Slashdot Mirror
How Cheap Smartphones Siphon User Data in Developing Countries (wsj.com)
Newley Purnell, reporting for WSJ: For millions of people buying inexpensive smartphones in developing countries where privacy protections are usually low, the convenience of on-the-go internet access could come with a hidden cost: preloaded apps that harvest users' data without their knowledge. One such app, included on thousands of Chinese-made Singtech P10 smartphones sold in Myanmar and Cambodia, sends the owner's location and unique-device details to a mobile-advertising firm in Taiwan called General Mobile, or GMobi. The app also has appeared on smartphones sold in Brazil and those made by manufacturers based in China and India, security researchers say.
Taipei-based GMobi, with a subsidiary in Shanghai, says it uses the data to show targeted ads on the devices. It also sometimes shares the data with device makers to help them learn more about their customers. "If end users want a free internet service, he or she needs to suffer a little for better targeting ads," said a GMobi spokeswoman. [...] GMobi is one of several entities using the combination of low-cost smartphones and low regulations to siphon off reams of user data. Shanghai-based Adups and Indian digital advertising firm MoMagic offer similar firmware-updating services in partnership with smartphone makers.
Taipei-based GMobi, with a subsidiary in Shanghai, says it uses the data to show targeted ads on the devices. It also sometimes shares the data with device makers to help them learn more about their customers. "If end users want a free internet service, he or she needs to suffer a little for better targeting ads," said a GMobi spokeswoman. [...] GMobi is one of several entities using the combination of low-cost smartphones and low regulations to siphon off reams of user data. Shanghai-based Adups and Indian digital advertising firm MoMagic offer similar firmware-updating services in partnership with smartphone makers.
I swear, it only happens in poor countries. See, see how bad off they are! Don't look at me like that. I'm totally not siphoning data off of first world users. Nope. Can't happen here. No way.
I hear the new phones have electrolytes.
It's what RF craves.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Do I or do I not remember some stories posted here in the past discussing how there was spyware/malware baked right into the firmware and/or OS of some phones, right from the factory? Essentially undetectable without, I dunno, JTAG access to the phones' Flash memory? If I'm right, what makes anyone think that it's just mere 'Apps' that are surveilling people who have phones from any number of sources?
How valuable can their "data" be?
Never use the OS that came with your computer. There's too much conflict of interest. Hardware vendors always screw the user on the software side.
It doesn't matter if the computer fits in your pocket. That's no excuse.
If it came with Windows, do a clean install, or better yet, install a good Linux distro.
If it came with Android, install AOSP, or Lineage (if you can't unlock the bootloader to do this, your computer is trash. Throw it in the garbage where it belongs).
And then there's the Apples ... The logo tells you all you need to know. Would you buy fruit at the grocery store if the grocer already took a bite?
Versus you, who comes and shits here on /.
Lessee. $0.10 per year from 1.1B people is still $110M per year.
If you don't want a piece of that, I'm sure there are others who do.
damn son
who put pee pee in your coke?
Like always, you get what you pay for.
In cases like this, the user probably has no idea what they are "getting" when they buy the cheap phone and cheap service.
Except, even expensive phones and services still try to extract as much personal data as possible. Limiting how you use the device is probably the best protection.
Farmville was the most aptly titled game ever. Only the animals being farmed were those playing the game.
If you think this is just affecting poor people in third world countries, think again.
"If end users want a free internet service, he or she needs to suffer a little for better targeting ads," said a GMobi spokeswoman.
Customers suffering? So they've taken a play from the Trump administration's playbook, eh?
sends the owner's location and unique-device details to a mobile-advertising firm
This is the same thing that happens on every other non-Apple smartphone. Yet the journalist goes to great lengths to imply this abuse has something to do with the poverty and supposedly less regulated environs of the customers.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
And if they do then we write stories in the WSJ and accuse them of spying and spreading malware, because that's how honest WSJ and America are.
Unblocked version on Toronto Star: https://www.thestar.com/busine...
*** On the Internet, no one knows you're using a VIC-20
Yet the journalist goes to great lengths to imply
You must live a lonely life, as the only person capable of intelligence; you imply strongly that nobody else has a brain.
'developing countries, where privacy protection is usually low'... Do you know a place on earth where it is high ?
ever try to find a Li or Lee in a chinese phonebook? your friend, the leprechaun.
Goodness, it sure would suck to live in a country with low privacy protections. I bet they'd even let the manufacturer continue to control the phone even after they sold it to you, And install all kinds of stuff on your device that does things that you don't want it to do. And disallow you from uninstalling it. Or, even, prohibiting you from getting root on your very own computer!
Nah, just kidding. There's noplace that backward.