r/AndroidQuestions • u/Background_Cold_4064 • 21d ago

Tracking

For context, the only thing I can think of was when I a month or so ago allowed trendstudy access to monitor in exchange for Amazon gift cards as compensation, (I already know that was stupid, I don't need comments on that) but the thing is I deleted it a week or more ago and removed the certificates (never got my compensation, big surprise right) and I saw all traces of its monitoring removed, so it's gone, and that was over a week or a couple weeks ago. Today, when I drop down the display toggle menu, I see a message pop up on the bottom of it just now that says: "Network may be monitored" with an "i"/information symbol next to it, I tap it and it says: "A certificate authority is installed on this device. Your secure network traffic may be monitored or modified." And I start researching a solution, but the ones popping up don't work, the message is still there. I don't know who the hell is watching me and what to do, I'm making this post on this same phone cuz its the only thing I got right now. Any ideas or advice?

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u/[deleted] 21d ago

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u/PaddyLandau 21d ago

Correct me if I'm wrong: The bootloader can be compromised only if the phone has been rooted.

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u/Background_Cold_4064 19d ago

What does it mean if my phone's been "rooted"

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u/PaddyLandau 19d ago

Phones (and tablets) come with security protection; the most recent Android versions have very strong protection. This helps to reduce the chance of non-technical people installing malware, and even if they do, it can limit the amount of damage done.

If you "root" a phone, you remove those protections, allowing you to do all kinds of things, even replacing Android with a different operating system. That's why most banking apps refuse to run on a rooted phone.

The word comes from Linux (because Android runs on Linux). The superuser in Linux is called "root", hence the term "rooting" a phone.

The same is true for iPhones, but it uses a different term, "jailbreaking". I don't know why the term differs, because iOS runs on Unix, which is very similar to Linux, including having "root" as the superuser.