motivation to deGoogle: Creditors can lock your Android remotely if you are delinquent.
Google Allows Creditors to Brick Your Phone - Infosec.Pub
The technical mechanism:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.devicelock
To be clear, I am not the OP who experienced this problem. I just linked them from here.
Don't buy a phone on random creditors that install this shit. This has nothing to do with Google.
You going to ditch Linux because they support remote management too?
I'm OOP, I bought this phone outright. Google seems to be installing this on phones by default (the actual pattern based on people's comments seems to be more recent phones, but not all have it).
It's even shipping within de-googled phones, at some base ASOP level (or the hardware, I dunno, not that knowledgeable), as some GrapheneOS use reported having it on their phones too.
I'm pissed because: 1. It's installed when it shouldn't be, 2. Gives inappropriate power to creditors, which hurts the most vulnerable.
This has nothing to do with Google.
Google welded anti-consumer logic into the kernel. Of course that’s on Google. Just like Intel started making CPUs with a management engine that can only work against non-corporate consumers, basically saying fuck the individuals’ needs.. putting individuals at unconscionable risk without their knowledge or consent.
Consumers have decisions to make. Is a consumer happy to feed a supplier who sells them something that works against them? Some are. I’m not. Going forward they fail to earn my business because they have too many masters.
You going to ditch Linux because they support remote management too?
Linux is not locked down. Users can remove anything they want from it.
I for one am glad that it was deemed safe for 3 year olds to be indebted to creditors.
I just thought of a new business: Baby Debt.
We trick children into signing contract so we can legally control them financially for life.
Baby Debt: It's Not Illegal
Since this software comes preinstalled and you can't get rid of it, that means it is illegal to sell this phone to anyone under the age of 3.
That or the software itself is illegal which sounds a little more accurate.
Couldn't you just remove it with ADB?
Root or get out, I have been rooting since 2020 and I decide what the heck to do with my phone 😁
I mean, the people this was targeted at were Kenyans who otherwise couldn't afford a phone, I don't think the people this applies to can afford to chose a phone model
If I were to simultaneously demand:
that leaves me with no phone at all. Because only popular mainstream models get rooted and they’re all made by the worst companies.
When my current phone loses its usefulness I might even go without. Or possibly get one 2nd hand although the 2nd hand market still supports the 1st hand market.
Wasn't this app some exclusive thing for a marketing scheme in Kenya for Android Go? If so… maybe your phone has a… African history?
https://blog.google/intl/en-africa/products/android-chrome-play/growing-access-and-inclusion-with-more/
I bought it practically on launch in Australia, directly from Google (I'm OOP), so I'd be surprised unless there was some last minute redirection of inventory from Kenya to Australia ¯(ツ)_/¯
Everyone in this thread is wild. Buying a phone on credit makes sense with how expensive they are. How else can Google protect themselves though? Just like cars get repossessed if you didn't pay, this is a two-way street. Otherwise people could have a phone sent to them and then never pay anything for it.
If the creditor wants to collect on a debt, there is a court process for that. I’ve used it. It works.
Locking the phone is not repossession. It does nothing other than sabotage the device the consumer may need to actually make the payment. The phone remains in the buyer’s possession and useless to the seller.
Power is also misplaced. What happens when the creditor decides to (illegally) refuse cash payments on the debt? Defaulting is not necessarily the debtor’s fault. This in fact happened to me: Creditor refused my cash payment and dragged me into court for delinquency. Judge ruled in my favor because cash acceptance is an obligation. But this law is being disregarded by creditors all over. If the creditor had the option to sabotage my lifestyle by blocking communication and computing access, it would have been a greater injustice.
#WarOnCash
I guess a closer analogy would be rental storage. If you don’t pay your mini storage bill, in some regions the landlord will confiscate your property, holding it hostage until you pay. And if that fails, they’ll even auction off your contents.
So in the case at hand the creditor is holding the debtor’s data hostage. One difference is that the data has no value to the creditor and is not in the creditor’s possession. It would be interesting to know if the contracts in place legally designate the data as the creditor’s property. If not, the data remains the property of the consumer.
This is covered by human rights law. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 17 ¶2:
“No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.”
If the phone user did not sign off on repossession of their data, and thus the data remains their property, then the above-quoted human right is violated in the OP’s scenario.
I agree that this makes sense in the context of a creditor securing a loan, but I disagree that getting your phones on credit makes sense.
New, flagship devices can be had around $500 US, which is attainable for most Americans in a fairly short timeframe. Spending years locked into a carrier contract where you don't own your device just doesn't make sense unless you're spending thousands on a foldable device or something.
can be had around $500 US
attainable for most Americans in a fairly short timeframe
This is a frankly deranged take considering that 40% of americans dont even have the funds to save for a $400 emergency as of May 2023
For people who know as much about technology as most people in this discussion the thing to do if short of cash would be to buy a cheaper phone. I recently got myself a quite decent Note9 for $109AU and I could have got something even cheaper if I needed to. But many people aren't as well informed, the above article is one example of people who are less well off being scammed by a corporation.
You have a pixel phone. Just install Calyx OS on it.
Even if this would help (I'm OOP, and according to some commenters it's still installed on their phones running other OSes), I'm still outraged at the concept and the fact it's installed by default.
Plus, "just" installing a different OS is not a terribly mass-market friendly thing.
It should be regulated against by governments. The EU is slowly heading in the right direction. We're letting these tech companies do whatever the fuck they want to.
Most people don't have the time or knowledge necessary to make their digital lives entirely private.
This has "stop global warming by making personal choices" vibes to it.
I want privacy by default, and I'm not going to apologise for that.
I agree with you 💯 percent.
It should be regulated against by governments. The EU is slowly heading in the right direction. We’re letting these tech companies do whatever the fuck they want to.
I wonder if it already is illegal. Have you looked into that? Did they disclose this “feature” in any of the agreements or literature that came with the device so that you could return it for a refund? Maybe you have a good legal case here.
I don't think that necessarily helps. I'm running GrapheneOS and "DeviceLockController" is installed there as well. From what I read, it's because it's part of AOSP.
I did take all permissions and from the system logs it reads that this app never has been used or tried to send anything to begin with.
To be clear I linked to someone else’s post. I don’t have the Pixel phone.
Ah my bad. I thought I read you had a pixel phone.
Why can I not find that post on beehaw? Some ActivityPub weirdness?
beehaw.org defederated from lemmy.ml. And I don’t blame them. I actually try not to post to lemmy.ml or any of the Cloudflare-centralized nodes (lemmy.world, sh.itjust.works, lemm.ee, etc) but it slipped my mind when I posted here.
(edit) sorry, i'm confused. I thought beehaw.org defederated from lemmy.ml, but both the post herein and the original are on lemmy.ml yet you can reach this one. So I’m missing something. I wonder if you are able to see infosec.pub-mirrored content and maybe the original community has no infosec subscribers? hard to say.
@coffeeClean
Won't disabling that not allow me to find my device and to disable the phone remotely if stolen?
Probably. But if you want that anti-theft feature, I wonder if you could disable it and then install another app for that which serves you alone. Whatever you install probably wouldn’t be baked into the kernel but probably a good trade-off.
@coffeeClean Not sure. I wonder if these other roms support the crypto in the Google Pixel chip or support the camera well. Somehow I doubt it. 15 years ago I was into playing with custom roms, but they usually didn't support the hardware completely, especially the camera. I mean it would work, but the quality wasn't good as the native rom.
@coffeeClean
I don't know but that article probably only applies to 'murica, if it's even accurate. I'm doubtful. Doesn't apply to Canada, that's illegal practice hete I'm sure.
Don't buy a phone on collateral credit (like from a cell provider that "gives" you a phone with service). If you must, ebay a phone and use paypal.
If you can't afford a $1200 phone by paying for it in "cash", you need to aim lower.
Comments from the last post indicated it made no difference to having the killswitch on their devices as per screenshots.
Still I agree, buying on credit is not a good idea.
The real problem with @Blaster_M@lemmy.world’s comment was to blame the victim. It may be sensible to blame the victim, but let’s not lose focus on the perp.
I must say Paypal shares customer data with over 600 corporations among other scummy things, so I boycott them. I also boycott eBay because the javascript required to use their website port sniffs your LAN and feeds that back to them, apart from other evils.
But most importantly, I’m not necessarily worried that I would personally get burnt by this. But just like my unwillingness to buy an Intel CPU with a management engine (or AMD’s flavor of this), I am unwilling to buy a product that was designed to work against me. I do not want to finance anti-consumer suppliers. ATM I don’t know how to check whether my version of AOS has this “feature”.
(BTW, I’m not the OP; I just linked their post here)
Sniffs your local pc to look for remote desktop and vnc ports on it. I can see this being useful in finding RAT risks, but the portscan thing is something the browser should be blocking or sandboxing.
As for PayPal, well, your cc / bank also shares lots of data.
If your threat modelling is that severe, your best bet is Tor Craigslist, a couple blokes packing heat and a briefcase of money in a place with no parking lot surveillance.
But then at that point security and safety is on you and your mates to implement.
So you just don't buy anything? Get over yourself and your unhealthy obsessions.
I'm OOP, I bought this Pixel 6 phone outright directly from Google. This system app has no business being on my phone.
And even IF it was purchased on credit, this is such an unfair power dynamic which hurts the most vulnerable in society.
Miss a phone payment, get locked out, haha have fun trying to access your bank account (many people have a phone as their primary computing device to access banking, and further, many banks might have SMS 2FA).
I say, there is no excuse for this. There were repo methods before software locks, and we'd ought to keep it that way.
It doesn't appear to actually be used, at least in Australia, but having the functionality built in at all should be straight up illegal in a caring society.
(/s)
You're THE object oriented programming?! I'm always asked questions about you. I'm downright starstruck!
Someone in the original thread said this swindle does not apply to the US. Though I’m a bit surprised.. it’s the first place where I would expect this to happen.