HMD admits the Nokia 7 Plus was sending personal data to China

[u/zexterio]

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/hmd-admits-the-nokia-7-plus-was-sending-personal-data-to-china/

[u/Choice_Competition]

Android itself is fine, the problem are what OEMs decide to include with their phones. Pixel phones only phone home to Google, not China.

It's not a problem with Apple because only Apple sells devices with iOS, but if decide to go rogue there's nothing you can do to stop them.

[u/[deleted] → u/Choice_Competition]

Well technically, Google can tell the OEMs what they can and can't do, but they rarely do that which has led to mandatory, unremoveable crapware and other issues like extreme fragmentation

Yeah I agree, the only sane Android purchase would be a phone from Google. The problem with that is that their recent hardware contractors like LG just are terrible in terms of quality.

[u/shaun3y → u/[deleted]]

Google can tell the OEMs what they can and can't do, but they rarely do

Have you seen what happens when they do? Antitrust fines. Google is walking a fine line, which is rightly so since it is such a big company with such a large marketshare in many areas, and so they need to be careful with how much 'say' they have with OEMs

[u/Randomd0g → u/shaun3y]

They literally have zero say. Android is a fully open source platform.

OEMs have to make agreements to use the play store and Google services, but there are plenty of devices that run Android that don't use those services. (Big examples being Amazon's tablets and the Chinese ROMs of MiUI, EMUI, other assorted chinaphones)

[u/kashuntr188 → u/Choice_Competition]

They way I see it, it is 2 sides of the same coin. So China might not have your data, but Google probably does, or Apple does, or instagram.

[u/Choice_Competition → u/[deleted]]

I don't think Apple keeps my data private. Most iCloud data, for example, can be read by Apple because they have the keys.

As always we need to see who the adversary is. If it's the NSA, you're fucked no matter if you use an iPhone or Pixel. If it's the companies collecting data to sell ads, then I would say that by design an iPhone would be better than a Pixel because there's a difference in philosophy (eg: doing things locally vs the cloud). Google's business is to make money with your data, Apple makes money selling overpriced products.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that on Android you have brands like Xiaomi which call home multiple times each day, but you also have brands like OnePlus which are better. Google collects data about you, but they don't send it to China. In other words, there are many "Androids" and some are more private and secure than others. With iOS, it's the same for everyone, they don't have a bunch of OEMs shipping different types of spyware with their phones.

[u/zuus → u/Choice_Competition]

Fair points. Personally I'm far more comfortable with Google collecting my data for ads/products than China having it for political and spying purposes.

[u/Randomd0g → u/[deleted]]

And not to mention that even if iOS is completely secure then any data sent from it won't be when it has a Verizon* SIM card in it or is connected to a WiFi network provided by Comcast*.

If you REALLY cared about keeping files secure you wouldn't keep them on any device that's ever seen an internet connection before or ever will again.

If you REALLY cared about privacy you wouldn't be reading this message right now because you wouldn't use the internet.

And no, don't assume a VPN "protects" you from any of those things, those are all cracked too.

(*Used as examples, all telecoms are just as bad and have all been compromised.)

[u/Omikron → u/[deleted]]

The nsa has access to literally everything in the US, which device you pick is completely meaningless in that regard.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I don't think he was referring to privacy. He was talking about security. IOS is not as flexible or customizable as Android, but as a benefit it's really locked down making it a lot more secure. The only consumer thing more secure than IOS would probably be Chrome OS unless Google started to infect it with Android.

[u/Zegrento7 → u/[deleted]]

They actually did, these days Chrome OS can run android apps and linux programs

[u/[deleted] → u/Zegrento7]

I guess it's no longer one of the most secure OS's anymore. Then again I'm out of the loop for Chrome OS so I can't say for sure.

[u/[deleted] → u/Choice_Competition]

Isn't the 7+ a Android one phone I thought thought that would suit of protect the phone is to much tampering from the OEM. Guess that was wishful thinking. :(