Isn't it only a few brands out of China?

Yes, mainly the cheaper phones too but I heard Huawei might have some phones in there too.

Jeez that's mine! The Chinese are going to know about my bad taste in cartoons.

Rikkitic:

 

Jeez that's mine! The Chinese are going to know about my bad taste in cartoons.

 

 

 

First time I've heard that joke today! 

gzt: Only one manufacturer confirmed affected. Some American company called BLU.

Ah right. There was some herald reporter interviewing a computer repair person (ironically from China) that I saw on Facebook, who seemed to think it was on 50% of our phones.

Not bothered - they're all sending data collection back to the chocolate factory (google)  all the time anyway.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/11/chinese-iot-firm-siphoned-text-messages-call-records/

"At the center of the spyware controversy is software made by Shanghai ADUPS Technology, a Chinese firm whose product touts the ability to wirelessly update software installed on mobile and and IoT devices. The ADUPS technology is typically bundled with smart phones made by dozens of global wireless firms including ZTE, BLU and Huawei, and sold at popular consumer destinations like Amazon and BestBuy. Often retailing for between $50 and $100, the sleek and powerful devices sell so cheaply because they also require the user to accept on-screen advertisements."

"Researchers at Fairfax, Va.-based security firm Kryptowire say the ADUPS software gives the company near-total control over the devices that it runs on, and that they have proof ADUPS has abused that control to siphon personal data from countless consumers."

1101:

 

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/11/chinese-iot-firm-siphoned-text-messages-call-records/

 

 

 

"At the center of the spyware controversy is software made by Shanghai ADUPS Technology, a Chinese firm whose product touts the ability to wirelessly update software installed on mobile and and IoT devices. The ADUPS technology is typically bundled with smart phones made by dozens of global wireless firms including ZTE, BLU and Huawei, and sold at popular consumer destinations like Amazon and BestBuy. Often retailing for between $50 and $100, the sleek and powerful devices sell so cheaply because they also require the user to accept on-screen advertisements."

 

"Researchers at Fairfax, Va.-based security firm Kryptowire say the ADUPS software gives the company near-total control over the devices that it runs on, and that they have proof ADUPS has abused that control to siphon personal data from countless consumers."

 

Huawei apparently denied it (suprise suprpise), BLU is updating all software, and Google have demanded that adups remove the spyware functions from all playstore-enabled devices. I still wont be buying a huawei ever!

The going joke about Huawei was that its the Chinese government. 

Could be worse anyway, Could have a whole cellular network built by them and use all their BNG's and BRAS's....

Rikkitic:

 

Jeez that's mine! The Chinese are going to know about my bad taste in cartoons.

 

 

Christ...

Linux live USB + wireshark and you'll see what's going where if anyone's concerned enough to do the homework.

That said, everything Android is phoning home to Google anyway, and the baseband modules are black boxes with who knows what inside them, so fundamentally I wouldn't lose any sleep over this.

Different story if you get a knockoff with malware in userspace, or a legit device with dodgy reseller software on it mind. There's just a level of data collection you need to be comfortable with to use any smartphone or cloud service.