I’m seeing a lot of reports from users of Huawei and Honor devices have reported that their phones are incorrectly identifying Google apps as Trojan malware, specifically labeled as TrojanSMS-PA. According to the alert, this “malicious software” has the ability to send SMS messages without user consent.

  • Dojan@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I mean, Google most certainly is spyware so I don’t see how it’s wrong.

      • Blue and Orange@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        US government having a US citizens data is worse than China having a US citizens data. Not that either scenario is ideal. But the kicker is that both probably have your data anyway.

        • Obinice@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I don’t recall anyone mentioning the USA?

          I’'m not in that country, and Google’s spyware collecting data for the USA is just as concerning to me as China doing the same, neither country can be trusted to have my nation’s best interests at heart.

          • satan@r.nf
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            9 months ago

            I also don’t recall anyone mentioning China before the poster above him too though. Considering the post mentions Google and Huawei, both are close to their government, mentioning their country was inevitable but only one gets precedence over the other.

            Your concerned comments only appearing when you want to defend someone doesn’t exactly make you an unbiased.

            But your post getting more votes definitely shows where the biases lie. So lose the veil of “both sides”.

    • doctordevice@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Hands down the worst phone I’ve had was the Nexus 6P. The battery issues were incredibly bad, to the point there was a successful class action lawsuit about it.

      Since that was a Google phone manufactured by Huawei, I have no idea how that contributes to this conversation but it seemed relevant. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        That thing was a POS. Thankfully Google gave me a Pixel XL with double the storage on the house because of it, but I also in hindsight worry that my personal data was being backdoored to Beijing. 10 years ago me should have been wiser to not buy a Chinese company’s phone.

    • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      Of course. That’s because you blindly believe the country that wiretaps it’s allies, like Merkle in Germany. That spies on its citizens using systems like Prism. Arrests journalists who report this like Assange. Yeah, those guys are totally who you should believe. And no, Huawei still hasn’t had any evidence against them, only conjecture from that country.

      And I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to call me naive and that Huawei definitely does it. But yes go on trusting the country with a laundry list of violations.

      • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        So you are saying that Huawei is better than Google, because Huawei has less suspicion about it than the US government, because we should not conflate a company from a country with the government og that country?

        While you are conflating Google and the US government without even so much as acknowledging that?

        If we are being fair, we must accept both the USA and China have the means to get data out of their companies, and have done so frequently. If we thus compare either Google and Huawei or USA and China, in both cases we can make out the shinier turd of the two clearly.

        Now can we go back to hating both of them please?

          • hark@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Better the devil sitting right next to you than the devil that is far away in a different country?

          • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            9 months ago

            And they occasionally need to be debated anyway.
            Like with conspiracies and religious cults, not debating them allows them to pull people in, while debating them both gives those vulnerable the ability to see the issues with them, and it allows those already believing a pathway to exit.

        • xep@kbin.social
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          9 months ago

          conflate a company from a country with the government of that country

          It’s actually okay to do this for China, because just about every private enterprise has a CCP cell now. It’s important to understand how state capitalism works with the CCP and China.

        • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          I’m saying that the only hate for Huawei comes from the US government. Who constantly lies. So using their lies to form an opinion on Huawei is idiotic… I didn’t actually bring google into this at all.

          • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            9 months ago

            I have seen plenty of independent hate, and my hown hate has certainly developed independently too.
            Even in politics other countries have come to the same conclusion, some of which even against US influence, while certainly others where pulled along by them.

            Also did you notice that you jsut assumed I was completely influenced by the US, as in that you hold the innate belief that everyone who disagrees on this must obviously be doing so because they fell victim to their propaganda?

            I didn’t actually bring google into this at all.

            I’d trust a Huawei phone less than I would a Google phone. Much less.

            [your comment]

            • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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              9 months ago

              Yeah a lot of people are influenced by US propaganda. That shouldn’t be surprising. However, let’s look at what experts in other countries that are not America say.

              https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-europe-britain/britain-managing-huawei-risks-has-no-evidence-of-spying-official-idUSKCN1Q91PM

              https://phys.org/news/2018-12-evidence-huawei-spying-german-watchdog.html

              But those voices are drowned out because, well US propaganda is very powerful. So much so that yeah, it influences individuals.

              *Edit: And yes, US propaganda is so powerful it goes well beyond it’s borders affecting individuals in other nations as well. I’m not asking you to believe me, I’m asking you to question where you got those opinions from.

              • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                9 months ago

                First of, your articles are about telco hardware, not smartphones software.

                The german case basically boils down to Germany wanting independence in their critical infrastructure. At least officially this is so China can’t affect them by for example stopping exports of repair components. Basically your source is clickbait but without the release. »German governments information security branch says no evidence of Huawei spying … they say the boycott happened because of strategic resource independence in networking technology«

                The space of classical newspaper articles is not in a good state, basically it’s almost entirely propagandized to death. So you need to know your sources, please don’t be the one throwing around a phys.org article on politics like it’s credible information.

                source on the Germany thing

                I could clear up this case because I happen to know that “die Zeit” (German for “the Time”) is one of the few remaining relatively independent sources for stuff relating to Germany (they are biased to follow German politics in coverage but not content, currently). I also track them closely for any changes to that status, basically if they fall to anyones propaganda, the first ones to bring that to light and point it out will be the opposing propaganda. Here is their article, for your translators pleasure:
                https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2023-03/5g-ausbau-bundesregierung-verbot-huawei


                your source kinda goes into that direction at the end at least

                But some observers raised eyebrows at the BSI’s apparent dismissal of cyber security risks concerning Huawei.

                “I believe it’s wrong to suggest that the concerns about Chinese espionage are unfounded and easy to detect,” telecom security expert Ronja Kniep told AFP.

                “Even if Huawei has no official relationship with the Chinese government, that doesn’t mean Chinese services aren’t using the company and its technology as vehicles for espionage.”

                All three of Germany’s main mobile network operators use infrastructure provided by Huawei, Spiegel pointed out.

                So apparently the opinion of “the BSI” here is wildly out of line with Germany’s government’s general opinion at the time.

                but wait there’s more

                So apparently in Germany there is this “BSI-gate” of sorts, around the incompetence and potential Russian and Chinese relations of “Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Arne Schoenbohm” (as he is quoted in your source).
                So either way this person was extremely untrustworthy in this matter here.

                So now to the other source. Reuters is at least well known, and the article has an author, so that’s nice.

                I looked into the matter somewhat. Around the same date as your article, the BBC wrote

                To monitor the company, the UK set up the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre, which comes under the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

                In March 2019, it said it hadn’t found evidence of malicious Chinese state activity, but it did identify some serious defects in Huawei’s software engineering and cyber-security competence.

                Seems they harshened their stance after US influence around 2020 to me too, but it’s not like they where entirely unsuspicious before that influence either.

                • Joncash2@lemmy.ml
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                  9 months ago

                  Right so no evidence, just suspicion from the US was enough for them to harden their stance.

                  Your “rebuttals” doesn’t change any facts on the ground.

              • hark@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                They don’t want to think about it and would rather just mash the downvote button on you for not saying the “correct” words as taught to them by their friendly neighborhood multimedia empire.

  • Wothe@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Unfortunately, it’s true… Monitoring, data collection, implementing ads, and there’s so little security for our accounts. Idk, I’ve been using Google less than ever since ChatGPT came out. And DuckDuckGo.

    • Free Palestine 🇵🇸@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      You really think that just because they don’t have Google services it’s not spyware? On a Huawei phone your data won’t be sent to Google, it will just be sent to the Chinese government instead.

    • Free Palestine 🇵🇸@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Oh yeah the Chinese garbage phone that has tons of spyware and will send your data to the CCP is so based because it doesn’t include Google spyware. Makes sense.

      • hark@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        and what will the CCP do with that information? Meanwhile, I know that the NSA, CIA, FBI, local law enforcement, countless advertising agencies, and all sort of other agencies in the US that can actually do things with that information. Even if you don’t live in the US, chances are that you live in a country with an extradition treaty with the US.

  • serpineslair@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Someone in my family had this, reluctantly restarted the phone to make the message go away as I found it to be a very dodgy sounding message. Good to know that it won’t do any long term damage to hit ignore the next time it pops up.