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OnePlus OxygenOS built-in analytics
- rqs 9y agoIt's funny how OnePlus Support helping him to disable that application. > OnePlus Support: Alright. Please try doing a hard reset http://bit.ly/1TbY1RZ http://bit.ly/1TbY1RZ and see if there are improvements. How this could help improve that situations at all? Do OnePlus Support Team even read user's problem detail? Very unprofessional I must say.
- tmikaeld 9y agoThat's the answer I've always gotten with OnePlus, ever since OnePlus One. "Please clear cache" or "Please reset the device", even when it's a proven faulty hardware they force you to do this 5-6 times until they MAYBE ask you send it it in to them (While paying for shipping).
- boomboomsubban 9y agoThe question sounds enough like "how do I stop this app from eating data cap" that running them through standard malware fixes makes sense. Tech support deals with a lot of people that are terrible at wording their questions, so you tend to look for key phrases and suggest easy fixes first.
- the_dege 9y agoI wonder if this is even legal in Europe (probably not in Germany).
- mike-cardwell 9y agoThis definitely feels like it would have a high chance of being illegal in the EU.
- mino 9y agoOf course it is illegal in the EU.
- victornomad 9y agoIs it different than any other Android from a different vendor? Android, sadly, is a bit about that, grabbing data from the user in one form or another.
- jchw 9y agoGoogle is a bit about that. Android was about crushing Microsoft's mobile strategy, ironically. Still, it's not like Apple is really significantly better.
- ajjai 9y agopathetic
- tmikaeld 9y agoAnyone know what data iOS send to Apple?
- princekolt 9y agohttps://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/
- SimplyUnknown 9y agoThe sales page is nice and all, but this is the page that matters: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/. TL;DR: we collect the shit out of you and share it with third parties as we see fit. If you disagree you will get a crippled experience
- jaclaz 9y ago>TL;DR: we collect the shit out of you and share it with third parties as we see fit. If you disagree you will get a crippled experience Very well summed up.
- UnoriginalGuy 9y agoApple claims this is non-personal information: > We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, referrer URL, location, and the time zone where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising. How is your occupation and exact location non-personal?
- jaclaz 9y ago>How is your occupation and exact location non-personal? Not only, how many degrees of separation do exist between your "unique device identifier" and your identity (additionally given the restricted area provided by Zip code, area code and/or location)? What is exactly the "unique device identifier"? The IMEI, the MAC address, something else?
- pkrefta 9y agoHoly moly O_o. Those kind of stories are keeping me back from buying any Android devices in nearest future. Somebody might say that I can flash it with clean Android ROM but that's great for people who have too much time :-)
- SimplyUnknown 9y agoWhat other options do you have if you want a smartphone? I severely doubt that other devices (most notably Apple) are any better. I think that if you don't want this to happen you have to buy a dumbphone, which may or may not be an option for some people.
- cyphar 9y agoThe Librem 5 just passed its crowd-funding goal[1]. That's what I'm getting for my next phone. [1]: https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
- jiggunjer 9y agoI'd settle for a dumbphone with WhatsApp and a solid browser. I miss having to only recharge once a week.
- rtkwe 9y agoTo get a solid browser with a decent experience though you're going to pretty much need most of a smart phone's performance anyways and most of the power drain because you'll probably want a good screen and decent performance on the browser so a good processor too. Dumb phones lasted so long because they had really low power processors and beyond texting and calls there was no reason to constantly interact with them so they could be in a really low power state 90% of the time.
- rtkwe 9y agoIt doesn't take that long to flash a ROM though.
- jchw 9y ago
- mike-cardwell 9y agoThis is why I have no desire to upgrade to a new Android device and why I put my money into the Librem 5 project. This data collection is beyond ridiculous and if it's not already illegal, it should be.
- gman83 9y agoOr just run LineageOS?
- cyphar 9y agoThere's are still many privacy problems with Android beyond just this. Lineage has the proprietary Google Play Services (luckily they don't support SafetyNet -- one the most ridiculous breach of privacy and user's rights).
- lgp171188 9y ago> Lineage has the proprietary Google Play Services Lineage doesn't ship the proprietary Google Apps. It is up to the users to flash it after flashing Lineage
- CharlesDodgson 9y agoI have absolutely no doubt there is some data centre in Shenzhen full of my Huawei phone metrics! I think this is the biggest issue with android phones, they are full of potential data leakages like this. Privacy is definitely a concern and a pull factor to getting an iPhone again. There is a lot to be said for a company that is focused on hardware and not on serving content to that device. Then again it's also a reason to get a Pixel2, I feel I can trust Google with my data more than some other android manufacturer or reseller. Sure they'll serve me more adverts, but it's to some ends at least.
- nocoder 9y agoBut i dont understand this, why should I have to part with my data when I am buying a fully paid product? I know the justification being used for free services but i find it hard to accept this for a piece of hardware that I pay for.
- brazzledazzle 9y agoI'm not trying to justify it by any means, but I sometimes wonder if the cost of devices are sometimes subsidized by data collection.
- holtalanm 9y agoI think this hit the nail on the head. Most devices are actually sold at barely over cost.
- bdcravens 9y agoIndeed. I helped a relatively un-technical friend get a smartphone at MetroPCS and was blown away at the hardware you can get for $99 or less. Obviously I assumed it's very subsidized, but I found the $99 phones were only about $179 full cost, and we're talking phones not too far off spec from an iPhone 7 Plus or a Galaxy S8.
- lucideer 9y ago
- matthew349hall 9y ago"This kind of data collection, especially one containing information that can be directly tied back to me as an individual, should really be opt-in and/or have an easily accessible off switch…" This kind of data collection should never occur. Read Apple's privacy statement for tips.
- nocoder 9y agoThis is really shocking, this data along with my google data can be used to learn a lot more about the user like what i surf when, how much time i use my mobile in office and what do i use it for. I am wondering if there is a way to corrupt the data being sent by some way masking or sending gibberish data. For me rooting is not an option because my office email will not work on a rooted device.
- orliesaurus 9y agogot you, bud: https://www.xda-developers.com/uninstall-carrier-oem-bloatware-without-root-access/ https://www.xda-developers.com/uninstall-carrier-oem-bloatwa...
- pieter_mj 9y agoIn this case there's a rootless solution using dns66 (the issue affects all oneplus devices) : https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieHDLite/comments/5zfj9y/how_to_block_ads_in_apps_using_dns66_no_root/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieHDLite/comments/5zfj9y/how_to_... redirect server open.oneplus.net. Ofcourse, it is likely many other android devices have a similar setup.
- HalfwayToDice 9y agoIf this data collection is not declared in the user-agreement, then is it illegal?
- lokerfoi 9y agoOf course not. One of the reasons why this kind of industry popped out of no where is because these kinds of things are not regulated. If they were, targeted ads would be a much harder problem.
- dkersten 9y agoI don't think this is legal in the EU. I suppose somebody has to complain to the correct commission or sue to find out for sure though.
- ajdlinux 9y agoIt probably is declared somewhere deep in the user agreement.
- mino 9y agoIrrelevant. Even if it is declared somewhere, that would not make this behaviour legal in the EU.
- boomboomsubban 9y agoI bought a OnePlus phone because I knew it had an unlocked bootloader, good LineageOS support, and at least a small chance of someday being supported by Replicant. OxygenOS sounded sketchy from the start.
- KuiN 9y ago> ping open.oneplus.net PING hadoop-1219418324.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com Your phone usage data going straight into OnePlus' Hadoop cluster?
- dkersten 9y agoCan we start sending it dummy data to make it useless?
- WorkLobster 9y agoMy guess is we'll need someone to provide OAuth tokens to spoof data for. Or at the minimum, details on what fields are required by "/oauth/token" for it to issue new ones.
- RKearney 9y agoNo? ryans-mbp:~ ryan$ curl https://open.oneplus.net -D- HTTP/1.1 200 OK ... Server: nginx Hadoop is the name they gave to the ELB on AWS. It could have just as easily said totallynotspying-1219418324.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com. Granted the data could end up in a Hadoop cluster, but they didn't expose that directly to the internet.
- melvintamray 9y agoThe purpose of buying a OnePlus device is to get decent hardware for an okay price (I have the 3T), and then take advantage of their unlocked bootloader and the multitudes of highly functional kernels for it. Sultan's LineageOS ROMs are quite nice and even include WireGuard. If you're not immediately removing non-free OxygenOS when you receive your phone, you're most certainly already doing it wrong, data collection or not.
- darklajid 9y agoSo, I owned the OnePlus One, two OnePlus 3T and currently run the OnePlus 5. I always used CM (or LineageOS) before the 5, they never completed the first setup once before I unlocked the bootloader, thereby reset to factory and I flashed a different ROM right away. Right now I'm on the stock ROM (and affected ofc) though. Question time: 1) Do you use your camera? I had the feeling that everytime I went from stock to CM/LineageOS I lost features and quality. 2) Why would you pick "Sultan's LineageOS ROM" (not trying to slight Sultan, whoever that might be. I'm curious) instead of going with the official LineageOS builds?
- def- 9y agoAt least for the OPO, Sultan includes the improved camera stuff that stock LineageOS is missing.
- jiggunjer 9y agoThat was the purpose, but I think nowadays they're priced pretty mainstream.
- wastedhours 9y ago> The purpose of buying a OnePlus device is to get decent hardware for an okay price Think you might need a full stop there. OP might have a reputation amongst the "root/flash/ROM" brigade, but that by no means makes up all of their userbase, and user-blaming that it's your own fault for not randomly knowing about custom flavours of Android isn't really helpful. This is consumer software, on a consumer product, by a consumer company, that's doing something that raises genuine questions about personal privacy and the access to information we give to hardware manufacturers. The default answer to all of this really shouldn't be "install random OS XYZ", in the same way that questioning Windows 10 analytics isn't "just install Arch".
- AndrewCHM 9y agoGoogle's is similarly excessive https://i.imgur.com/fWvV7R4.png https://i.imgur.com/fWvV7R4.png Though I get the feeling google's approach of trying to desensitize me (emailing me about how great I am for traveling to mcdonalds like a slob, and gamifying my use of google maps, for example) instead of shamefully hiding it, is a fair bit worse
- ohgodmorecow 9y agoYou can easily turn off this feature. But it's forced on Oxygen.
- 482794793792894 9y agoThat doesn't really make a difference. Opt-out is essentially the same as just forcing it. The vast majority of users will never even know that they could be opting out.
- drdaeman 9y agoI believe it's not opt-out. IIRC, you're properly asked, the first time you try to do something, whenever you want to enable relevant tracking - e.g. share location history (e.g. when trying to set up "show my location"), or save voice data on Google servers (e.g. when setting up voice unlocking), etc etc. I'm not exactly sure about app history and in-app search, though - just honestly don't remember about it. But it could be that user is actually asked at account setup time. Point is, for many things Google actually properly asks for permission. Guess, it works for them, because timing's relevant. (They probably have ton of invisible tracking as well.)
- ForHackernews 9y agoIs that true? You can turn off your ability to see your activity history in Google, but does it actually delete (or not send?) any data from Google's servers?
- Klathmon 9y agoWait so google's approach of explicitly showing you the information they gather is worse than hiding the information they gather?
- basemi 9y agoI think (just a feeling) that every vendor and a lot of app devs is phoning home collecting data. I'm using Netguard to block net access to most of apps. On a rooted device I would use AFWall+.
- venins 9y agoMiui is doing same, they are collecting data(sms, phonebook, usage etc) even after you turn off all sync settings.
- mxstbr 9y agoTL;DR: OxygenOS tracks your every activity in every app, and there's no settings to disable the tracking. To get rid of it you have to uninstall the tracking app via adb: (no root access needed) $ adb start-server $ adb shell > pm uninstall -k --user 0 net.oneplus.odm Note: This requires adb to be installed, your phone to be connected and USB debugging to be enabled.
- tuxxy 9y agoI caught them doing this a while ago when I first got my OnePlus 3: https://twitter.com/__Tux/status/754085708843786240 https://twitter.com/__Tux/status/754085708843786240
- apocalyptic0n3 9y agoThis is great, but what is to prevent them from re-installing in an update? Or throwing it in a service that can't be uninstalled? In my mind, the only options are either dumping your OnePlus or flashing a third party ROM (I plan to flash Lineage tonight and probably start shopping for a replacement for my OP3 as well)
- tuxxy 9y agoFlashing a third party ROM is probably your best bet. I'm curious to what phones you're considering to replace your OP3 with, though. For myself, I've been looking for something that has "much better than average" security and, unfortunately for any mobile platform, that looks like it's probably not going to happen. The closest ROM I've found is CopperheadOS, but it is only supported on a few devices.
- nicolasbistolfi 9y agoThis should have been asked when you're first booting up. I'll receive my one plus in a few days and track whats going on. Transparency is always the best path and supports that you've the best intentions.
- raresp 9y agoOK.. now what should I say about my Xiaomi "smart"phone?
- loki22 9y agoAre similar services found in other more popular phones such as by Samsung or LG?
- snvzz 9y agoI own a oneplus3 device. Since I switched to LineageOS, it's faster, the battery lasts way longer, and it doesn't even get warm on 3d games where it got burning hot before. The devices are a mixed bag, some of them are quite decent. OxygenOS, however, is garbage.
- 482794793792894 9y agoDid you install the Google Play Services along LineageOS or not? Those by themselves also already make a big difference in the aspects that you named...
- snvzz 9y agoYes, I did. Whatever is wrong with OxygenOS isn't due to Google Play Services.
- ProAm 9y agoCould you add a host file entry and send open.oneplus.net to 127.0.0.1? Similiar to how DNS66 works?
- orliesaurus 9y agoI did that as soon as I read the article...gonna check back later to see if it worked
- SparkyMcUnicorn 9y agoSame. Ping, wget, and curl all resolve localhost now so I'm assuming this worked.
- ProAm 9y agoLet me know. I added it too, how are you verifying it works? DNS66 logs? or Network Connections app?
- zeveb 9y agoThis is part of why Google's move to forbid users from installing SSL certificates is so anti-security and anti-privacy: it disables the ability to MITM one's own device in order to observe traffic. I'd support regulation forcing Google to permit users to install our own root CA certs.
- sprayk 9y agoYou can definitely install your own CA certs on Android. https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/2844832?hl=en https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/2844832?hl=en Only problem is that you have to explicitly enable the use of custom CA certs in your app, so it won't work with Google apps as you say. Is there no other way to get at this traffic? Possibly something at the application level, like throwing a debugger at the calls that are originating the telemetry traffic?
- zeveb 9y ago> Only problem is that you have to explicitly enable the use of custom CA certs in your app, so it won't work with Google apps as you say. Or any other app doing nefarious things. Enabling apps to ignore user-installed certs is flat-out evil an inexcusable.
- pas 9y agoEvil, herp derp. It was done by malware, to steal user data, hence the change. If you want to log Google data traffic, you have to put a CA cert into the system cert store (needs root access).
- zeveb 9y agoIf a user installs malware from the Play Store, that's his fault, and it's Google's fault for allowing that malware on the store. If he sideloads malware, that's his fault entirely. Preventing me from controlling my phone is evil. Preventing me from seeing what the apps on my phone are doing is evil. If I wanted a padded room or a walled garden, I'd be using iOS.
- sgwealti 9y agoI'm a OP3 owner and I love my phone. I don't mind that they do this -- especially if it means that they can use the data to improve the OS/fix bugs but they should clearly notify users that they do this kind of logging/data gathering so that people can make an informed decision about the device they are buying.
- dom96 9y agoI'm an OP3T owner and I dislike my phone. This may just be the straw that breaks the camels back for me. It would be fine if they asked me explicitly whether I am happy for them to collect these statistics and to offer a way to disable this, but as it is right now this is just unacceptable. The more time I spend with this phone the more I believe that Apple aligns with my interests more (plus their hardware is simply better). Sure, I'll spend a bit more money but at least I won't have Google + OnePlus collecting stats on what apps I use.
- guelo 9y agoWhy do you think Apple does not collect device analytics?
- dom96 9y agoMaybe they do. But they don't have as much incentive to do so as Google/OnePlus. Does Apple collect the same statistics though?
- snvzz 9y agoOP3 owner, I love my device. But I run LineageOS. It's far better than OxygenOS, which trouble knows no end.
- djhworld 9y agoDo you void the warranty if you install Lineage?
- ForHackernews 9y agoDoes anyone know if Google or other companies collect similar data as part of their background services on Android devices? What kinds of OS permissions would a service need to monitor activity in other applications?
- Outrageous 9y agoThere is a setting under settings/advanced called 'join user experience program' which is on by default. Does this have anything to do with this data collection?
- GoodAdmiral 9y agoShame, I really like my phone, but this level of data collection is completely unacceptable. However, this post does need third party verification. In the meantime, let's up vote it to the top and keep it there.
- taobility 9y agowhy no Tesla users complain against with them? https://www.quora.com/Does-Tesla-collect-data-from-the-cars-owned-by-Tesla-drivers https://www.quora.com/Does-Tesla-collect-data-from-the-cars-...
- JeromeShaw 9y agoIt can be turned off, just turn off the"join users experience program"in"advance"option,
- Loofe 9y agoHey how do i actually uninstall that ''thing'' so they cant track my data. I am a noob :(
- Loofe 9y agoHow do i actually stop this? im kind of a noob when it comes to this