
Preinstalled malware on low-cost phones stealing data and money from poor people - peter_retief
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/cheap-chinese-smartphones-malware
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tupac_speedrap
Premium brands aren't helping by normalising this, maybe not to the same
degree but every Android experience seems to come with vendor botnet stuff
built in.

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refresher
Some slightly dystopian vibes in that first image.

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richij
Ever been to Nigeria? Outside the big cities, that is.

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aaron695
> called the idea of Chinese-made phones extracting data and money from people
> living in poverty “digital colonialism.”

How do I leave this timeline?

> blaming an unidentified “vendor in the supply chain process.”

I think at this stage it would be reasonable to assume it might be an Africa
vendor. Would they not have some localisation? We can't jump to Chinese hate
yet :(

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netsharc
One link in the article shows the problem also exists in phones sold in Brazil
and Myanmar: [https://www.upstreamsystems.com/pre-installed-malware-
androi...](https://www.upstreamsystems.com/pre-installed-malware-android-
smartphones/) . I'd look at the source.

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mwcampbell
I think the fact that these phones are Chinese-made is irrelevant, and calling
this out in the title is linkbait that plays to our natural xenophobia. I
would simply replace "Chinese-made" with "Cheap". I think that would better
convey the most important point, that the reason these phones are cheap is
that they're subsidized in a way that will ultimately be costly to their
users.

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soco
Are any known similar situations where non-chinese phones are involved?

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mwcampbell
That's beside the point. The reason these phones do what they do isn't because
they're Chinese-made; it's because they're advertised as cheap but there's a
catch. The title distracts from the more important point and instead panders
to our natural xenophobia, which is one of our greatest weaknesses. We should
all be working to overcome that weakness, not stirring it up.

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bassman9000
They're cheap because China can afford to dump, which is a CCP strategy. All
Chinese manufacturers are state-bound, and the article is not to blame if the
CCP long term goal of erasing the citizen and conflating party, state, and
country has been largely successful. It is absolutely relevant they're coming
from China if no other manufacturing country is doing the same. It has nothing
to do with race, but the insistence is telling.

