Chinese-Made Smartphones Are Secretly Stealing Money From People Around the World (buzzfeednews.com) 55
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: When Mxolosi saw a Tecno W2 smartphone in a store in Johannesburg, South Africa, he was attracted to its looks and functionality. But what really drew him in was the price, roughly $30 -- far less than comparable models from Samsung, Nokia, or Huawei, Africa's other top brands. It was another sale for Transsion, the Chinese company that makes Tecno and other low-priced smartphones, as well as basic handsets, for the developing world. Since releasing its first smartphone in 2014, the upstart has grown to become Africa's top handset seller, beating out longtime market leaders Samsung and Nokia. But its success can come at a price. Mxolosi, an unemployed 41-year-old, became frustrated with his Tecno W2. Pop-up ads interrupted his calls and chats. He'd wake up to find his prepaid data mysteriously used up and messages about paid subscriptions to apps he'd never asked for.
He thought it might be his fault, but according to an investigation by Secure-D, a mobile security service, and BuzzFeed News, software embedded in his phone right out of the box was draining his data while trying to steal his money. Mxolosi's Tecno W2 was infected with xHelper and Triada, malware that secretly downloaded apps and attempted to subscribe him to paid services without his knowledge. Secure-D's system, which mobile carriers use to protect their networks and customers against fraudulent transactions, blocked 844,000 transactions connected to preinstalled malware on Transsion phones between March and December 2019. Secure-D Managing Director Geoffrey Cleaves told BuzzFeed News that Mxolosi's data was used up by the malware as it attempted to subscribe him to paid services. Along with South Africa, Tecno W2 phones in Ethiopia, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, and Myanmar were infected.
He thought it might be his fault, but according to an investigation by Secure-D, a mobile security service, and BuzzFeed News, software embedded in his phone right out of the box was draining his data while trying to steal his money. Mxolosi's Tecno W2 was infected with xHelper and Triada, malware that secretly downloaded apps and attempted to subscribe him to paid services without his knowledge. Secure-D's system, which mobile carriers use to protect their networks and customers against fraudulent transactions, blocked 844,000 transactions connected to preinstalled malware on Transsion phones between March and December 2019. Secure-D Managing Director Geoffrey Cleaves told BuzzFeed News that Mxolosi's data was used up by the malware as it attempted to subscribe him to paid services. Along with South Africa, Tecno W2 phones in Ethiopia, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, and Myanmar were infected.
Wrong! (Score:1)
They were made in Dupe-istan.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Obviously, otherwise they'd have done something about the half page worth of swastika ascii art.
Re: (Score:2)
Gotta keep up the narrative.
Re: (Score:2)
Visit your local library's Modern History section.
Re: Wrong! (Score:2)
Not a dupe. This one it way more Trump in its Trumpity.and Trumpness, by highlighting China like that.
(Disclaimer: China can kiss my sweaty balls. But so can Trump. In fact it't be nice if they fuck each other afterwards. To death.)
Hey, I think I read this somewhere else... (Score:5, Informative)
Oh yah, it was here! [slashdot.org]
So, this must be déjà vu, right?
Re: Hey, I think I read this somewhere else... (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, I really feel sorry for this guy. Thats twice now he's bought a phone and had it steal money from him!
Re: Hey, I think I read this somewhere else... (Score:1)
Re:Hey, I think I read this somewhere else... (Score:5, Informative)
"American Made Websites Are Stealing Time Via Dupes"
Re:Hey, I think I read this somewhere else... (Score:5, Funny)
people were complaining about the clickbait headline, but you submit the same article with a different headline and then people are STILL upset
Re: (Score:1)
I'm related to the editor, I have the knack to dupe my anger.
Re: (Score:2)
Not wanting to miss the opportunity to be racist Slashdot had to re-post the story with a racist headline.
Jesus christ (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The door's that way. --->
Don't let it hit you in the ass on your way out.
Re: (Score:1)
This site is dead. Time to close up shop.
Your dumbass leaving here is by far the best news I've heard all day.
Re: Jesus christ (Score:2, Troll)
STANDARD BONEHEAD REPLY FORM (truncated)
Ver. 1, Rev. 10
(c) 2020-2664 all rights reserved
{} invalidates any following text for item
Dear
[X] dumbass [] cunt [] racist [] sexist
[] ~phobe [] religious freak [] shitdick
[] loser [X] assclown [] donkey fucker
[] weirdo [] clueless wonder [] Special Snowflake(TM)
[] Expert(TM) [] sockpuppeteer
It is being brought to your attention that you have
[] posted spam
(snippy snip)
[X] pushed your __what shoul
Re: (Score:1)
really has become a mouthpiece of US propaganda hasn't it.
i can't recall if slashdot was bought by someone - is that what happened? influential tech site gobbled up by propagandists?
Re: (Score:3)
i can't recall if slashdot was bought by someone - is that what happened? influential tech site gobbled up by propagandists?
Influential tech site was gobbled up by incompetents. But the prior owners were also incompetents, so very little has changed in that regard. The biggest change is the gradual one, people leaving the site over time. Most of Slashdot's failings were masked by a large userbase. Now that it's much, much smaller, actions seem more granular. On the plus side, moderation wars are much less of a thing now.
Fucking propaganda (Score:1)
Certainly wouldn't happen with American made smartphones, since there aren't any...
The third world war will be over in a day. The time it takes for the west to crumble once America declares war against China and they finally slap us with the embargo we deserve.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Fucking propaganda (Score:2)
Were're screwed. Really, were're screwed.
Sorry to all future generations of Americans who must deal with our mess.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Really? (Score:2)
Really?
Manufacturer or seller? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it is clear if it is the manufacture or the re-seller who is the bad actor. Could be either (or both). Buy a Samsung directly from Samsung or in a place like Hong Kong. Then buy the same phone from AT&T. The AT&T phone has been violated. AT&T installs all of their crap that no one needs or wants. I trust that some of it might help AT&T track you and monetize you.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
AHH but it still a CHINESE made phone. I wonder do they mean a company from China making the phones in China as different from say an American company paying a company from China to make the phone in China or are they just being racist, as in Chinese people made it, does not matter where in the world they are, CHINESE PEOPLE made it.
Obviously buzzfeed completely missed the whole racist way they framed the story, talk about failed SJWs.
The whole idea of a locked root, locked from the customers has to come
Re: (Score:2)
AHH but it still a CHINESE made phone. I wonder do they mean a company from China making the phones in China as different from say an American company paying a company from China to make the phone in China or are they just being racist, as in Chinese people made it, does not matter where in the world they are, CHINESE PEOPLE made it.
Obviously buzzfeed completely missed the whole racist way they framed the story, talk about failed SJWs.
Chinese doesn't only mean "made by Chinese people", it can also mean "like things made by Chinese people", "made in China", or "like things made in China". In this case, it means "made in China", which is not even slightly racist. Talk about failed assertions.
The whole idea of a locked root, locked from the customers has to come to an end, it should be illegal to supply a phone that way and a customer should be able to scan that phone for any untoward software and remove or immediately without difficulty, install the operating system and applications of their choice or their phone.
It's reasonable for the phone to come locked, but you shouldn't need to interact with anyone to get it unlocked. Everything you need to unlock it (whatever that is) should come with the phone.
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably employees at the manufacturer using existing tooling to produce extra smartphones after hours (there must be a name for this because it happens a lot), to fulfill orders placed by the reseller who also decided what software to burn into the ROM. It's the reseller who gets all the kickbacks, the factory workers only get after-hours pay.
American-Made Smartphone OSes... (Score:1)
American-Made Smartphone OSes are secretly stealing personal information and spying on you.
Gotta love how everything is trying to put the fear of China in you. Or how when China does anything remotely shady, the overtly blatant in-your-face way our western governments have been doing it for years goes out the window.
China is no better or worse than any of us. They will hack your anything for a buck. But then again... the NSA discovered a huge zero-day flaw in Windows, and then instead of actually telling
Racist fraud (Score:3)
I worked on projects that detect scams and frauds for a certain company who deal with certain type of providers (just a generic term, nothing to do with healthcare providers.) Almost all of the scams caught are based in the US, some are from Nigeria. So should my conclusion be that providers from the US are scamming people around the world?
If you actually visit China, or even have some real knowledge about it, the thing is that China has real capitalism flooded by large number of small mom-and-pop businesses competing fiercely. While there are a few huge multi-billion dollar smart phone vendors, there are thousands of those small outfits like this one(*) selling $30 phone. They are like the drug dealers in America. There is no way for the Chinese government to stamp them out completely, just like the US government can't possibly eradicate illegal drug trades. In the US, outside of the illegal drug industry(**), just about every other industry has been or is in the process of taken over by duopolies. Duopolies are gigantic corporations; they can't just scam off people, as they are watched by prying litigation lawyers, neither they need to as their business model is based on, you know, being a part of a duopoly.
(*) I just presume it the vendor be the same as the maker of those devices. More likely, they could be local resellers who just order bare phones from China, load them with malware and resell at a loss to attract victims.
(**) And very soon, the marijuana industry will also be taken over by duopoly as that stance has been legalized.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is that drugs are illegal by the very nature of the product, but as long as the product is good the customer never complains. The customers DO work to put their foot down if the product is laced with bad stuff. Drug dealers who sell good product are a LOT harder to catch than the bad ones. The bad ones are still hard to catch but only because of the illegal nature of the business making customers who've been screwed less likely to stand up.
Phones aren't illegal. This is more like if a big chu
Re: (Score:3)
$0.50 has been deposited into your account.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I do not think the Chinese Communist Party cares much what businesses in China do, as long as they avoid the major sins:
1) Making the CCP look bad
2) Encouraging foreign meddling in Chinese affairs
3) Encouraging separatist tendencies in the "provinces"
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
China was a punching bag for various colonial powers for decades. First it was the western European powers - I don't think Tsarist Russia or the US were involved - then years later Imperial Japan decided to take over.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm aware that the main antagonist was the United Kingdom, and then to a lesser extent other western european nations, but considering a few things that are going on with how China interacts with the USA in particular, they do appear to be approaching some issues similarly to how they've been dealt with, for one, they're apparently the source of the USA's fentanyl problem. More recently, we got the line that Certain suppliers within China (of course not through official channels) were supplying coronavirus
All phones are made in China (Score:1)
Anyway, get that $30 phone and put LineageOS on it...
https://www.getdroidtips.com/l... [getdroidtips.com]
Problem solved.
There are non-Chinese-made ones? (Score:2)
Since when?
I know Apple, Samsung and everyone else assembles their shit* in China.
So the purpose of phrasing it like that is pretty Trump and raises quite the Trump.
* I'm sorry, shit ... I didn't want to insult you. You're definitely not as nasty as them. Best friends again? ... Okay. *hugs*
We all change (Score:2)
Well. Not totally bad idea. Just need transparency (Score:1)
good job (Score:2)
slashdot you suck, you duped the same story in 1 fuggun day
How? (Score:3)
I keep my phone in left and my wallet in the right side pocket. It is physically impossible for a phone to reach across my pp.
Clickbait (Score:3)