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.
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?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday January 09 2020, @07:06PM
You're somewhat correct. On Ethernet, which includes WiFi, you in fact can know all that's going on. The low-level stuff can't carry packets to China- it doesn't go through routers- only the actual IP packets do. Well, okay, not normal home router/gateways. If you turn on IGMP or OSFP or SIP or something else you might be exposed to a sophisticated malware but those routing protocols don't really carry information packets so not likely to be spying on you very much.
I can't speak to the actual cell phone air data, so that could be an issue. But who knows what's going on there anyway. And the cell providers all track our phones and who knows what else.