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.
I know this is a privacy community, but I’m not sure I’m onboard with the outrage on this particular one. If you rent/lease or go on a payment plan for the device you’re using, then it isn’t yours, it belongs to the entity you borrowed it from.
If I don’t make car payments, the bank can repossess my ride. If I dont pay my mortgage or rent, I can be evicted by my landlord or bank.
If I don’t make my phone payment, the company should have recourse to prevent me from using their device.
This could open up the ability for bad actors to disable my device, and I agree that’s a horrible prospect. But the idea of a legitimate creditor using this feature to reclaim their property is not something I find shocking.
For every single one of those scenarios, a set of legal processes need to be exhausted. This app gives the lender the ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want, without following a set of legal processes.
That’s dystopian mentality at it’s greatest.
What about for people like me?
I bought my device outright. No loans, no payment plans and no reason for that functionality to exist on my phone. Yet there it is, just waiting to be taken advantage of whether there is a valid reason or not.
This is the kind of apathy that leads to phrases like, “If only we had known” but we do … and do nothing about it.
I can and will at least do my part for myself and encourage others to do the same.
This is classic efficient market hypothesis brain worms, the kind of cognitive dead-end that you arrive at when you conceive of people in purely economic terms, without considering the power relationships between them. It’s a dead end you navigate to if you only think about things as they are today – vast numbers of indebted people who command fewer assets and lower wages than at any time since WWII – and treat this as a “natural” state: “how can these poors expect to be offered more debt unless they agree to have their all-important pocket computers booby-trapped?”
-Cory Doctorow from his blog, unintentionally addressing you
When I saw this on a custom ROM, it was basically the same thing, but said that my financial institution or whoever had admin access to my phone, including seeing texts and everything else, until my phone was paid off. Still not sure why that was there in a custom ROM, but I ended up not using it.
All your points are sound. The issue that I have with this is that remote disable functionality is not necessary to achieve any of these aims. Before they were connected to the internet, people were still able to rent/lease autos and the world managed to survive just fine. There were other ways for lenders to get remunerated for breaking lease terms - they could issue an additional charge, get a court order for repossession, etc. Remote disable was never needed or warranted.
So let’s start by considering the due process here. Before, there was some sort of process involved in the repossession act. With remote disable however, the lender can act as judge, jury and executioner so to speak - that party can unilaterally disable the device with no oversight. And if the lender is in the wrong, there is likely no recourse. Another potential issue here is that the lender can change the terms at any time - it can arbitrarily decide that it doesn’t like what you’re doing with the device, decide you’re in breach, and hit that remote kill switch. A lot of these things could technically happen before too, but the barriers have been dramatically lowered now.
On top of this, there are great privacy concerns as well. What kinds of additional information does the lender have? What right do they have to things like our location, our habits, when we use it, and all of the other personal details that they can infer from programs like this?
There are probably lots of other issues here, but another part of the problem is that we can’t even start to imagine what kinds of nefarious behaviors they can execute with this new information and power. We are well into the age where our devices are becoming our enemies instead of our advocates. I shudder to think what the world would look like 20 years from now if this kind of behavior isn’t stopped.
I don’t disagree with anything you say. I think it’s worth mentioning that the cost of enforcement directly informs the cost of a lease/rental situation. The cheaper they can enforce the contract, the less they can theoretically charge. If they had to get a court order to lock your phone or repo your car, they’d make it more expensive or be much more selective about who they lease/rent to. This maybe enables more people to have phones or get cars?
I swear I’m not rooting for team “aggressive manipulative business behavior widens opportunities for the less well off”. Gross. Kind of how I hear about globalization of manufacturing stuff - “they get paid pennies!” “yeah, but that’s more than before the factory came? look what they can buy now” I know that’s a overly broad generalization but you see those arguments.
Perfectly stated! The moralizing story kind of serves as cover, as a complete blank check to excuse practically any behavior of the lender, without any limiting principle.
Right - they say that they’re just going to use it to defend their “property rights”. In practice, they’re going to use it for a whole lot more than just that…
Exactly. These types of changes grant corporations extrajudicial power.
Not an unreasonable thought, but my question is what is the process to disable? In your examples, there are legal steps/requirements to repossess those assets.
In this case I can’t imagine the process is longer than “press the brick button and extort money”
Is it extortion if it’s contractually obliged?
¯_(ツ)_/¯ eye of the beholder I suppose
Oh nono no, the world is much worse than that:
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If you make all your car payments on time except one, the bank can still repossess your car.
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If you pay your mortgage or rent on time every time except once, the bank can initiate the process of eviction.
Remember: the power triangle points down
I paid off a car without ever being late, and they reported my account as unpaid and in collections at the end. They had no reason to do so and to this day I still don’t understand why they did it. I contested it and the best I was able to accomplish was getting the entire loan removed from my credit report. So 2 entire years of on-time payments and satisfactory completion of a loan resulted in no positive credit boost for me, and a big PITA, just because the company made a mistake. Companies are not responsible enough to wield the type of power that this app grants.
Yes? That’s why loans with collateral charge a lower interest rate than unsecured loans.
My point being that if said bank screws up whilst dealing with your loan, and you make a fuss to hold them accountable, the worse thing that happens to them is that they issue an apology.
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That’s not how it works, at least in Spain.
I agree completely, but it’s an odd way to go about repossession.
And there’s the rub. Sure, it’s a financed phone. It doesn’t follow that we have to suspend judgment on the means they resort to, to enforce their terms.
I find it funny how differently Lemmy reacts to something like this vs reddit. The Lemmy community is certainly very different than reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/jpdup2/google_app_lets_banks_lock_your_phone_if_you_dont/
Asus Zenfone 8 purchased outright in Australia. App does not exist on my phone.
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 think courts are typically involved for civil repossession.
But it sounds like this is used when the device isn’t your purchased property, but leased on contract.
I guess it makes sense for them to do this if people started leases, paid the first month to get the phone in their hand, then walked away with the nice new phone they paid like $35 for, to sell or just use off-network.
Well, I would say this is what small claims is for.
Should the bank should have keys to a mortgaged house? When you don’t own the house outright yet? I’m gonna go with no.
And second, why is it installed by default on all phones? Really not cool.
why is it installed by default on all phones?
Absolutely batshit.
Should the bank should have keys to a mortgaged house? When you don’t own the house outright yet? I’m gonna go with no.
Hmm, do they only not have keys because you can’t drive a house away?
So obviously poverty fuggin sux and we need universal basic income etc.
In today’s BS world:
If we ban car repossession, what happens to car prices and access to transportation?
Likewise - if digital repossession of phones is prohibited, will there at least be a couple impoverished people who have to use dumb phones even though they could’ve afforded a reposessable smartphone?
Maybe a few people have to go without those cheaper phones because allowing lenders to killswitch phones causes greater harm to the whole. Anybody wanna speculate?
I’ll just point out that phone plans (to pay off a phone) and vehicle loans have been a thing and worked fine before this bullshit.
So yes, the level of access ought to remain the same I’d this were banned.
I’m in the US and it’s not on my phone and even though it’s listed in the Play Store it says it’s not available in my region
The Netherlands here: not installed on my S22 and not available in my region.
NL here too, but 1+8t on OxygenOS 14, and it is installed here. Did you check your system apps?
Another NL user here, not installed on my carrier-bought S23 Ultra, checked system apps as well in both my personal and work profile.
It says the same thing for me (not listed in the Australian Playstore), but it is installed.
Doesn’t seem to be installed on mine. Maybe it’s because I’m using a Motorola?
Found it is present in my Moto g84, Android 14.
Same with my Motorola. Mine’s rooted so I would have uninstalled it anyway.
Same, I think my phone is too old to have it.
My phone’s only about a year old maybe it’s something that just started
Get Shizuka, get it running by following a guide somewhere, install canta, remove it… Bang bang.
Don’t you mean shizuku
Yeah. Not sure why it autocorrected to that.
damn and no one at google saw this as dystopian?
They saw this reality and thought it was awesome.
This isn’t a Google thing. It’s not normally installed on your device.
Remember when Google said don’t be evil. Ha
I think it was “don’t. Be evil.”
“Don’t be.” -Evil
It was actually closer to: you don’t have to be evil to make money
But they’ve definitely lost their way
Well yeah, you don’t need to be evil to make money, but you can make more money by being evil.
So, don’t be evil until you have a commanding market presence, and then be evil to make even more money.
Seems to be the MO of any large org.
‘Dont be evil’ was a warning to the users…cause google be watching you.
It was a command to the slaves using their services: “Don’t be evil.(We will know and judge)”
Mate we live in a 5 eyes country so whatever shit you see in the USl by default you’ll see it here. Its sad but that’s how it is and regular 9-5s can’t do much about it
Are we certain it does what we think it does? Could it be something to do with the ability to lock your phone remotely if stolen, or just something to do with Lock Screen functionality?
Not what it says on the google Playstore listing, but yes it’s possible. Considering the connection requests are seemingly for other google APIs. It’s possible NetGuard is flagging the requests to this app incorrectly. (It can’t distinguish being MS office apps either, so it lumps them together, for example)
Doesn’t change the fact the app is installed though, on a phone I own outright, and it’s purposes as claimed by google are gross (in my opinion).
Love the Chinese phones. None of this crap US stuff is enabled. It’s baked into the system ROM so it is there. But on mine it has never transfered any data, not even ever been active. It’s just dead code taking up a few megabytes.
Unlike Japan in the 80s, I wouldn’t trust the CCP more than products made in Democratic nations.
That being said, I am now VERY glad I switched to Graphene OS the moment I got this phone. Fuck this kind of shit, I bought this phone.
I think I’ve seen you around here before, shilling these lower quality, closed source devices from China.
Lower quality? Lol.
I’ll give you a chance to look up the Mix Fold 3. And then any other equivalent phone available in the US market.
Even excluding the folding aspect, the screen sizes and overall thickness means it looks and works exactly like a non foldy. 50W wireless, 120W wired charging. 1TB of storage, 16GB of RAM. Leica lenses.
On top of that, zero of my data goes to the US government at it does on carrier branded phones. I will give all my data to the ccp if they want it. I have no interest in what they do with it. I have very high interest in what a five eyes nation does with my data and information.
Wow! Rattling off stats like that is a great way to show you’re not shilling.
Tell me, how is the display color quality and camera resolution?
Cameras are better than Samsung flagship and on par with iPhone. The newest 14 beats the iPhone 15 in side by side tests according to many media outlets.
The display is Samsung OLED. The exact same display technology.
Educate yourself to the world outside of the USA and you’ll find far superior technology.
WeChat preinstalled?
But nah, the OnePlus 7 with a custom ROM was my jam. Shame the screen broke.
Get replacement parts, get access to bootloaders, get control of your data. You can’t? Lower quality, and you admit it proudly.
Funny how that’s not needed when you don’t break your phone and the thing works out of the box. No random reboots and resets like every US carrier branded phone where a custom ROM is a necessity.
Also if I need replacement parts all the mobile repair shops stock them in places I routinely visit.
Youre just too taken in by propaganda to admit the shit the US shoves down your throat isn’t that great.
I need the ROMs to play with hardware in ways manufacturers and Google don’t intend. I don’t ask the manufacturer for permission, nor do I need to as source code and bootloaders are available.
I’m not willing to be a data point for profit, I don’t give a fuck whether it’s the shithead ccp or fuckbox google, my data stays on my phone unless I decide otherwise.
Can’t do that? Again, proud of your weakest element. How strange. Enjoy your inferior phone.
Weird, I have project fi and don’t have this app. It could be contractually required by your service provider that the app be installed on all the phones that they sell. That’s a thing that they do.
Who is the carrier?
I live in Indonesia, and I have the application installed, but I don’t have a banking application, only e-money applications such as DANA, OVO, GOPAY, that’s all.
There oughta be a law
My Pixel5a from google store has it, but my other phone where I installed Murena e/OS (which is based on LineageOS) does not have it.
How do you go for banking apps on Murena e/OS? This is basically the only thing holding me back from changing my OS to GrapheneOS.
Dual boot is sadly not a thing according to Graphene (and I have idea about such things
With GrapheneOS, there’s dual profile, a main without google, and a secondary profile with all the garbage you don’t really need…
I run /e/OS on my Fairphone 3. The only thing that doesn’t work is login with fingerprints with my banking app. Everything else works, I did not have a problem and I am now running it for more than 3 years I believe (or 4?).
Banking is a hit or miss, GrapheneOS should pass all security checks and more, but none of them is Google certified and apps start to request that, which sucks
I will tell you my secret. I have two phones. Two identities. One that has a normal google phone with facebook messenger and instagram, to keep in contact with family, and to have bank apps. And one, where the Murena e/OS is totally de-googled. Where you will only find FOSS apps, from Lemmy to Mastodon and Pixelfed. That second identity is my real one.
The mistake people make when they write about “moving to Linux” (or similar), is that they try to fit themselves into a box where the modern life doesn’t affords them to. The wiser option is to play on both sides. You have an unassuming, clean-cut identity on one computer and phone, and you have your real self on the other, where it’s ultra-private and secured, and often IP-spoofed if required. And it’s not some kind of closeting thing, or illegal thing or anything, it’s just private. How I would like things to be by default in a Utopian system.
On top of that, I believe that Murena’s e/OS has a modified g-services app so full fledged Android apps, including bank apps, get fooled so they run. But I don’t personally run them on that phone. That phone is FOSS only.
Version 14 is installed on my Pixel 7 in the USA. I bought this phone outright, no credit, directly from the Google store.
Not on my phone though. Pixel 4a, bought outright from Google but in Canada, no credit.
Did you hit the three dots on the top right and select “show system”? It only shows after that.
I didn’t, but this is what shows after I did.
I get this from the Google Play store:
Looking for Device Lock Controller?
This app isn’t available on Google Play in your region.
So, cool?
I bought mine from Google Fi w/ cash and have never used it on a major carrier. I’m guessing it’s a carrier thing, and not a stock Android thing.
No, it may not appear in the appstore (doesn’t for me), but does appear in my apps (when you show system apps)
Mine doesn’t appear in either for me, and I did show system apps. It must be a recent Android thing because my phone is almost 5 years old.
Good to hear! And thanks for providing this data point. I may get around to doing a survey, and trying to rope in some people who know their way around android development to see what’s going on here.
Now find that Google store page that op linked to using the same app ID.
This app isn’t available on Google Play in your region.
Looks like I’m good.
