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Samsung Devices Allegedly Use Qihoo 360 Spyware to Phone Home to China

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-the-first-time dept.

Samsung Devices Allegedly Use Qihoo 360 Spyware to Phone Home to China

takyon writes:

Samsung Phones Said to Come with Chinese "Spyware" Phoning Home

Samsung phones and tablets allegedly come with what is being described as "spyware" that communicates with Chinese servers regularly.

A reddit thread that has gone viral includes a closer look at a feature called Device Care and available on all Samsung phones and tablets.

As Samsung itself confirms, the "Storage" module of Device Care is "powered by 360," but no information is provided as to why it phones back home to China.

While Qihoo 360, the company that Samsung points to, has previously been involved in several privacy scandals that included hidden data collection, little is known about what's happening on phones and tablets developed by the South Korean manufacturer.

Chinese Spyware Found On All Samsung Phones

An Anonymous Coward writes:

A fan of Samsung phones has discovered Chinese spyware which is installed by default by Samsung, can't be removed, and for which has been sending packets to Chinese addresses. The storage scanner in the Device Care section of Samsung phones is a mandatory software install protected by the system making it hard to remove. No comment has been made by Samsung about why it includes this spyware in its main line of mobile phones.

Do you packet sniff your phone to find out where it is sending your data?

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

 
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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @09:37AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @09:37AM (#941365)

    https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo-communicator#/ [indiegogo.com]

    or directly,

    https://store.planetcom.co.uk/ [planetcom.co.uk]

    Both Gemini and Cosmo run Debian, if you want.

    Starting Score:    0  points
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       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 2) by arslan on Friday January 10 2020, @12:29AM

    by arslan (3462) on Friday January 10 2020, @12:29AM (#941707)

    Nice, but:

    Cosmo:
    OS: Currently supporting Android OS.

    *Planned support for Sailfish, Linux Debian and Linux Kali.

    Gemini:
    OS: Android OS 7.11 upgradable to 8.1 as standard.

    User installable Sailfish, Linux Debian and Linux Kali.

    So, not pre-installed. Cosmo will support user installable but not yet, Gemini supports it but not out of the box. I like the form factor, will be monitoring this. Thanks.