| I do not see problems with fake ad clicks and have no sympathy for ad companies. Also pre-installed adware is not a surprise, I found adware in the official firmware image of a certain Chinese tablet. What worries me much more is backdoors from the foreign companies and governments that can be pre-installed at the factory to collect intelligence information. For example, I became aware that a certain maker of a popular mobile OS was collecting the cell tower IDs and WiFi access point identifiers along with GPS coordinates of a device. Obviously they collect this information to be able to guide missiles and drones when GPS signal is jammed (GPS is very low power and easy to jam). This is not acceptable. How can we prevent this? I think, for every imported device having a CPU and Internet connectivity: - the user must be able to re-flash firmware with their own code. - the local government must have access to the full source code and be able to search for vulnerabilities or backdoors, including using AI tools. Found vulnerabilities are considered a reward and may be used against countries not doing inspections. No access - no import permission. - any telemetry or data collection, or updates must be opt-in only and disabled by default. - any telemetry or updates must go through a server controlled by the local government, in unencrypted form, to detect attempts to collect intelligence information or install malicious update. Sadly our government instead only demands that manufacturers pre-install their closed-source software on all imported devices and that's all. |
I am not shedding any tears for the ad companies, but I don't exactly expect or want a consumer device to be doing this in the background without the owner's knowledge.