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User Expresses Privacy Concerns After Software Update Replaces Default Phone App (martinruenz.de)
An anonymous reader writes: Since I am not living in my home country, I frequently use two different SIM cards and prefer having a phone with dual-sim support. This limits your choice significantly when buying a new device and last time I bought one, I opted for the Wileyfox Swift. It was cheap, had most features I desired and shipped with CyanogenMod (Android) -- which, I thought, might indicate that Wileyfox delivers a slim, privacy-aware system. Yesterday, I was delighted to see that Wileyfox provides an update to a new version of Android (7.1.1) and I didn't hesitate long to install the upgrade. Concerns that the hardware might not hold-up to the new system showed to be unfounded and everything seemed to work just fine. But when I realised that the dialler now labelled itself as 'truecaller' -- something I had never heard of, shoot, I didn't even know the dialler is an app -- it gave rise to a bad suspicion: Is some of my phone's core functionality now provided by a 3rd-party app? Indeed. Does it respect my privacy? No. Can I uninstall it again? No. Was I ever asked to comply with their terms and conditions? Of course not. On top of this, Truecaller doesn't seem to have a clean background. Here's how an Indian daily (Truecaller seems to be popular in emerging regions) described the app: Truecaller is a popular app that shows you contact details of unknown numbers calling you. It crowdsources contact details from all its users' address books. So even if you've never used the service, your name and number could be on Truecaller's database, thanks to someone else who's saved your contact details and allowed the app to access them.
Caught the fscking dialer thing trying to connect to both Facebook and Yandex after the OS upgrade at the weekend...just as well I've a Firewall installed on the thing in default block mode (though I'll bet there's a slimeball way round that..), just as well I have other OS options which I'll be exploring this weekend.
Not happy, quite a greasy move on their part.
No big deal to you.
Ask everyone in your contact list if they mind their name & number (and possibly the rest of their contact "card" including picture, emails, etc.) being uploaded to some unknown server run by a company with unknown privacy policies.
It's none of their business where you store your contact list. If they trusted you with your phone number; it is your choice what phone and/or what service provider(s) to use. Phone numbers may not be public information, but they're not secret either --- once you give it out, you no longer have strong control over it.
If you don't want someone storing your contact information on their phone (Which typically includes their cloud-based addressbook Google Contacts, Apple iCloud Contacts, Truecaller, Etc), then do not give that person your phone number.
So even if you've never used the service, your name and number could be on Truecaller's database, thanks to someone else who's saved your contact details and allowed the app to access them.
It's not about only Truecaller. Even if you own a dumb phone, your friends have at least one instant messenger (WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Viber, LINE, Telegram, Skype, etc. etc. etc.) installed which knows your name, and in certain cases your home address and other data (your friends might have added your personal data to their address book).
If you want to remain private in this world, you cannot own a phone number at all.
A private individual having your contact details is one thing. A company harvesting and using your personal details for commercial gain without your consent or even an option to opt out, just because a private individual had them, is not allowed in a large number of countries. If nothing else they have no idea if any of those contacts are children and even the USA where everything goes if you are big and have the money to bribe the government have laws against gathering personal information of minors.
[The Universe] has gone offline.
I receive a lot of phone spam. I don't want to have to be interrupted each time I receive a call to answer it and figure out what it is. Without crowdsourcing, how is any of this going to work?
It's none of their business where you store your contact list. If they trusted you with your phone number; it is your choice what phone and/or what service provider(s) to use.
What a perfectly selfish attitude. The point is they trusted you with the number and you turned around and gave it to a company without asking if it was ok. I would call that a breach of trust.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
That's a pretty darn weak fig leaf. In most legal jurisdictions, a third party can't make a legally binding commitment on my behalf merely by asserting that they told me about it and I was OK with it.
I suppose the intent is to try to shift liability in the event someone sues them. "Sure, we collected your data, but Bob gave it to us and told us you were OK with it. So take it up with Bob!" I am dubious that they would succeed with such an argument, but I guess maybe it's slightly better than nothing?
There's a spectrum of acceptability here. I was* okay with Google knowing my contacts because it's clearly necessary in order to (for example) make Gmail or Google Voice work properly. However, I'm not okay with LinkedIn exfiltrating my entire address book just because I installed their Android app (because my entire list of contacts is absolutely not either required nor desired in order to use LinkedIn). This Truecaller app is even worse than that.
(* This was before they started tying everything to everything else such that contact info now shows up in Google Maps and whatnot. Now I'm in the process of ditching Google entirely.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Root the device, remove the App from the System Partition.
I have my Phone such that my Instant messenger Protocols connect to an ejabberd server running Spectrum 2. Spectrum 2 then connects to AIM/YIM/Skype (well, not FaceBook because I don't use FaceBook, and I am proud o fthat. but there is a FaceBook Module.) or whatever other IM Medium I like. To the unobservant person, it just looks like I am chatting via my home Internet connection.
This app has access to:
In-app purchases
Identity
- find accounts on the device
- add or remove accounts
- read your own contact card
Calendar
- read calendar events plus confidential information
Contacts
- find accounts on the device
- read your contacts
- modify your contacts
Location
- approximate location (network-based)
- precise location (GPS and network-based)
SMS
- read your text messages (SMS or MMS)
- receive text messages (MMS)
- receive text messages (SMS)
- send SMS messages
- edit your text messages (SMS or MMS)
Phone
- directly call phone numbers
- directly call any phone numbers
- modify phone state
- reroute outgoing calls
- read call log
- read phone status and identity
- write call log
- add voicemail
Photos/Media/Files
- read the contents of your USB storage
- modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Storage
- read the contents of your USB storage
- modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Microphone
- record audio
Wi-Fi connection information
- view Wi-Fi connections
Device ID & call information
- read phone status and identity
Other
- use any media decoder for playback
- bind to a notification listener service
- download files without notification
- MMS Wakeup
- read voicemail
- write voicemails
- receive data from Internet
- view network connections
- create accounts and set passwords
- change network connectivity
- disable your screen lock
- full network access
- change your audio settings
- control Near Field Communication
- run at startup
- draw over other apps
- use accounts on the device
- control vibration
- prevent device from sleeping
- modify system settings
- install shortcuts
- uninstall shortcuts
There are two problems with this:
1) I put you in my phone's contact list as "Total Moron, don't answer this." That's why nobody is answering your calls any more.
2) Wouldn't you expect a product named "Wiley Fox Swift" to pull fast one on you? It could not have been more obvious if they had named it "The GonnaStealYourPersonalData 1000"
Man are they going to be pissed when they hear about phonebooks. These privacy invading tools used to be delivered to door steps and told everyone else how they could contact you. Just imagine. Society itself would break down.
It's a phone number. It's about the most publicly trustworthy piece of information you can give out. There was a time where simply having one would result in it being printed in a giant book which got delivered to *everyone*.
Facebook works by having each account defined as a hierarchical tree of information for each person; comments, photographs, links, account image. These are updated by making HTTP/HTTPS transactions to graph.facebook.com and other servers. I often find applications connecting to facebook to check for updates and goodness knows what else.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
How many times must these devices betray you before you just go back to remembering things like you used to? Every week with some new mobile phone disaster is sure getting old.
MY whole family ditched our smartphones over 2 years ago. A mobile phone IS required for select things, over the course of maybe a week each... maybe twice a year. I buy a dumb burner phone with $3.00 worth of prepaid sim card when I MUST have one, I share the number with only the contacts that must have it, and store nothing in the address book. As soon as that's over it goes in the trash. I can summon emergency services online from any internet connection.
It's just not worth it, it's to invasive, and it's always listening. It costs way to much, It's designed from the damn ground up to sell you shit you don't need, it's terribly insecure, and worst of all, it is designed to be replaced within.. what... 2 years for another $1000? GTFO.
My personal data, contacts, whereabouts, shopping habits, political affiliation, favorite color, sexual preference, and whatever else they've begun to collect over the past few years are worth so much more to me (and them) than access to some shitty app-store full info stealing novelties and shitty flash games. My privacy and personal data trumps the convenience that comes with carrying somebody else's computer in my pocket. What a fucking terrible deal, and we pay for the pleasure.
My employer don't like it, I told them I'd carry a phone if they foot the bill. Off the clock means off the clock, and on call means on call.
People look at me funny, (or just don't believe me) when I say I don't have a phone number. I look at them funny when they fall over the curb looking for fucking pokemon.
Everybody around me is so in love with the screen that all I need to do is muse out loud, "I wonder that the answer to this question is?" and everybody falls all over themselves racing to google it, to justify the $1000 shitty gaming platform in their pockets, and show off expensive status symbol. Boy. The guy who answers first sure is a cool cat.
It's pretty disturbing after a while, once you break away from the thing yourself, seeing the way mobile phones consume the people around you. Waiting rooms absolutely disgust me now, and long lines for anything are 10x more terrible than they used to be.
There was a time, not that long ago, when people actually put in the effort to learn things.
I'm rambling now. Just do yourself a favor, ditch the smart-phone, it's making you dumber.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.