this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024

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Privacy

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

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

359 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] 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Have you tried Universal Android Debloat to disable it?

https://github.com/0x192/universal-android-debloater

Stuff like this is why I root or just flash my phones.

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[+] [email protected] -6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think I've seen you around here before, shilling these lower quality, closed source devices from China.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I checked to see if this was on my pixel 6 pro. It wasn't but I found this.

Not something I installed and not something I would allow.

The uninstall did not appear to work UNTIL I disabled the app and cleared the data.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

this is installed by default in case you want/need to enable it (company phone). it is a system app so it cannot be uninstalled, after disableing it (which probably does not do anything when it was not setup in the first place) you can uninstall the updates (so the 'old' version that's sitting in the system image is still there)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Interesting. The app isn't actually listed anymore after whatever I did.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Do you use your phone for work?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Never. Keep work and personal completely separate.

[–] [email protected] 128 points 11 months ago (5 children)

This type of tech is already being put into vehicles as well. I used to get laughed at 20 years ago when I predicted this. Nobody is laughing anymore. If anything, they just accept it.

[+] [email protected] -14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

People laughed at Stallman, too. But I'm not comparing you to him. He's apparently a real POS.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Nah, he's difficult to work with for sure, and rather extremist, but unfortunately he is a lot of right on the money. I wouldn't call that a pos

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

most of this "he's a pos" comes from the misconceptions about him. he has a certain fixation to the vocabulary, and he often corrects others for it. then those people take the "attempt to correct" as "support" for the debate itself.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (13 children)

I think this is an extremely generous take. For anyone not in the loop, he gets called POS for famously weighing in on discussions of pedophelia by saying children 13+ aren't children so it's not pedophelia.

I think this goes beyond being bad at knowing when to correct semantics

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sigh. Way too much freeze in fight, flight or freeze...

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)