Xiaomi Xiaomi, Yes Papa. Secretly Uploading Pics? No Papa!

Kaustubh Katdare · 2014-07-30T21:04:33+00:00

Since last few days, a panic wave was circulating among the Xiaomi Redmi Note owners - that their phone is secretly uploading photos and text messages to Chinese server. It all began with OCWorkbench, a blog posting an article describing how the Redmi Note phone was communicating with a Chinese server and putting all the user's pics and SMS data on it, without notifying the user. OCWorkbench wrote that IMA mobile user, Kenny Li had found that his Redmi Note was connecting to IP address 42.62.48.157 via port 80 whenever he turned on WiFi on his phone. But whenever he turned on 3G, it was simply a handshake between the phone and the server. OCworkbench further reported that Kenny Li found out that the connection persists even after the firmware is rooted and flashed. The news caused havoc among the users after GSMArena, a popular mobiles focused blog picked up the news. Since then, Hugo Barra has come out in public and made it clear that Xiaomi Redmi Note is a safe device to use and it does not upload anything to the Chinese server. He made it very clear that Xiaomi phones will not upload anything to any server silently and the company respects user privacy and all the laws of the land where the Redmi Note is sold. The Mi Cloud service allows users to back up their data on the server but users have the option to disable it. Users can go to Settings -> Mi Cloud and turn it off. Read Hugo's post on his #-Link-Snipped-#. We'd like to know from our fellow engineers their opinion on user privacy. There's a ton of data that several companies track for each of the users. For example, Facebook and Google know almost everything about you - right from what you like to eat, what's your prefered style and color for your clothes, when you sleep and get up and what are you up to these days. Do you think users are still in complete control of their privacy?

Xiaomi Xiaomi, Yes Papa. Secretly Uploading Pics? No Papa!

Kaustubh Katdare

Administrator

Updated: Oct 26, 2024

Views: 1.1K

Since last few days, a panic wave was circulating among the Xiaomi Redmi Note owners - that their phone is secretly uploading photos and text messages to Chinese server. It all began with OCWorkbench, a blog posting an article describing how the Redmi Note phone was communicating with a Chinese server and putting all the user's pics and SMS data on it, without notifying the user. OCWorkbench wrote that IMA mobile user, Kenny Li had found that his Redmi Note was connecting to IP address 42.62.48.157 via port 80 whenever he turned on WiFi on his phone. But whenever he turned on 3G, it was simply a handshake between the phone and the server. OCworkbench further reported that Kenny Li found out that the connection persists even after the firmware is rooted and flashed.

The news caused havoc among the users after GSMArena, a popular mobiles focused blog picked up the news. Since then, Hugo Barra has come out in public and made it clear that Xiaomi Redmi Note is a safe device to use and it does not upload anything to the Chinese server. He made it very clear that Xiaomi phones will not upload anything to any server silently and the company respects user privacy and all the laws of the land where the Redmi Note is sold. The Mi Cloud service allows users to back up their data on the server but users have the option to disable it. Users can go to Settings -> Mi Cloud and turn it off. Read Hugo's post on his #-Link-Snipped-#.

We'd like to know from our fellow engineers their opinion on user privacy. There's a ton of data that several companies track for each of the users. For example, Facebook and Google know almost everything about you - right from what you like to eat, what's your prefered style and color for your clothes, when you sleep and get up and what are you up to these days. Do you think users are still in complete control of their privacy?

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Ramani Aswath

Member • Jul 30, 2014

I am quite thankful that my ancient (we should call the old 'urr ...tuck' rotary dial phones prehistoric) Nokia barely makes and receives calls. I do send an occasional SMS. Even here the template SMS in the phone serves most of the time.

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sea_j

Member • Jul 30, 2014

Online privacy and security has always been a concern for Internet users and the issue has gained further prominence in the past year due to revelations about governments spying on their citizens. According to the survey 60% of people say they are more concerned about security now than they were a year ago, though in reality that’s impossible to quantify. Even so, all the respondents who indicated that security had become more of a concern were asked which issues worried them the most.

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Anoop Kumar

Member • Jul 30, 2014

That's why trust only on open source builds 😀. No one can mess with it.
Whenever I will get this kind of phone my first move will be root and flash CM or AOSP

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Root

Member • Jul 31, 2014

Hmm..

I have already learned to eat chop-sticks. It is just a crash course I need to take in either Mandarin or Cantonese. Oh, do they speak our languages?

Welcome, my comrade bha(i)yees...Came and conquer us.

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Kaustubh Katdare

Administrator • Jul 31, 2014

I was taught the'right' technique by a Chinese. It's easier than the traditional one but I couldn't master it. Who cares when you have the agile digits?

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Root

Member • Jul 31, 2014

True. Own gum is better than the other guy's teeth.

Yet, I just wonder, is it justifiable to us Indians , as a people to merely give up and bend backwards to the whims of our neighbors? As for privacy and security on net, there is some truth. Maybe Facebook and Google know a lot about us. But there is a difference between what information we share willingly ( maybe stupidly) and someone steal it from us. If one can't see the difference it is truly a hopeless situation.

I have seen Indians opinion and react to others fiercely when these "cheap and best" product come into question. Saying goes like "I don't care china or amreekka steal my personal data as long as the price is less and 'specs' are high".

Jolly good fellas, eh?

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Vipin Thomas

Member • Jul 31, 2014

Its a matter of perception. We have been programmed or rather conditioned to view them as spies by some opportunist Countries and Companies. People upload loads of pics to Facebook and Google. Facebook and Google also track users to give them better personalized experience. Xiaomi is no exception. They've gone one step further to have given apps which helps monitor and control every app. There are lot of security features. We should be careful and know what we are doing, especially while sharing in public and private domain. Speed results in overlooking some important aspects. There have been cases, where I've installed apps and then uninstalled after looking at their permission levels and background activities.

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