Amazon Suspends Sales of Blu Android Phones Due To Privacy Concerns (cnet.com)

CNET reports: Amazon just put budget phone maker Blu in the penalty box. The online retailing giant told CNET that it was suspending sales of phones from Blu, known for making ultra-cheap Android handsets, due to a "potential security issue." The move comes after security firm Kryptowire demonstrated last week how software in Blu's phones collected data and sent it to servers in China without alerting people. Blu defended the software, created by a Chinese company called Shanghai Adups Technology, and denied any wrongdoing. A company spokeswoman said at the time it "has several policies in place which take customer privacy and security seriously." She added there had been no breaches. Blu said it was in a process of review to reinstate the phones at Amazon.

Comments

I use LineageOS

[bluefoxlucid]

First thing I do with a new phone, I wipe it and install LineageOS. Somebody else builds the ROM and I don't have the time or resources to personally-inspect the source code, so it's mostly a more-trusted quantity; and everybody sees it and sees the build process, so there are at least a dozen primary developers, a couple hundred bored hobbyists, and the occasional security researcher looking at the built ROM and the source code. Between the diff against Android and the massive number of eyes on Android's source trees, a lot of people have to be involved in a conspiracy to mess with my phone for there to be anything intentionally-malicious in there.

I like OnePlus, but I'm not going to run their OS just so it can repeatedly try to sell themes to me. If there was a Lineage ChromiumOS, I'd put that on my Chromebook.