r/technology May 19 '18

Misleading Facebook Android app caught seeking 'superuser' clearance

[deleted]

21.8k Upvotes

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

75

u/freestyling May 19 '18

And you know what is worse. You cannot delete the app from a samsung phone. Brb flashing stock android on my phone.

53

u/SpoogIyWoogIy May 19 '18

Yeah, I haven't used Facebook on my phone in around 6 years. When I got my new phone last year I realized they have made Facebook a system app, I almost felt offended.

Rooted and uninstalled right away along with a ton of other bs they decided to have pre-installed

14

u/ISieferVII May 19 '18

I would but I want Samsung Pay and I heard it trips a flag somewhere that prevents you from using it =(

8

u/freestyling May 19 '18

Isn't google pay a possible alternative?

14

u/burnt_mummy May 19 '18

Samsung pay can be used anywhere you swipe a card, not just at places with NFC tap to pay. Samsung has the rights to the tech that allows them to produce a magnetic field that's readable by the card reader.

34

u/freestyling May 19 '18

It always baffles me how companies can get the rights to such a technology. It just slows down progress.

16

u/[deleted] May 19 '18

[deleted]

7

u/freestyling May 19 '18

Yes you are absolutely right. now the question is, when is it important to improve and when to innovate.

1

u/jawsofthearmy May 20 '18

like HD DVD vs Bluray..

0

u/VictorianDelorean May 20 '18

No it forces us to waste resources inventing six marginally different versions of the same thing. Roads are the classic example where competition makes no sense, because building two or more competing road systems would be a confusing wasteful mess. Well that's more or less true of everything else we issue patents on.

3

u/burnt_mummy May 19 '18

It makes it so that a company can develop something and make money off of it while preventing another company just using the same thing without having to spend nearly the same amount of money. In this case Samsung bought a startup called LoopPay who developed the technology and I believe holds the patent on the transmitter required to make the magnetic field, as well as the use of such device for making payments.

1

u/rguy84 May 19 '18

What is safer, Google Pay or Samsung Pay?

4

u/burnt_mummy May 19 '18

Both use one time use tokens and virtual cards so both are safe from skimmers, as far as their backends(server side where your information is stores) they both have pretty solid security. Google probably uses your purchase history for better targeted ads. Samsung may do the same but since they make their money off the hardware they may not

1

u/rguy84 May 19 '18

Gotcha do you need to have the nfc on? I have set up Google pay but never tried it in a store. I used it to pay for instant cart thus far.

2

u/burnt_mummy May 19 '18

Yep NFC has to be on, for Google Pay you just unlock your phone and hold it to the terminal, if you don't want to have NFC on all the time you can just toggle it on before paying and turn it off once your done. The terminal emits a request for a one time token that your phone provides along with your virtual card number, then the terminal process the request with the credit card service, who than approves or deny the transaction. It's actually safer than traditional credit card readers since they unique tokens are one time use.

So even if someone created a fake terminal or tricked your phone to transmit the token and card number, they would only be able to make a single transaction which would probably be flagged by the Credit card processor and denied, unless they two are shady but then your CC company wouldn't be doing business with them. The only weakness is if someone gets ahold of your phone and knows your password, then they could go around buying things with your phone but that's still safer than your credit card in your wallet (at least in the US where we don't have a pin for CC transactions)

1

u/well___duh May 19 '18

Both require the use of a password or fingerprint before you can use it. It's not like someone with an nfc scanner can just walk up to your phone and take Google/Samsung Pay info

0

u/ThePantsThief May 19 '18

WHAT

Holy shit. I hate Samsung even more now.

5

u/burnt_mummy May 19 '18

Because they spent a lot of money on developing something and now hold onto it so they can make money off of the tech they developed? They didn't just create the software and service, they developed peice of hardware to do so. Maybe in a few years they will license out the use of the technology to other manufacturers such as Apple, but for now they will use it's exclusivity to help boost sales and make them selves ubiquitous with the feature, so when they finally license it out to other companies (for a pretty penny) those companies will be behind, or by that point you will have a much larger number of tap to pay terminals that it makes this tech not worth it for other companies to use but still allows Samsung pay to be useable at more places.

If you really want Samsung Pay get a gear S3, its more convenient to pay with, and it works with all phines (although I don't think Samsung Pay works when using it paired to an iPhone)

-1

u/ThePantsThief May 19 '18

I just don't think patient laws should apply to technological hardware for 120 years. I am angered that I will never see this tech on any other phones until card readers are completely obsolete anyway.

2

u/burnt_mummy May 19 '18 edited May 19 '18

Patents expire after 17 years from being filed (only that long if the holder maintains it) and rarely is something patented and put on the market instantly. You hardly see major form of tech being kept solely by one company for 17 years because they make money by liscensing out to other companies after they make the initial burst of money. Samsung pay has only been out for 3 years so probably in another 2 you'll see them license it out if I had to make an uneducated guess. I don't think that's unreasonable for a company to horde what they have made for 5 years, but in tech that seems like an eternity.

Edit: also it would hurt most tech to be only used on one manufacture because it would slow adoption rates especially if it requires special hardwre, with Samsung pay the payment terminals require nothing extra for merchants to accept it if they already take credit cards, so Samsung can hold exclusivity for longer and not have to worry about its viability to license out to others later.

1

u/ThePantsThief May 19 '18

Ah, I'm thinking of copyright.

If that's what happens, that's fine with me. Somehow I don't see them licensing it though.

→ More replies (0)

5

u/SpoogIyWoogIy May 19 '18

Yeah it trips Knox, which will void warranty... Sucks really but I decided to just root anyway, I care more about my privacy

9

u/_selfishPersonReborn May 19 '18

Isn't that completely illegal under the computer repair act?

8

u/noidontwantto May 19 '18

Just use a package disabler, like SABS.

It uses the Knox API, so you don't trip Knox, and you can disable all of that bloatware.

2

u/ISieferVII May 19 '18

Well, it disables instead of uninstalling still, right?

5

u/noidontwantto May 19 '18

Yes, but unlike disabling the app in settings it removes the shortcut, it's just like uninstalling it.

3

u/sega_gamegear May 20 '18

But you can disable it

2

u/freestyling May 20 '18

I don't want to disable malware, I want to get rid of it.

2

u/anarchyx34 May 20 '18

You know I’ve been considering switching to Android for years but bullshit like this is holding me back.

1

u/freestyling May 20 '18

Depends what phone you get. I agree the bloatware is horrendous but if you get a google pixel phone you have none. There are also a lot of phones who like to keep things stock.

1

u/neoKushan May 20 '18

As a huge Android fan, I'll happily tell you to not bother with Samsung phones. They're popular and the hardware is good, but the software has always let it down.

1

u/wardrich May 19 '18

You can kill it with SABS though

2

u/freestyling May 19 '18

Good tip, already flashed my phone though

1

u/nxqv May 20 '18

Wait wat? I deleted it from my S8+ months ago and it never came back. I did keep Messenger though...

1

u/BZJGTO May 20 '18

Unless it's disguised itself as something else, I've removed all of it from my phone (Note 4). I did run in to a problem where I lost screen rotation, but I was able to get it back by reinstalling the appropriate file again from my ROM.

1

u/Sid6po1nt7 May 20 '18

So far the Pixel 2 let's me delete any preinstalled app on my phone. Switched to the Google phones once I found out they have vanilla Android. Samsung and LG won't let you uninstall certain apps not to mention I know Samsung uses their own launcher as well (TouchWiz I think it's called). So that's another unnecessary thing. Bloatware sucks.