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Lumia Phones Leaking Private Data To Microsoft
New submitter Albietta writes "Two independent sources inside Nokia have confirmed that Nokia Lumia phones send private information to Nokia and Microsoft servers around the world. Location data, SMS-messages and browser identification is uploaded. The Nokia leadership has known about the privacy violation since 2011 when the Lumia phones were introduced. In spring 2013, after suspicions of leaks and during the negotiations for selling off the mobile phone branch to Microsoft, the Finnish state communications department sent an inquiry to Nokia regarding leaking of private data, asking Nokia to assure that users' private data is not leaked. Nokia did not want to (or could not) provide an assurance due to the delicate business negotiations. After two more inquiries with narrower demands, Nokia assured that the phone, excluding third-party software such as the operating system, did not violate Finnish privacy laws. Microsoft is apparently also following Lumia user accounts. On one occasion a parent's Lumia account was closed without warning when they uploaded pictures from the phone displaying their kids playing naked on the beach at their summer cottage."
That looks like it is deliberate.
Had it only gone to Nokias servers then it could have been an accident - not removing certain debugging code for instance used to tracing.
But sending to Microsoft servers as well as Nokia servers... that is more like a deliberate action.
Nokia assured that the phone, excluding third-party software such as the operating system, did not violate Finnish privacy laws.
How much non-3rd party software does a Nokia phone ship with? I mean, if you aren't including the OS on the phone as Nokia's responsibility, than what exactly are they responsible for?
mm .. a "smart" phone without the operating system is basically ... nothing.
Any comments from the closed source crowd? Any comment from the MicroShaft execs? Exactly, now you know why I stopped using Windows 10 years ago.
On one occasion a parent's Lumia account was closed without warning when they uploaded pictures from the phone displaying their kids playing naked on the beach at their summer cottage.
This says more about the hysteria in certain industrialized markets where all nudity is considered sexual for the purposes of zero tolerance regulations against production of alleged child porn. See also prosecutions of parents who photograph their children in the bathtub.
A sieve doesn't leak, it does what it's designed to do
Seems a little light on actual proof there, even the source doesn't have a source for the magical "Lumia account closed as the user is a paedo" comment
Witty Comment Here
I recall that it was stated in clear language that SMSes will be uploaded if I choose some option during initial setup for my Lumia.
And if they mean skydrive onedrive account as "Lumia user account", then I wouldn't be surprised that Microsoft screens uploaded (public?) pictures. Similar like Google screens youtube videos.
It has become quite obvious following the news that corporations are spitting on laws and won't stop committing crimes that increase their profits, until some actual individuals in charge are jailed for significant time.
Puny fines, often not even exceeding the extra profits made from the crime, won't stop anything. They are just like a gamble CEOs are ready to take - if they are not caught, their personal bonus increases with the extra profit. If they are cought, the company or some insurance will cover the cost, with no consequence to the CEO.
I think you know it's for the children.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I think you miss what they mean when they say people. See, when the NSA spys on nameless faceless Americans, that, is surveillance. Its not victimizing people. However, when they spy on someone like Angela Merkel; that is an outrage, because she is a real person with a face and a name....she is someone who matters.
Corperations are people like Angela Merkel is a person. They are real, they matter. They are not you, some nameless faceless peon; barely fit to eat the scraps a real person drops from their table.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
There's also a side story in this scoop which involves Nokia allegedly handing over user data to Finnish police without a warrant.
YLE Uutiset - Police chief to look into Nokia phone spying claims
Commie Finns? There is a fine line between funny and stupid and you plopped down way over on the stupid side.
This looks like a mountain being made out of a molehill. From TFA: "Lumia phones do not ensure the user’s privacy – at least no better than the phones of other big manufacturers"
When you use a WP8 device, you are signed in using a Microsoft Account. Features like SMS backup, location services such as "Find My Phone" etc need to send data back to MS in order to work. In fact when you first sign into a phone this is made explicitly clear, as it is during the install of any apps on the phone that require, say, location based services. So whilst the implication of this article appears to be that there's something shady and underhand going on, until someone shows me a wireshark trace that shows it, I'm calling BS.
Snowden reveals that NSA reveals user opinions on corporations to said corporation
in great piece of Irony that taxpayers are paying to be spied on for corporations that
want to use the NSA as their private orwellian invasion of privacy.
Great irony there, getting the sheeple to pay to be spied on, bravo !!!
Orwell, Quigley, and Huxley were prophets...
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Why bother with tedious 'capture' when Microsoft has it all nicely aggregated on their servers for you?
This is why Glorious Free Enterprise will always beat the commies at dystopian surveillance: Commies engaged in surveillance for political repression, and had to fund it from the proceeds of their other-than-efficient economies. Here in the Free World, the surveillance pays for itself, thanks to demand from advertisers and analytics weasels, and the clandestine services can get a copy for almost no additional cost! Take that, Ivan!
Can we all just fucking accept that companies get rich at your cost and there is no large company that does not do shit they should not do!
Never, they care when nobody buys their shit. It is the users responsibility to reign in corporations when they get too greedy by forcing change.
All of these technology companies are banking on not enough people caring.. while it is increasingly clear there actually is a non-trivial chorus of people who actually give a shit.
If the 'leak' is true, I doubt it's intentional and they will correct. I have this phone and I've opted to have them back up my stuff, including SMSs, etc.
1. Find my phone option can't be opted out of there is no way to not have the device send location to Microsoft and still be able to use the device in even a remotely meaningful way.
2. It is not possible to not be complicit in Microsofts skyhook WiFi location mapping system.
3. When your device connects to a WiFi network it sends unique device identifiers in the clear over the network there is no way to stop it.
4. Wireless security 100% completely utterly insecure by design due to total failure of device to validate certificate chain.
5. Impossible for mortals to perform basic functions available as standard features on decades old "feature phones" such as contact synchronization without having to upload all of your contact information to Microsoft. My contacts are none of Microsoft's goddamn business.
Windows phone 8 is designed to violate your privacy at every turn while locking you into their curated app store.
They are tracking and data rape devices, with a phone built in... kind of like a clock in the stomach of a statue of Buddha.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
One of the 4 horsemen of the infocalypse...
Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse: terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers, and money launderers.
And that's how they take away your rights.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
TFA reads like a gossip column. I see no evidence to back up any of the claims, in fact the claims themselves seem to be pretty woolly. There's no mention of what's being uploaded and why, could it be a backup option? Local search results, etc? As a Lumia user I would love to read an article by a techie with some experimental results. In fact if this is true I'm surprised that no one's done these tests already, it surely would have got out there by now.
They killed my Poppy!
Microsoft doesn't like nudists. Move along, move along.
Did you know that when you buy an app in the Google Play Store, Google sends the neighborhood where you live to the app developers? That is why I prefer the Lumia phones with Windows, because Microsoft respects your privacy.
Also, Microsoft only wants to know your location so that they can protect you. If something were to happen to you they would send an SMS to people you trust (they would get their numbers from your SMS history) and they would send an ambulance to your location (that's the only reason they got it).
You see? Microsoft is actually amazing and really cares about your privacy! =D You can get more information about how Microsoft is totally not stealing your data at http://www.scroogled.com/
You can tell I am serious and trustwrothy because I am using a smiley face: =D
"I see undead people" Warcraft III - Necromancer
Something a lot of Americans don't know: there's a ton of bad blood between Finland and Russia, to the point that they sided with Germany during WW2...they wanted help keeping the Russians out.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
The difference is that in the capitalism, the spying is done because they want to know what kind of clothes and other goodies they should make to get you to want to give them money.
In communism, the spying is done because they want to know whether or not they need to make you mysteriously disappear without a trace one day on the off chance that you might be or might become a political opponent that they would *gasp* have to compete with.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
I assume you're talking about Android... on WP8, third-party apps are not allowed to request write access to the SD card, or *any* access to SMS. (OEM apps, considered "second-party", are allowed to request SMS access which is useful for things like SMS blockers). Third-party developers can't even compile apps with those capabilities requested unless they modify their VS configuration files, can't install those apps to their phone unless they hacked the phone a bit, and if they try submitting those apps to the store Microsoft will reject them or at least strip out the restricted capabilities. Even if somehow they made it onto the store with those capabilities in place, people's phones wouldn't install the apps because they have capabilities that only OEMs (and Microsoft) are allowed to have, and the app wouldn't have an OEM signature.
It's actually kind of annoying. Independent developers are *extremely* restricted in what capabilities they are allowed to request for their WP apps.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Yes. I saw that on the History Channel. Finland put up a hell of a fight.
Well, yes, I can imagine Finnish piracy laws don't do much to protect consumer privacy. It's a bit like trying to use murder legislation to prosecute someone for stealing a loaf of bread.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Eh. Communism has a reliable track record of authoritarianism; but absolutely nothing precludes the combination of capitalism and authoritarianism (indeed, our Cold War buddy list provides more than a few examples). There is some structural tension, because the existence of highly concentrated state power makes regulatory capture a dangerously attractive strategy; but this doesn't seem to be insoluble in practice.
Communism invariably ends up authoritarian if it isn't already, either that or it just falls apart. Every. Single. Time. Marx was predicting that communes would start authoritarian and move on to democracy, but that has NEVER been the case. Even in communes that are run by elected members and don't have an official government end up resorting to a command structure (see the Icarians in Nauvoo, IL, whose system gradually required more and more strict controls until finally a command system had to be in place, and then it disbanded when nobody wanted to be ruled by an authoritarian system. When this happens on a national scale, there is no option to leave, so authoritarianism is the guaranteed result.)
Capitalism is generally agnostic of the government that runs it, though fewer government controls tend to lead to more entrepreneurism (people are more likely to take risks in new ventures if they are confident that the government won't just one day take over their business,) which tends to lead to stronger economies. (Mind the distinction between economic controls and laws - for example, you still need laws to make sure that e.g. the mafia can't take over your business either.)
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