Privacy

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Google Allows Creditors to Brick Your Phone (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

76 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I installed NetGuard about a month ago and blocked all internet to apps, unless they're on a whitelist. No notifications from this particular system app (that can't be disabled) until recently when it started making internet connection requests to google servers. Does anyone know when this became a thing?

Edit 2: I bought my Pixel 6 phone outright, directly from Google's Australian store. I have no creditors.

Were the courts not enough control for creditors? Since when are they allowed to lock you out of your purchased property without a court order?

I don't even live in the US, so what the actual fuck?

Edit 1: You can check it's installed (~~stock~~ Pixel 6 android 14) Settings > Apps > All Apps > three dot menu, Show system > search "DeviceLockController".

I highly recommend getting NetGuard, you can enable pro features via their website if you have the APK for as low as 0.10€, but donate more, because it's amazing. You can also purchase via Google Play store.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At least it's open-source: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/modules/DeviceLock/+/refs/heads/main/DeviceLockController/

And that'd be why custom roms have it. It's part of the base Android system.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was able to start some of its private activities with ActivityLauncher as root. Most of them just crash immediately, but the help page is available. And yikes, they got them covered against a possible bypass, no developer tools or sideloading.

Still disappointed this is shipped in LineageOS, but I suspect not for much longer with that publicity.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So, that looks like this is less insane than it sounded... This is for if you buy your phone on a payment plan? Not for creditors more generally to have a option to repossess/dispossess your phone?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

anyone remember the time when google removed(!) their internal "don't be evil" rule? guess this is part of the outcome of that "be evil" that came along with removal of the opposite. Abuse of this mechanism is IMHO veery predictable ;-)

There are plenty of google-free cellphones, one could easily stick to better products of better companies. help yourself, google's not gonna do that for you within the next 5billion* years as they IMHO already stated they "want" to be evil now, always remember that ;-)

*) thats round about when our sun expands too much for earth, so i currently dislike doing any predictions beyond that point ;-) i do not predict google would last that long, only that they'll keep beeing evil until their end.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Devs still need to eat so we will need a better alternative to adsense. As long as we depend on these corporate services their stranglehold will only continue strengthen like this.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Root the phone and remove insane garbage like that. Rip and tear until it is done.

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