“In June of 2013, I made an interesting discovery about the Android phone (a Motorola Droid X2) which I was using at the time: it was silently sending a considerable amount of sensitive information to Motorola, and to compound the problem, a great deal of it was over an unencrypted HTTP channel.”
I always use a custom ROM for this very reason.
When I ran wireshark on Cyanogenmod 7.2 it came up clean (i.e. no dodgy connections home or to Google).
However last time I checked… Linux Mint’s update application stupidly leaks tracking information to google by loading a web page to check you’re online on a regular basis.
or applications that are secure from the OS. IMO this should be standard operating procedure, but we’re lazy and take what we can get.
ios would be fine if your email app was good AND open source
Damn! US government should demand snooping to be implemented at hardware level.
It will be done, eventually. The Trusted Computing Group are doing his best to make this a reality for everybody.
No, then that would affect countries whose citizens actually have rights.
People who are not using OSs made by trusted companies and integrated by OEMs are either pirates either terrorists.
You can install a dangerous OS or dangerously modified version of a trusted OS to circumvent DRM schemes and unlawfully download pirated music, films, games and software.
You can also install such an OS if you have something to hide. In that case, you’re most probably a terrorist.
I use a custom rom to avoid being tracked by Google, does that make me a terrorist?
… just a bit paranoid?
… or as recent news stories have proved, right on the money?
… OR could you not hear any of that from up there on that horse of yours?
But you’re right about a custom ROM having potentially more danger than a commercial one, if that’s a point you were trying to make.
The point is not to inherently trust any software unless you’ve checked what it’s up to.
Edited 2013-07-02 23:03 UTC
Nice instant vote down with the 2nd account
That’s a bit of an eye-opener. I wonder who else is doing this…
So, only idiots and morons have sensitive information on their phone.
Edited 2013-07-01 23:00 UTC
I wonder if anyone at Motorola, or any other company that does this sort of thing, actually stops to think before enabling something like this. I can’t imagine that the data they’re collecting is so valuable vs the PR nightmare that’s ultimately going to occur when users find out about it.
I mean, are they totally oblivious to how much this sort of thing pisses people off, or do they just not care? We keep finding out about these things, the offending company gets dragged through the mud, and then we’ll find out that another company is doing it sooner rather than later. Will they ever learn?
STOP F**KING SPYING ON YOUR CUSTOMERS ALREADY! This ain’t rocket science, guys
Of course they won’t learn, and why should they? It’s not like people actually have the sense to stop buying their products, after all.
this isn’t new info. this is how moto blur worked. Only idiots thought otherwise.
FYI, FTA:
I read that late at night, but I don’t think that disclaimer was there.
I also don’t know how accurate it is to say that it doesn’t have blur. Its true there is no blur sign on, but motorola at that time was just phasing out the ui. They still had hopes for using it for marshaling background updates and other data for their use.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/03/motorolas-jha-blames-apps-for-po…
IMHO, its bad, but you’d have to have been pretty oblivious ( which is probably 99.99 % of people) to what blur was to think it was working otherwise.
The situation reminds me of stupid options I’ve had to put in software by customer demand that will knowingly cause problems for them, labeled “WARNING THIS OPTION WILL EAT YOUR CHILDREN”, then getting complaints from customers that “IT ATE MY CHILDREN!!!”.
Pretty sad to see. So blatant, that’s what gets me. Motorola you suck.
And who’s driving Motorola ?
Kochise
Kochise is driving Motorola?
If I could, I would…
Kochise
At the time of the Droid X2? Motorola.
Motorola hasn’t released a Google-designed phone yet. And the few phones they’ve released since Google bought them were already in the pipeline before they were bought out.
IOW, anti-Google FUD much?
Now, once the new Google-Motorola phone is released, everyone can take it apart and see if there’s any phone-home spyware included. And then proceed to pillory Google for it.
Google has owned motorola for a while, so if these motorola devices are still “phoning home” then it falls under google’s umbrella of responsibility.
There would be universal condemnation from the press worldwide and forums like this.
As it is Moto (aka Google) then the reaction is Meh!
(even if they cared)
Seriously, any company doing this is bad.
Doing this over plain http is just stupid and needs more than a hefty slap over the wrist. Perhaps the CEO should spend some time in chokey? Just what were Moto thinking?
I was considering a Moto phone to replace my aged Nokia but not any longer.
Where can I go for a phone that collect nothing and does not phone home? I don’t need no stinking Facebook or twatter but looks like the 6310i will be in service for a lot longer then.
The reaction is ‘Meh’ because everyone already knew Motorola sucks. There’s a reason why they haven’t been relevant since the 1990s. I don’t see why you were considering one.
Edit: Of course, I only know that Motorola sucks because I was considering one: they seem like sturdier phones. No software upgrades and mediocre hardware for the price, though.
Edited 2013-07-02 10:15 UTC
OEM which is notoriously bad at software makes elementary software engineering and security mistakes. News at 11.
Seriously, we’ve all known for a while that OEM software chops is a steaming pile of crap. This is just one example. Another is Samsung’s unbelievable copy and paste bug in TouchWiz.
I don’t think its an overt move by Motorola to capture personal data for nefarious purposes, but it does show how dangerous letting just any vendor go crazy in an OS is.
Google’s strategy is to allow many chefs to cook Android up any way they’d like — the problem is that those same chefs can often poison the batter.
One of the reasons is the amount of outsourcing you have in such products.
But I don’t think those are even mistakes. It works as poorly as intended. Blur was a terrible idea.
Hey, this is the USA. Who isn’t listening?