4 ms·

Last I checked the default keyboard samsung installs on their phones was collecting what you typed and sharing/selling that data with third parties. I try not t

Last I checked the default keyboard samsung installs on their phones was collecting what you typed and sharing/selling that data with third parties. I try not to store or access any personal information on my cell phones when i can avoid it, but at a certain point, just having one is enough to seriously compromise your privacy. Strong regulation with real sharp teeth is the only thing that can fix this situation.

ibeckermayer 5y ago
Strong regulation by whom? The organization that brought us the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of “security” bureaucracies that spy on us arbitrarily? Strong regulation could easily worsen the problem, as it can lead to a ratcheting up of the regulatory burden until only mega corps like Apple and Google could afford to make phones, and upstarts like Purism and Pinephone get squeezed out. How about before getting so gung ho with pointing the government gun at everyone’s head, we consider the option of rolling back the unjust regulations that already exist which give the mega corps undue government privilege (patents are a good place to start), and encouraging (by voting with our wallets) organic alternatives to emerge, like they already are doing.
- autoexec 5y ago
  > The organization that brought us the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of “security” bureaucracies that spy on us arbitrarily? Which origination do you think that is? you think they all came from the same place? Every one of these agencies came into existence under very different circumstances at different times and they fall under different branches and operate in different areas. Do you mean "government" in general? Yes, it's a horrible thing that these agencies are being used to spy on all American citizens in violation of our freedoms, but that fact doesn't mean that we shouldn't allow any government agency anywhere enforce regulations. How that does that make any sense at all? You could say the same for literally anything. "Who should regulate the amount of lead in our drinking water? The organization that brought us the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of “security” bureaucracies that spy on us arbitrarily?" > Strong regulation could easily worsen the problem, as it can lead to a ratcheting up of the regulatory burden until only mega corps like Apple and Google could afford to make phones, and upstarts like Purism and Pinephone get squeezed out. It literally couldn't worsen the problem of our privacy being violated and used against us by cell phone companies. If it's illegal for Google to do it, and we had regular independent verification that they were not violating those laws, than it wouldn't matter if the only cell phones that existed on the whole of Earth were made by Google. Google still wouldn't be doing the bad thing we're trying to stop. Yes, I'd prefer to have more choices but there's zero requirement that regulations make it prohibitively expensive for any company even an upstart. In fact, because this would be regulation against collecting, securing, maintaining, analyzing, marketing, and selling our personal data it'd actually save companies tons of money since they'd no longer be dong any of those things. Established companies who are currently exploiting consumers won't get to profit off of them as they are currently, but they will still save a lot of time and money not exploiting the public. > How about before getting so gung ho with pointing the government gun at everyone’s head, we consider the option of rolling back the unjust regulations that already exist which give the mega corps undue government privilege (patents are a good place to start) This isn't an either/or type of thing. There's a lot of great and important things we should be doing. This is one of them. Let's do them all. > and encouraging (by voting with our wallets) organic alternatives to emerge, like they already are doing. If "the market" were going to solve this problem, if it were capable of solving this problem, it would have been solved already. It's not. Until strong regulations are in place there will continue to be a very very strong perverse incentive to not solve this problem. We're coming up on 50 years of mobile phone technology and at present there are no comparable options for cell phones and mobile networks that preserve privacy. None. It's not regulations forcing Google and Apple to collect our personal data. They are choosing to do it. They could stop tomorrow if they wanted to. They don't want to. They won't stop until they are forced to stop.
SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
There are lines in the sand, and a default key logger sending data to undisclosed third parties should be a pretty easy one everyone can agree on.
- atatatat 5y ago
  This isn't the sort of news that wins on people's Facebook or Instagram feeds.
nimbius 5y ago
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dslul.openboard.inputmethod.latin https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dslul.open... OpenBoard is a 100% foss keyboard based on AOSP, with no dependency on Google binaries, that respects your privacy.
- tjpnz 5y ago
  Looked promising until I noticed that Japanese isn't an option (despite practically every other language being listed).
- ByteWelder 5y ago
  Alternatively, you can just disable internet access to any of the keyboards via 'Settings' > 'Apps and notifications'.
- autoexec 5y ago
  Once I realized what samsung was doing I switched to AnySoftKeyboard and I'm pretty happy with it. It's got a lot of options. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.menny.android.anysoftkeyboard/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.menny.android.anysoftkey...
  - ignoramous 5y ago
    One may replace the keyboard, but the underlying "input method" framework is still under OEM's (in this case, Samsung's) control: That is (afaik), they could key-log just fine regardless of whatever keyboard one may install / use.
  - brodock 5y ago
    I've tried both anysoftkeyboard and openboard, and liked openboard layout better but wanted swiftkey like support from anysoftkeyboard. Looking at reddit fossdroid I discovered the one fitted me better as a closer to openboard with swiftkey support : FlorisBoard
    - commoner 5y ago
hungryforcodes 5y ago
Hi! I have a Samsung and I looked around online and couldn't find any real info on this topic. I don't doubt it's quite possible, but where is your source from? It's been hard for me to confirm. A good point, though, I'll look at the open source options....
- autoexec 5y ago
  Samsung's own privacy policy and those of the 3rd parties they use. It's been over a year and checking now some things have already changed, but if you click on the gear icon from within the keyboard you can select "about sumsung keyboard" which should give you a list of policies including gify and tenor (both used for gifs I guess) but i didn't even check those. The one you want is the legal info which tells you that in addition to samsung's privacy policy (which outright says it's collecting and selling everything it can get their hands on (see https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-selling-data.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-sellin...) you also have to accept the policy of a 3rd party called Nuance which they use for "language data". The wall of legal text there eventually links to their privacy privacy which opens in the browser. They collect and store things like "your choice of words, speech and writing patters, how you use your keyboard, custom words you add, the number of charters you type, your typing speed, etc. and they share (read sell) that data to affiliates, subsidiaries, vendors, subcontractors, etc (pretty much anyone they feel like). They specifically state they use this data to draw inferences reflecting your characteristics, behavior, abilities, preferences and aptitudes all of which they can sell to anyone at any time without even telling you about it because what they learn about you by going over all your data is their data and they don't have to tell you anything at all about what they do with their data.
  - zibzab 5y ago
    They specifically ask you when something like that is being used. And I don't think giffy or others are receiving your emails. This is probably just usage stats, but someone needs to check that. Windows 10 start menu on the other hand send every keystroke to bing. You cannot turn it off either
frankenst1 5y ago
> Last I checked the default keyboard samsung installs on their phones was collecting what you typed and sharing/selling that data with third parties. How did you check? Do you have a source/link?
- autoexec 5y ago
  as stated elsewhere: Samsung's own privacy policy and those of the 3rd parties they use. It's been over a year and checking now some things have already changed, but if you click on the gear icon from within the keyboard you can select "about sumsung keyboard" which should give you a list of policies including gify and tenor (both used for gifs I guess) but i didn't even check those. The one you want is the legal info which tells you that in addition to samsung's privacy policy (which outright says it's collecting and selling everything it can get their hands on (see https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-selling-data.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-sellin...) you also have to accept the policy of a 3rd party called Nuance which they use for "language data". The wall of legal text there eventually links to their privacy privacy which opens in the browser. They collect and store things like "your choice of words, speech and writing patters, how you use your keyboard, custom words you add, the number of charters you type, your typing speed, etc. and they share (read sell) that data to affiliates, subsidiaries, vendors, subcontractors, etc (pretty much anyone they feel like). They specifically state they use this data to draw inferences reflecting your characteristics, behavior, abilities, preferences and aptitudes all of which they can sell to anyone at any time without even telling you about it because what they learn about you by going over all your data is their data and they don't have to tell you anything at all about what they do with their data.

ibeckermayer 5y ago

Strong regulation by whom? The organization that brought us the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of “security” bureaucracies that spy on us arbitrarily? Strong regulation could easily worsen the problem, as it can lead to a ratcheting up of the regulatory burden until only mega corps like Apple and Google could afford to make phones, and upstarts like Purism and Pinephone get squeezed out. How about before getting so gung ho with pointing the government gun at everyone’s head, we consider the option of rolling back the unjust regulations that already exist which give the mega corps undue government privilege (patents are a good place to start), and encouraging (by voting with our wallets) organic alternatives to emerge, like they already are doing.

autoexec 5y ago
> The organization that brought us the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of “security” bureaucracies that spy on us arbitrarily? Which origination do you think that is? you think they all came from the same place? Every one of these agencies came into existence under very different circumstances at different times and they fall under different branches and operate in different areas. Do you mean "government" in general? Yes, it's a horrible thing that these agencies are being used to spy on all American citizens in violation of our freedoms, but that fact doesn't mean that we shouldn't allow any government agency anywhere enforce regulations. How that does that make any sense at all? You could say the same for literally anything. "Who should regulate the amount of lead in our drinking water? The organization that brought us the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of “security” bureaucracies that spy on us arbitrarily?" > Strong regulation could easily worsen the problem, as it can lead to a ratcheting up of the regulatory burden until only mega corps like Apple and Google could afford to make phones, and upstarts like Purism and Pinephone get squeezed out. It literally couldn't worsen the problem of our privacy being violated and used against us by cell phone companies. If it's illegal for Google to do it, and we had regular independent verification that they were not violating those laws, than it wouldn't matter if the only cell phones that existed on the whole of Earth were made by Google. Google still wouldn't be doing the bad thing we're trying to stop. Yes, I'd prefer to have more choices but there's zero requirement that regulations make it prohibitively expensive for any company even an upstart. In fact, because this would be regulation against collecting, securing, maintaining, analyzing, marketing, and selling our personal data it'd actually save companies tons of money since they'd no longer be dong any of those things. Established companies who are currently exploiting consumers won't get to profit off of them as they are currently, but they will still save a lot of time and money not exploiting the public. > How about before getting so gung ho with pointing the government gun at everyone’s head, we consider the option of rolling back the unjust regulations that already exist which give the mega corps undue government privilege (patents are a good place to start) This isn't an either/or type of thing. There's a lot of great and important things we should be doing. This is one of them. Let's do them all. > and encouraging (by voting with our wallets) organic alternatives to emerge, like they already are doing. If "the market" were going to solve this problem, if it were capable of solving this problem, it would have been solved already. It's not. Until strong regulations are in place there will continue to be a very very strong perverse incentive to not solve this problem. We're coming up on 50 years of mobile phone technology and at present there are no comparable options for cell phones and mobile networks that preserve privacy. None. It's not regulations forcing Google and Apple to collect our personal data. They are choosing to do it. They could stop tomorrow if they wanted to. They don't want to. They won't stop until they are forced to stop.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago

There are lines in the sand, and a default key logger sending data to undisclosed third parties should be a pretty easy one everyone can agree on.

atatatat 5y ago
This isn't the sort of news that wins on people's Facebook or Instagram feeds.

nimbius 5y ago

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dslul.openboard.inputmethod.latin https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dslul.open... OpenBoard is a 100% foss keyboard based on AOSP, with no dependency on Google binaries, that respects your privacy.

tjpnz 5y ago
Looked promising until I noticed that Japanese isn't an option (despite practically every other language being listed).
ByteWelder 5y ago
Alternatively, you can just disable internet access to any of the keyboards via 'Settings' > 'Apps and notifications'.
autoexec 5y ago
Once I realized what samsung was doing I switched to AnySoftKeyboard and I'm pretty happy with it. It's got a lot of options. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.menny.android.anysoftkeyboard/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.menny.android.anysoftkey...
- ignoramous 5y ago
  One may replace the keyboard, but the underlying "input method" framework is still under OEM's (in this case, Samsung's) control: That is (afaik), they could key-log just fine regardless of whatever keyboard one may install / use.
- brodock 5y ago
  I've tried both anysoftkeyboard and openboard, and liked openboard layout better but wanted swiftkey like support from anysoftkeyboard. Looking at reddit fossdroid I discovered the one fitted me better as a closer to openboard with swiftkey support : FlorisBoard
  - commoner 5y ago

hungryforcodes 5y ago

Hi! I have a Samsung and I looked around online and couldn't find any real info on this topic. I don't doubt it's quite possible, but where is your source from? It's been hard for me to confirm. A good point, though, I'll look at the open source options....

autoexec 5y ago
Samsung's own privacy policy and those of the 3rd parties they use. It's been over a year and checking now some things have already changed, but if you click on the gear icon from within the keyboard you can select "about sumsung keyboard" which should give you a list of policies including gify and tenor (both used for gifs I guess) but i didn't even check those. The one you want is the legal info which tells you that in addition to samsung's privacy policy (which outright says it's collecting and selling everything it can get their hands on (see https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-selling-data.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-sellin...) you also have to accept the policy of a 3rd party called Nuance which they use for "language data". The wall of legal text there eventually links to their privacy privacy which opens in the browser. They collect and store things like "your choice of words, speech and writing patters, how you use your keyboard, custom words you add, the number of charters you type, your typing speed, etc. and they share (read sell) that data to affiliates, subsidiaries, vendors, subcontractors, etc (pretty much anyone they feel like). They specifically state they use this data to draw inferences reflecting your characteristics, behavior, abilities, preferences and aptitudes all of which they can sell to anyone at any time without even telling you about it because what they learn about you by going over all your data is their data and they don't have to tell you anything at all about what they do with their data.
- zibzab 5y ago
  They specifically ask you when something like that is being used. And I don't think giffy or others are receiving your emails. This is probably just usage stats, but someone needs to check that. Windows 10 start menu on the other hand send every keystroke to bing. You cannot turn it off either

frankenst1 5y ago

> Last I checked the default keyboard samsung installs on their phones was collecting what you typed and sharing/selling that data with third parties. How did you check? Do you have a source/link?

autoexec 5y ago
as stated elsewhere: Samsung's own privacy policy and those of the 3rd parties they use. It's been over a year and checking now some things have already changed, but if you click on the gear icon from within the keyboard you can select "about sumsung keyboard" which should give you a list of policies including gify and tenor (both used for gifs I guess) but i didn't even check those. The one you want is the legal info which tells you that in addition to samsung's privacy policy (which outright says it's collecting and selling everything it can get their hands on (see https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-selling-data.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-sellin...) you also have to accept the policy of a 3rd party called Nuance which they use for "language data". The wall of legal text there eventually links to their privacy privacy which opens in the browser. They collect and store things like "your choice of words, speech and writing patters, how you use your keyboard, custom words you add, the number of charters you type, your typing speed, etc. and they share (read sell) that data to affiliates, subsidiaries, vendors, subcontractors, etc (pretty much anyone they feel like). They specifically state they use this data to draw inferences reflecting your characteristics, behavior, abilities, preferences and aptitudes all of which they can sell to anyone at any time without even telling you about it because what they learn about you by going over all your data is their data and they don't have to tell you anything at all about what they do with their data.