Rabat_ Social Media Exchange (SMEX)—a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing human rights in digital spaces across MENA [Middle East and North Africa] — is warning that Israeli-linked software secretly embedded in Samsung phones across the Middle East and North Africa region poses a serious surveillance threat.
According to SMEX, Samsung’s A and M series devices either come preloaded with the app “Aura” or install it automatically through system updates, without the user’s consent. The application reportedly collects a wide range of personal and device-specific data, including IP addresses, device fingerprints, hardware details, and network information.
That’s why they say that free cheese exists only in traps.
(Or sometimes cheese paid for, but less than needed to not look for other sources of financing. Think all of modern electronics and the Internet.)
It’s not about other schemes of profiting than paying forward not existing - it’s about you the customer being interested in them not being used. They are always worse for you. The lesson of “free” stuff on the Internet.
Including free and open source software, with no doubt - because when a FOSS project could go the direction that would badly hurt corporate business relying on traps, it doesn’t - because its scheme of existence is based on said corporate businesses’ funding and developer participation and embrace and testing. And there won’t be a discussion inside that project, no matter how democratic, because money likes silence. Nobody will even think about a direction not supported by work, and work is done by people, and people are paid. All of big FOSS events cost a lot ; some of it is in volunteer resources, but most of it is people on their jobs.
I’m honestly starting to think about going the Apple way - at least they only send hashes of the binaries you run to the daddy.