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posted by Fnord666 on Monday October 16 2017, @03:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-taking-after-the-leaders dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram and SoyCow1937

OnePlus mobiles are phoning home rather detailed information about handsets without any obvious permission or warnings, setting off another debate about what information our smartphones are emitting.

Software engineer Christopher Moore discovered that the information collected included the phone's International Mobile Equipment Identity, phone numbers, MAC addresses, and mobile network among other things. Moore further found that his OnePlus 2 was sending information about when he opened and closed applications or unlocked his phone to a domain at net.oneplus.odm.

OnePlus, for the uninitiated, is a Chinese smartphone manufacturer that specialises in developing and marketing Android phones, recently launching a higher-end model. Its earlier models gained a lot of cachet from their by-invitation-only status.

[...] Privacy-focused users have the option of stopping these data collecting system services every time they boot the phone or removing these via ADB (Android Debug Bridge utility), a process that wouldn't require an initial rooting of the device.

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/12/oneplus_privacy_concerns/

According to The Verge,

Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus is collecting data from its users and transmitting it to a server along with each device's serial number, according to security researcher Chris Moore. In a January blog post (which has gained newfound attention this week), Moore detailed how OnePlus devices running OxygenOS record data at various points, including when a user locks or unlocks the screen; when apps are opened, used, and closed; and which Wi-Fi networks the device connects to. That's all relatively standard.

But OnePlus also collects the phone's IMEI, phone number, and mobile network names, so the data sent is identifiable to you personally with little to no effort required, which is what makes this very problematic. According to Moore, the code responsible for the data collection is part of OnePlus Device Manager and OnePlus Device Manager Provider. Moore says in his case, the services had sent off 16MB of data in 10 hours.


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:53AM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 17 2017, @12:53AM (#583240) Journal

    If you can blame inanimate objects for people's actions, yeah, it's tech's fault.

    The "enablers" you are looking for can be found in the capitals around the world.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @05:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2017, @05:13AM (#583332)

    Hey gun nut, try using your brain and rereading what I wrote.
    The tech is an ENABLER that because of its efficiency makes practical what was once impossible or at least much, much smaller in scope at best. Tracking people is trivial now due to tech that would have previously required way too many people to pull off with more manual methods. The USA was not East Germany not so much out of principle as that we weren't willing to devote so many resources to it. With modern tech, tracking is almost free so we now do it routinely. The tech made it possible.