves me wrong (the tinfoil hatter in me still thinks its right though).
Here is why:
Israel has a lot of silicon fabs or R&D centers, now it makes ZERO sense for the US to have fabs or R&D centers in Israel, since that country is (allegedly) always at the risk of being bomber for no reason at all (yeah right).
Intel has had fabs in Israek since the 80s, why not in Japan or France or the UK (France and the UK are close allies to the US and have no earthquakes or risk of being bombed), why not even Canada?
And I compared the dates of when intel started putting the Intel Management Engine in all of their CPU and the date of which they built their biggest fab in Israel, then I went down the rabbit hole of when AMD started using PSP (similar tech to Intel ME), and it coinciding with it buying a large pentesting startup in Israel, then starting to build its R&D centers there, Apple and Qualcomm have similar stories.
Obviously this is all tinfoil, and while the dates coincide it's obviously not enough.
But to each their own, and I choose to treat my tech as if it was all was backdoored already, because for me the evidence (while not enough to be sure) is enough for how much I value my privacy.
"makes zero sense to have R&D centers in israel"...
hu, what ?
Have you seen the number of jews in the list of nobel prizes ? Are you living in a different planet that you don't know israel is producing a ton of interesting research in science ?
Haven't you heard of the term "startup nation" ?
Many are also US citizens who could work at research labs in the US without a visa. Something like 50K or 100K of the illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank alone are US citizens.
The "unremovable" part is inaccurate. While you can't completely remove it because it resides on the system partition, you most probably can still disable it with an adb command:
adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.package.name
This command is very powerful as it works for any app, even those that have "disable" greyed out in the settings. I disabled the Galaxy Store on my S9 this way for example.
To be pedantic, yes, but not in a way that matters. The system partition is read-only. Mounting it read-write would require root and any modifications would break system updates. The apk will still be physically present in the file system, however, none of its code will run and it will be removed from your launcher and installed app list in settings, which IMO still counts as a removal.
Also, English is not my native language. I feel like I did get my point across anyway.
The system partition is made some fixed size, the same way disk partitioning works on PCs, and never resized, because resizing file systems is still a non-trivial task. It often has some free space too to accommodate future system updates.
On my 128 GB Pixel 9 Pro, /data is 109 GB. The rest is /system (although `df -h` doesn't show it explicitly, no idea what's up with that) and various other system-related partitions.
I had a OnePlus whatever as a work phone in my last job. Every time I used adb to purge the OnePlus crap, it would somehow find its way back. Eventually I settled on disabling autoupdates from the play store, so it was stuck at whatever outdated, and hopefully broken, version the phone shipped with.
I had a Samsung phone and did the same with mine. Wrote a small tutorial here(https://harigovind.org/notes/removing-samsung-android-bloatw...). But even then, these apps will pop right back after system updates and those were becoming more frequent. I got rid of it shortly after, nowadays I use Moto where bloatwares are comparatively minimal.
Yes, but for most people (I'd guess 99% or more), they would never know to use the above, and I'm those who did find a guide might have issues using adb on their likely Windows or MacOS machine.
In my experience, Samsung is a label that means "stay far, far away." From the Galaxy Note fiasco to my microwave to my dishwasher to ... Probably at least three other products before I learned my lesson.
I even refuse to buy QD-OLED monitors out of indignation that Samsung makes the panels. Maybe I'm alone but maybe one day we'll boycott lousy companies out of business.
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!)
I love the phones Nothing makes. And they are offering five years of Android updates and seven years of security upgrades on their upcoming Nothing phone 3.
Samsung phones have been filled with preinstalled spyware since the beginning. Outside of fairly unusable Linux phones, Apple seems to be the only one taking privacy seriously.
Has any smartphone maker succeeded in getting more than a few percent of market share, released more that 2 phones while being immune to that level of fiasco ?
The article leaves out quite a lot about what AppCloud is, but it's essentially how Samsung monetizes their non-flagship device users and can do things like insert installation advertisements into the notification tray, and silently install apps.
Personally, if I found this on my device it'd be the final straw to grit my teeth and finally get a personal apple device.
> 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.
hmm have you actually read the article? did you find anything of "substance" other than hand-wavy "this company is from israel, so must be mosad" or "has notorious for its questionable practices" (without even giving actual examples or incidents)?
I mean, if I was the mosad guy planting a deal with samsung, I wouldn't even name the app "AppCloud"
heck, why would you even make it appear to the user?
this is a classic competitor-bashing article -- no substance, only hand-wavy "this guys bad!"
I'm guessing this can be traced to others like xiami/huawei/etc who definitely want to get samsung's slice of the market there
No there are lots of Chinese phones with minimal bloatware, like the nothing phone cmf 1, sure they only come with 2 years of updates but what you gonna do at that price...
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.
You're better off getting a preowned Pixel to flash with a secure ROM in this scenario. Getting an iPhone won't help if you if later down the line Apple decides to push an OTA update that forces the same functionality. A Pixel won't protect you from every vulnerability, but it goes much further towards stopping these sorts of attacks than the iPhone does.
Now hey, I won't suggest that Apple would stoop as low as Samsung has here. But discerning customers might not want Tim Apple's phone if he's been cozying up to a crusty politician that can remember to stay for dinner but can't recall his name.
The trick is to define "bloatware". Is that known knowns (stuff that's visible), known unknowns (stuff that's added that's not visible), and/or unknown unknowns (stuff added we are pretty sure is there but can't prove)? Apple adds all kinds of carrier-specific crap on every phone, but it's not readily discoverable. Android mfgrs must also because of carrier contracts and country-specific regulatory approval requirements. There's likely little means of escaping this without a BYOD non-Android, non-overseas, non-Apple phone that may or may not exist. Surely there is an obvious, viable alternative somewhere I'm missing that I hope exists.
As this post is trending quicker and more than I would have expected it to, I would like to add to this story:
It appears to be a similar case across the MENA region. While the SMEX post primarily focuses on WANA, it is possible to find other reports (e.g. [1]) from the MENA region that describe similar practices by Samsung. There, however, the stories talk about "Aura", rather than "AppCloud".
Yes, but, no. It's one of these things where multiple terms mean the same thing but then again come from different times/areas and, upon closer inspection, mean different things. But they're the same. But not really. [1]
A.k.a. I tried to be as politically correct and cite the term used by the respective reporting. The main point I was trying to bring across was that apparently there are two apps involved, not only a single one.
Same thing in Europe and North America. AppCloud is present on Samsung devices. Sometimes from the get go, sometimes after system update, sometimes after security update (the irony of that!). Carrier-locked or not, it doesn't matter. Sometimes it's visible only after switching the "Show system applications" toggle on application list in device settings. There are many people reporting that their Galaxy S series phones have it too. This AppCloud stuff is absolutely outrageous!
I've given up on smartphones. They're all unacceptably bad and for the most part take value out of your life rather than adding it.
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.
I observed this when I purchased a Samsung phone in 2022. My phone cost 35K INR. Even I found it alarming, apart from having bs apps pre-loaded. Switched to an iPhone a year or so later. Never looked back.
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.
Did try to see if using blockada (or similar apps) to block the apps access to the internet would work or cause and side effects (like other core apps not loading, ...)?
we're past the point of blaming carriers or oems individually. the entire supply chain is complicit. you want clean firmware? you either flash it yourself or buy from the handful of vendors that haven't sold out yet. that’s where we are
I sometimes think that "track record" is the main value of Google and Apple. They have been around for decades, and except in their own interest to collect data for themselves, I am not aware of any blatant privacy violations of these companies. And one can hope that in their own interest, they keep it that way. That's not great, but it's better than the other companies.
I don't see how any company can compete with this unless they somehow figure out how to make a vastly superior product.
The only phone brands that I am aware of which sells phones that are able to be rooted are Samsung and Xiaomi. I'm also in need of a phone that has an SD card slot so I don't see myself switching to any other brand.
Even in India the entry level Samsung phones are subsidised by bloatwares, Unfortunately there’s not many options for an entry level phone with regular updates.
So the question is who would we like to be exploited by?
Samsung currently has an unremovable spyware app on North American phones that pastes (records) everything copied to the clipboard by any app. It is the Samsung Keyboard app. It cannot be removed. It doesn't matter if you're using any other keyboard app. Samsung Keyboard pastes (records) everything that gets copied to the clipboard by any app. The Samsung Keyboard app cannot even be disabled from Android.
As an aside, I recall getting a lot more ads when I used Samsung Keyboard.
Sometimes I will see a small random "copied" floating notification (not in the notification tray) and I always wondered where it came from. Maybe they have put in some code to suppress it but due to some bug, it leaks out. No proof but I can only hypothize.
We do, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Many banking / government apps and even some games use the Play Integrity API, which AFAIK is starting to require remote attestation for newer devices.
As it's usually not viable to opt-out of those, the solution seems to be having a separate device.
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.
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
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 controllers.
These restrictions extend outside the particular device. It must also be illegal as a commercial entity to enforce security schemes which involve remote attestation of the software stack on the client device such that service providers can refuse to service clients based on failing attestation. Service providers have other means of protecting themselves, taking away users control of their own devices is a heavy handed and unnecessarily draconian approach which ultimately only benefits the ad company that happens to make the software stack since they also benefit from restricting what software users can run. Hypothetically, they might be interested in making it impossible to modify video players to skip ads.
While I agree in theory, this is never going to happen. There's too much DRM in use for it to work out.
Repeal and outlaw drm. It was a mistake that violates everyone's constitutional rights.
> 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.
It wouldn't forbid shipping the device with a virus scanner. It would only forbid refusing the user control over what software does and does not run.
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...
> Won't this also forbid virus scanners that quarantine files?
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.
>virus scanners
You can (and should, imho) remove anti-virus software.
I agree, but I think three extra conditions would need to be added here.
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.
Didn't we backslide hard enough at this point that it is now architecturally ensured that there is a security downside to rooting? Prevents verified boot for example, since the attestation is tied to said corporations, and not you.
Not having verified boot is not a security downside for most people. Unless your threat model includes the evil maid attack, which it doesn't for thr vaaaaaast majority of people, verified boot is just another DRM anti-feature.
AFAIK that's true for many vendors but for example Pixels (and IIRC also OnePlus at least a few years ago) you can relock the bootloader with other keys.
The crazy thing is that on all the devices I've had AVB is implemented on top of secureboot. Being able to set your own secureboot keys is bog standard on corporate laptops. The entire situation makes absolutely no sense.
Also for the record I think it's a silly attack vector for the average person to worry about. A normal person does not have secret agents attempting to flash malicious images to his phone while he's in the shower.
> AFAIK that's true for many vendors but for example [on] Pixels you can relock the bootloader with other keys
Oh that's pretty cool, wasn't aware.
> The crazy thing is that on all the devices I've had AVB is implemented on top of secureboot. Being able to set your own secureboot keys is bog standard on corporate laptops. The entire situation makes absolutely no sense.
Hold on, could you elaborate a bit on this? I thought it was an either/or type deal cause they do the same thing.
Many devices if you load up fastboot mode (is that the right name?) it will give you chipset and other information and it will have secureboot info there. It's permanently locked to chain into the AVB image. AVB is a much more complicated beast that specifies the existence of multiple partitions including (IIRC) one for storing authorized keys, one for the recovery, and a bunch of other stuff.
It's possible this has changed or was never widespread in the first place. I have a very limited (and historic) sample size.
I'm pretty sure the recent switch 2 "license to use the hardware" has entirely killed any notion that you actually own the hardware and are free to do anything with it.
Especially in Africa, where privacy and consumer rights are probably less relevant than the US/EU.
""license to use the hardware"…."
Well, then it's high time the laws of ownership in just about evey country in the world were updated.
As it stands, if I buy something then I own it.
> if I buy something then I own it.
That's the point: you can't buy it, only license.
How is the security risk propaganda?
It's not (only) propaganda. Rooting disables or bypasses verified boot, allowing exploits to persist across a reboot.
Malware van persist across reboots regardless of verified boot. What it can't do is persist through a factory reset.
But if you really want a thorough reset, simply re-lock the bootloader and flash stock firmware from there. Nothing can persist through that without an exploit in the verification chain and if you have that kind of exploit, you don't need the bootloader to be unlocked in the first place.
Also, there are devices out there that let you enroll your own keys, like the Google Pixel series.
If your security model means me having access to my own hardware is a security risk you're malicious and your security model is bad.
It's the hardware vendor's "think of the children".
This is a good point. While there is nothing factually incorrect in the statement “rooting your phone can void your warranty and pose a security risk”, if you imagine factual statements are the same thing as value judgments it becomes very problematic.
Similarly it is pretty messed up when people say stuff like “fire can burn you if you aren’t careful” because so many people rely on fire for food and warmth.
Having your vehicle serviced by someone other than the dealer could void your warranty and poses a safety risk.
Cooking animal products at home poses a health risk. You should be sure to only ever consume animal products prepared by a duly licensed establishment.
The chauffeur's union would like to take this opportunity to remind you that amateurs operating their own motor vehicles risk serious injury and even death.
The FSD alliance would like to point out that hiring a licensed chauffeur also poses a non-negligible risk. Should you choose to make use of a personal vehicle it is strongly recommended that you select one certified by the FSD alliance. Failure to do so could potentially impact your health insurance premium.
Do you want every phone on earth to be in a botnet? Do you really think the average person is informed enough to make good decisions security wise with technology? The average person says "hur hur im not good with tech computers hate me" even though personal computers have been around for 40 years and cellphones for 30.
I am all for right to repair and ownership and whatnot, but I really think you underestimate how little people care about basic security and the baseline aptitude with computers.
I'm not trying to be the jaded IT person, but if you've never worked in IT, you have no idea how helpless and clueless people really are with electronics. They could be a brilliant engineer but want to install The Shopping Plus App that will give them Great Super Deals And Savings!
Edit: I should clarify, this is a bad thing, but giving everyone easy root on their phones isn't the solution and would have far worse outcomes.
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 maybe broken from tweaking, that's cool, but leaving the user less secure as punishment is wrong.
It is my experience that this is what Google does with their Pixel phones. It is really quite simple to unlock the bootloader and do whatever you want on a Google Pixel you own (i.e unlocked, no carrier). They even give you this really handy Android flash tool which uses WebUSB to fully restore your device when you mess up. Heck, custom ROMs like GrapheneOS and CalyxOS are even able to sign their own images and allow you to lock the bootloader with a non Google OS.
However, all this comes with the caveat that SafetyNet will flay you alive. The cat and mouse game with Magisk and other methods to maintain root undetected is moot when I've used apps these days that make a fuss when you have developer settings enabled. To be honest, that seems acceptable to me, I can do what I want with my device, software vendors like banks and the like have a say in how I choose to access their more convenient services. I can play nice with them if I want, even using a second phone perhaps, but I have a choice.
>banks and the like have a say in how I choose to access their more convenient services
I disagree. I don't understand how it's fine that I can access my banking services with my Gentoo machine, with everything compiled from source by myself, but it's somehow a problem when I'm not using either Apple or Google certified OS on my phone.
I'm sure they want to prevent the first scenario, like various streaming cartels already do, but I hope something like EU throws a fit if they do.
> 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
Isn’t this just a second device? How can you hold a manufacturer liable if the user was given unsupervised time as root?
"How can you hold a manufacturer liable if the user was given unsupervised time as root?"
PCs had root access by default, so why wasn't it a significant problem for them? Banking is possible on a PC without a banking app.
As Noam Chomsky has said, as in politics, manufacturers and OS vendors such as Google and Microsoft have been deliberately "manufacturing concent" — a widespread belief in the population of users that benefits them to the disadvantage of many of said users.
> PCs had root access by default, so why wasn't it a significant problem for them?
They weren't networked. They were notoriously buggy. And most importantly, they weren't warrantied [1].
Root should always be an option. But once you root, it's fair for the warranty to be voided.
[1] https://www.studocu.com/ph/document/university-of-rizal-syst...
Yeah, that's rooting your phone. It should be a little difficult. You can do it. And it's good that most people don't.
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.
> 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.
I've had to cloak the rooted state from an app or two or they'd choose to withhold functionality. That was a couple of phones ago. I've not had trouble with banking, payments, etc since.
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.
Root access is an outdated security concept from the previous century. Trying to mandate such a concept is parroting UNIX propaganda. Users can be given control of devices without them having a "root" account.
> Users can be given control of devices without them having a "root" account.
Can be given control [by handset manufacturers] is an unfulfilled potential. And it will always be unfulfilled - because otherwise, users could protect themselves from manufacturers/providers foistware.
Given their reality, users root.
How?
By following the principle of least privilege. Like with apps the user should only have privileges for what they are allowed to control and nothing more. So if the user should have privilege to disable apps, then the settings app could expose a way for the user to do so.
Yes, this is kind of approach of coming up with a design to security instead of going with the easy route of everything being allowed is harder to do and takes more time, but it leads to better security.
I believe that the top-level comment you replied to is making the point that there should not be any authority that either allows or disallows what a user can do with the device they own. Purchasing a device should make one that authority, free to decide how much security to trade for how much privilege.
By having a "maintenance mode" that can be entered and left.
Maintenance mode == root
You're projecting your meaning of it, not mine. Not if it can't be undone in a way other than reinstalling everything. A mode that allows changing things with a temporary reduction of security system-wide and restoring them later, but putting all of the upgrade and support liability on the user without sacrificing functionality. Think VMware ESXi. If tech support wants to not support it, that's fine, but payments and such should still work.
Well maybe in theory but in practice they don't. How do I restrict or inspect what the Play Store is doing on my device at the moment without root?
Stop parroting orthodox agenda without thinking of what it means. If everyone had root access it would be heaven for ransomware/spyware/malware operators.
Having root access is not in the interest OR benefit of most regular users. Rooting your phone is a footgun for 99% of people who install random apps and will get hacked and have their life savings transferred or ransomed.
For them the article does the right thing. For everyone else, like you or me, we will not care what this article says anyway.
That's why what Samsung does is double bad. Noot rooting phone is good hygiene if your phone respects you. But if it comes with malware then thats a stab in the back.
> Having root access is not in the interest OR benefit of most regular users.
What about desktop OSes for the last 40/50 years?
Sure they aren’t the foam-padded locked down phone OSes, but isn’t this fear a case of leaving said padded room?
Computer usage and consequently threat landscape went through a crazy change from 40/50 years ago. Desktops are a minority of devices. If you take personal devices even more so. Most people in the world with a computer have just a pocket one. Especially in WANA countries discussed
If you talk to regular non IT savvy people many of them don't bother and correctly assume that at some point it will "get a virus" or something. And it is fine for them because almost no one uses desktop for critical stuff like payment or finance. But majority do use phones for that. They jumped from cash straight to phones and now it's a lucrative attack vector.
Edit to reply because throttled by downvotes: yea I'm in your boat, we live in a bubble. It's hard to believe. But now I'm using a payment system that literally has "get app" on its site and no other way to manage money or even sign up. And apps like that can be the only way for many people to get some sort of plastic card to pay cashless
And I see how it happened. Many people have no personal desktop computers. Many payment vendors don't trust desktop computers because an ordinary person's windows machine is a malware breeder.
So many people in the world depend on mobile security (especially underprivileged people). Anyone who wants them all to get fucked for own libertarian ideal of "hardware ownership" is basically a psychopath to me. Especially considering that he is literally free to root his device and not make it a problem for others.
>almost no one uses desktop for critical stuff like payment or finance.
I'm not saying this is wrong (in fact I assume it is accurate), but relative to my life experience this is crazy to me.
Worked on some financial stuff before, and dashboards showed the opposite of your experience, if I’ll be honest. An average user is very different from us.
Corporate propaganda? How out of touch can you be?
Seriously, you never had to provide tech support to a parent, relative, or friend whose computer got totally fucked because they had root?
You missed the countless stories about how no matter complex it is to turn off the protections, people will be tricked or forced into it? You’ve really never seen it first hand?
You people don’t know or have forgotten what a god damn wasteland computers were 20 years ago.
And equating root to ownership is laughable on its face. By that standard, root is never ownership for most people — the moment their machine is compromised because they had root and couldn’t protect, they’ve lost ownership.
> Seriously, you never had to provide tech support to a parent, relative, or friend whose computer got totally fucked because they had root?
Literally 0 here, have you really?
Like I literally do not know anyone who is even using Linux to begin with but also people do have “root” in their Windows and MacOS systems. I do not see anyone destroying their computers at random.
Also to steal someone’s information you don’t need root access or any administrative access - if you already tricked the user into running your code then you can steal their passwords or whatever, all of that is user-level data.
> 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.
> 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.
To add on, almost all the money people I know who have lost to scams have been through non-rooted devices. Sending an OTP or making a bank transfer because "you're under police investigation" is cheerfully easy even without the user knowing what "root" is.
Also see: the recent phish on Krebs (on security). A malicious email and entering a password to a webpage does not need root access, for better or worse. In fact, a rooted device might block your bank app, actually making money transfer scams tougher, ironically.
"I accept this metric. It means non-rooted devices are unsafe."
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.
I cannot fathom how you can hold this position. It is such an authoritarian view to willingly give up control to let some higher power protect you, at the expense of having absolutely no way out of that higher power suddenly starts acting against your interests. Sure, when people are in control of their own lives they sometimes fuck up and get hurt, but that is absolutely not an excuse to take away their freedoms.
>You people don’t know or have forgotten what a god damn wasteland computers were 20 years ago.
Computers were utopia 20 years ago as compared to today - especially when it comes to privacy, security and user-control.
20 years ago (2003-2006), Welchia, Blaster, Code Red... Windows boxes that weren't patched were infected within about 35 ± 5 seconds when connected to lightly-filtered Internet when it was still a capitalized proper noun. Ask me how I know and used JScript and psexec to mass remote into LAN machines to try to stop some of the madness and downtime.
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.
That's fine if they weren't. Probably not cool to attack them personally though.
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.
... What? You make no sense. Just let users that know what they are doing root their device while normies stay in userland.
There's something called "education", and by that I do not mean the propaganda that passes as such these days. Clearly you've drunk the Goog-Aid.
I suspect a strong link between mass surveillance (by corporations for advertising or by states for intelligence purposes) and the very recent targeting of the senior Iranian nuclear scientist and military officers at their homes in Iran.
Wherever you are from or whatever side of the conflict you are on, I think we can all agree that it’s never been easier to infer so much about a person from “semi-public” sources such as companies selling customer data and built-in apps that spy on their users and call home. It allows intelligence agencies to outsource intelligence gathering to the market, which is probably cheaper and a lot more convenient than traditional methods.
“Privacy is a human right” landed on deaf ears but hopefully politicians will soon realise that it’s a matter of national security too.
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 suspect a strong link between mass surveillance [...] and the very recent targeting of the senior Iranian nuclear scientist and military officers at their homes in Iran.
We all like to imagine this super cool clandestine hacking operation using peoples mobile phones to secretly track people who visit nuclear facilities back to their homes.
The much more logical explanation is 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.
Weather apps are one of the worst offenders here. Almost all share your location info with data brokers if you give them location access.
Check the weather today, get bombed tomorrow.
If a state actor is after you, cookie and GAIA-id tracking should be the least of your concerns.
I suspect Israel has backdoor access to most CPUs.
Here is how Pegasus seems: - China has 1.5 billion people, lots of resources, would profit a lot economically if they found a way to hack iOS, etc. But yet couldn't hack it. - Israel with its 7 million people, not only hacks iOS multiple times, but does it to spy on its allies.
Now I've seen the threads analysing Pegasus' complexity, I don't know if it's been reproduced, and if it has then I guess it logically proves me wrong (the tinfoil hatter in me still thinks its right though).
Here is why:
Israel has a lot of silicon fabs or R&D centers, now it makes ZERO sense for the US to have fabs or R&D centers in Israel, since that country is (allegedly) always at the risk of being bomber for no reason at all (yeah right).
Intel has had fabs in Israek since the 80s, why not in Japan or France or the UK (France and the UK are close allies to the US and have no earthquakes or risk of being bombed), why not even Canada?
And I compared the dates of when intel started putting the Intel Management Engine in all of their CPU and the date of which they built their biggest fab in Israel, then I went down the rabbit hole of when AMD started using PSP (similar tech to Intel ME), and it coinciding with it buying a large pentesting startup in Israel, then starting to build its R&D centers there, Apple and Qualcomm have similar stories.
Obviously this is all tinfoil, and while the dates coincide it's obviously not enough.
But to each their own, and I choose to treat my tech as if it was all was backdoored already, because for me the evidence (while not enough to be sure) is enough for how much I value my privacy.
"makes zero sense to have R&D centers in israel"... hu, what ?
Have you seen the number of jews in the list of nobel prizes ? Are you living in a different planet that you don't know israel is producing a ton of interesting research in science ? Haven't you heard of the term "startup nation" ?
Many are also US citizens who could work at research labs in the US without a visa. Something like 50K or 100K of the illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank alone are US citizens.
Politicians are just the sales and marketing department for multinational corporations and defense contractors. They will never care.
A user may not be able to uninstall it, but can they disable it?
The "unremovable" part is inaccurate. While you can't completely remove it because it resides on the system partition, you most probably can still disable it with an adb command:
This command is very powerful as it works for any app, even those that have "disable" greyed out in the settings. I disabled the Galaxy Store on my S9 this way for example.> "unremovable"
> you can't completely remove it
Maybe my English isn’t very good but that sounds like the definition of unremovable.
To be pedantic, yes, but not in a way that matters. The system partition is read-only. Mounting it read-write would require root and any modifications would break system updates. The apk will still be physically present in the file system, however, none of its code will run and it will be removed from your launcher and installed app list in settings, which IMO still counts as a removal.
Also, English is not my native language. I feel like I did get my point across anyway.
It's not being pedantic. Disabling the application does not give me the storage space back.
If people are paying for upgrades to storage space it's completely reasonable for them to be annoyed by bloatware
The system partition is usually the same size regardless of which storage option of the same phone model you get.
But if the system partition could be smaller, other partitions could be larger.
The system partition is made some fixed size, the same way disk partitioning works on PCs, and never resized, because resizing file systems is still a non-trivial task. It often has some free space too to accommodate future system updates.
On my 128 GB Pixel 9 Pro, /data is 109 GB. The rest is /system (although `df -h` doesn't show it explicitly, no idea what's up with that) and various other system-related partitions.
There’s an enormous difference between “it can’t be stopped” and “its storage area can’t be reclaimed” though.
Your English is perfect. The GP is a fool to try down play it and proved themselves wrong in the same sentence
It's in a read only filesystem. You can't modify read only data, but you can choose to ignore it.
I had a OnePlus whatever as a work phone in my last job. Every time I used adb to purge the OnePlus crap, it would somehow find its way back. Eventually I settled on disabling autoupdates from the play store, so it was stuck at whatever outdated, and hopefully broken, version the phone shipped with.
I had a Samsung phone and did the same with mine. Wrote a small tutorial here(https://harigovind.org/notes/removing-samsung-android-bloatw...). But even then, these apps will pop right back after system updates and those were becoming more frequent. I got rid of it shortly after, nowadays I use Moto where bloatwares are comparatively minimal.
Yes, but for most people (I'd guess 99% or more), they would never know to use the above, and I'm those who did find a guide might have issues using adb on their likely Windows or MacOS machine.
Don't even need that, you can disable it within the OS app settings.
So you're saying it can't be removed?
Do you know if the same apps remain installed in "Secure Folder" as well?
In my experience, Samsung is a label that means "stay far, far away." From the Galaxy Note fiasco to my microwave to my dishwasher to ... Probably at least three other products before I learned my lesson.
I even refuse to buy QD-OLED monitors out of indignation that Samsung makes the panels. Maybe I'm alone but maybe one day we'll boycott lousy companies out of business.
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!)
>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?
Pixel phones get 7 years of OS and security updates. Do you consider Pixel phones to allow you to easily migrate to a new phone?
Disclosure: I work at Google, but not on Android or Pixel.
I love the phones Nothing makes. And they are offering five years of Android updates and seven years of security upgrades on their upcoming Nothing phone 3.
All the nothing phones are too big. Give me something the size of the s25.
Get a UMPC with a modem card, put Linux on it, use jmp.chat to do all your carrier value add over IP.
LG back in the day. I miss my V20. What a weird, but wonderful phone.
I was an LG G3 user a long time ago. With the exception of the overheating issue, it was a lovely phone. LG really did have some unique devices
Samsung phones have been filled with preinstalled spyware since the beginning. Outside of fairly unusable Linux phones, Apple seems to be the only one taking privacy seriously.
manufacturers aside, grapheneos and lineage work well because of Google's work on their phones
apple privacy is marketing but ok
If it's mostly marketing, why was Facebook so up in arms about forced opt-in for tracking in iOS?
I have a Samsung clothes washer and a drier, they've been solid (but they aren't net-enabled... luckily).
> Galaxy Note fiasco
Has any smartphone maker succeeded in getting more than a few percent of market share, released more that 2 phones while being immune to that level of fiasco ?
[dead]
Because the link is down:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250506145643/https://smex.org/...
The article leaves out quite a lot about what AppCloud is, but it's essentially how Samsung monetizes their non-flagship device users and can do things like insert installation advertisements into the notification tray, and silently install apps.
Personally, if I found this on my device it'd be the final straw to grit my teeth and finally get a personal apple device.
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.
In my case I wanted a damn SD card slot. And more than 2 years of security updates.
Sony still sells flagship phones with an SD slot. I wish my Xperia was cheaper but other than that I'm very happy with it.
Not in the US.
Motorola. Plus it still has an audio port.
Ano now you see why Samsung is able to provide all that at an attractive price. The real costs are hidden.
hmm have you actually read the article? did you find anything of "substance" other than hand-wavy "this company is from israel, so must be mosad" or "has notorious for its questionable practices" (without even giving actual examples or incidents)?
I mean, if I was the mosad guy planting a deal with samsung, I wouldn't even name the app "AppCloud"
heck, why would you even make it appear to the user?
this is a classic competitor-bashing article -- no substance, only hand-wavy "this guys bad!"
I'm guessing this can be traced to others like xiami/huawei/etc who definitely want to get samsung's slice of the market there
No there are lots of Chinese phones with minimal bloatware, like the nothing phone cmf 1, sure they only come with 2 years of updates but what you gonna do at that price...
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.
Looking around, you can get an A series or unlocked iPhone 13 new from a prepaid mvno for $0.
A refurbished iPhone 13 is $300 on amazon, which is close to the cheapest M ($250). I can’t find new 13’s for sale except via budget carriers.
(Sent from my 12 mini which is better than all that followed it: $200-ish for excellent condition, refurbished.)
> A refurbished iPhone 13 is $300 on amazon
Is this Amazon US? Because even in Ireland, iPhone 16 costs 41% higher than in the US (979 EUR = 1,128 USD in Ireland vs 799 USD in the US).
You're better off getting a preowned Pixel to flash with a secure ROM in this scenario. Getting an iPhone won't help if you if later down the line Apple decides to push an OTA update that forces the same functionality. A Pixel won't protect you from every vulnerability, but it goes much further towards stopping these sorts of attacks than the iPhone does.
Now hey, I won't suggest that Apple would stoop as low as Samsung has here. But discerning customers might not want Tim Apple's phone if he's been cozying up to a crusty politician that can remember to stay for dinner but can't recall his name.
All Android phone but pixel ones have bloatware preinstalled. Some are worst, like Xiaomi.
If you don’t want bloatware (spyware), it’s either pixel or iPhone.
The trick is to define "bloatware". Is that known knowns (stuff that's visible), known unknowns (stuff that's added that's not visible), and/or unknown unknowns (stuff added we are pretty sure is there but can't prove)? Apple adds all kinds of carrier-specific crap on every phone, but it's not readily discoverable. Android mfgrs must also because of carrier contracts and country-specific regulatory approval requirements. There's likely little means of escaping this without a BYOD non-Android, non-overseas, non-Apple phone that may or may not exist. Surely there is an obvious, viable alternative somewhere I'm missing that I hope exists.
That's incorrect. Zenphone is a bliss.
As this post is trending quicker and more than I would have expected it to, I would like to add to this story:
It appears to be a similar case across the MENA region. While the SMEX post primarily focuses on WANA, it is possible to find other reports (e.g. [1]) from the MENA region that describe similar practices by Samsung. There, however, the stories talk about "Aura", rather than "AppCloud".
[1] https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2025/06/212144/samsung-embe...
Same same. SMEX is based in Lebanon — (S)WANA is an obnoxious term that’s going around for MENA.
We don't know what any of these acronyms mean!
MENA - Middle East & North Africa
WANA - West Asia & North Africa
SMEX - "a non-profit that advocates for and advances human rights in digital spaces across West Asia and North Africa." (from their website)
"non-profit" doesn't mean "this guys are morally right and only conveys truths"
it just means that they don't pay taxes
"Arab countries"
What is the difference between WANA and MENA. Sounds like the same territory
Yes, but, no. It's one of these things where multiple terms mean the same thing but then again come from different times/areas and, upon closer inspection, mean different things. But they're the same. But not really. [1]
A.k.a. I tried to be as politically correct and cite the term used by the respective reporting. The main point I was trying to bring across was that apparently there are two apps involved, not only a single one.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_and_North_Africa
Ah, I see. Trying to find a way to include Pakistani, Afghanistan, Somalia i.e non-Arab or Persian Muslim states in the vicinity.
Was installed on my device bought in Australia as well.
AppCloud, developed by the controversial Israeli-founded company ironSource (now owned by the American company Unity)
Yes the Unity 3D engine company wow.
So Unity can now be considered malware by association.
Discussed in 2022 here
https://www.pcgamer.com/unity-is-merging-with-a-company-who-...
lol the article simply doesn't have 0.000001 ounce of substance
"this company is from israel (so must be mosad)" or "has notorious for its questionable practices" (without even giving actual examples or incidents)?
I mean, if you're the mosad guy making a deal with samsung, why would you even make it appear to the user?
this is a classic competitor-bashing article -- no substance, only hand-wavy "this guys bad!"
"non-profit" doesn't make "smex" the morally-right side of the game. it just means they don't pay taxes and receive donations...
maybe it's time to trace where those donation money comes from? smells like competitors (xiaomi, huawei) who wants to take a cut from samsung?
lol downvote without any counter-arguments..?
seriously?
definitely a smell of some dirty play going on here
Same thing in Europe and North America. AppCloud is present on Samsung devices. Sometimes from the get go, sometimes after system update, sometimes after security update (the irony of that!). Carrier-locked or not, it doesn't matter. Sometimes it's visible only after switching the "Show system applications" toggle on application list in device settings. There are many people reporting that their Galaxy S series phones have it too. This AppCloud stuff is absolutely outrageous!
Samsung is a South Korean company.
South Korean needs USA to protect it.
Consider everything from South Korea to be under the blessings of the NSA.
I've given up on smartphones. They're all unacceptably bad and for the most part take value out of your life rather than adding it.
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.
> AppCloud, developed by the controversial Israeli-founded company ironSource (now owned by the American company Unity)
Unity the ones doing a game engine?
yes: https://investors.unity.com/news/news-details/2022/Unity-Ann...
So in addition to the licensing controversy, it's a good idea to assume any Unity game contains spyware now?
I observed this when I purchased a Samsung phone in 2022. My phone cost 35K INR. Even I found it alarming, apart from having bs apps pre-loaded. Switched to an iPhone a year or so later. Never looked back.
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.
Did try to see if using blockada (or similar apps) to block the apps access to the internet would work or cause and side effects (like other core apps not loading, ...)?
we're past the point of blaming carriers or oems individually. the entire supply chain is complicit. you want clean firmware? you either flash it yourself or buy from the handful of vendors that haven't sold out yet. that’s where we are
I sometimes think that "track record" is the main value of Google and Apple. They have been around for decades, and except in their own interest to collect data for themselves, I am not aware of any blatant privacy violations of these companies. And one can hope that in their own interest, they keep it that way. That's not great, but it's better than the other companies.
I don't see how any company can compete with this unless they somehow figure out how to make a vastly superior product.
What about PRISM?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
Do Apple and Google have a choice to legally opt out of it?
What's your definition of "collect data for themselves?" Because both do, albeit in substantially different amounts.
Can you elaborate on those "substantially different amounts"?
The only phone brands that I am aware of which sells phones that are able to be rooted are Samsung and Xiaomi. I'm also in need of a phone that has an SD card slot so I don't see myself switching to any other brand.
Even in India the entry level Samsung phones are subsidised by bloatwares, Unfortunately there’s not many options for an entry level phone with regular updates.
So the question is who would we like to be exploited by?
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.
Samsung currently has an unremovable spyware app on North American phones that pastes (records) everything copied to the clipboard by any app. It is the Samsung Keyboard app. It cannot be removed. It doesn't matter if you're using any other keyboard app. Samsung Keyboard pastes (records) everything that gets copied to the clipboard by any app. The Samsung Keyboard app cannot even be disabled from Android.
As an aside, I recall getting a lot more ads when I used Samsung Keyboard.
Sometimes I will see a small random "copied" floating notification (not in the notification tray) and I always wondered where it came from. Maybe they have put in some code to suppress it but due to some bug, it leaks out. No proof but I can only hypothize.
Every day it feels like regulators need to increase enforcement by an order of magnitude. For every fine they dish out, 10 more abuses go unnoticed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/samsunggalaxy/comments/mtakqq/how_t...
Yeah, all Samsung software is a liability.
Don't even get me started on the Samsung smart TVs. Just horrible all-around.
Thats why my Samsung TV has no internet access and I'm using Apple TV instead.
Should we expect to have trojans in every unity game now?
Buying a device that only runs OEN Android is ridiculous for this exact reason.
We need to decouple phone hardware from phone software, as we did with computers.
We do, but I don't see it happening anytime soon. Many banking / government apps and even some games use the Play Integrity API, which AFAIK is starting to require remote attestation for newer devices.
As it's usually not viable to opt-out of those, the solution seems to be having a separate device.
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.
If anyone needed another reason to stay the fuck away from Unity
Is this where we discover we’ve got another Pegasus preloaded.
we need a satslink now!
"AppCloud is developed by ironSource, an Israel-founded company (now acquired by American company Unity)"
I did not expect the thing I made games with as a teen to be involved in a global war.
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
"Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
New information.