[HN Gopher] Android 14's user-profile data bug seems indistingui...
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Android 14's user-profile data bug seems indistinguishable from
ransomware
Author : concernedpix
Score : 68 points
Date : 2023-10-27 20:35 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| anoncareer0212 wrote:
| That's odd, Android's line-level management seemed very sure that
| their relentless focus on quality since 2021 was going great.
|
| On the line-level, we'd grumble that "quality! focus!" was
| instead empowering a new middle management layer to continue
| burning themselves out and wasting ICs by failing to delegate.
|
| Not to mention the kissing up and punching down it took to
| sustain that, leveraging a company happy to fire people.
|
| I worried even this neutered version was unfair, but...as time
| progresses and trends continue...
| vasdae wrote:
| >their relentless focus on quality since 2021
|
| Is this something that was announced? I haven't heard of it.
| Tostino wrote:
| I just assumed it was a joke about how they only started
| caring about quality in 2021.
| mksybr wrote:
| It's incredible that bricking the phone and total, catastrophic
| data loss is only a medium level severity ticket and with no one
| assigned.
|
| EDIT: appears a user was able to recover from bootlooping, so not
| hard bricking.
|
| Quote from
| https://old.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/178jj3i/need_h...
| below:
|
| They escalated me to someone on the hardware team that sounded
| like they have been around for a while XD. But here's what I was
| able to do: From the fastboot menu (using the power + vol down
| button to boot the phone) select "Recovery mode" then when the
| phone goes to the No Command screen, hold the power button for 1
| second then press the vol up button and release both at the same
| time. This will give you a command prompt of sorts. Go to factory
| wipe/reset and vioala. You can reload your phone. Sure it sucks
| but if you were stuck like I was this is good enough.
|
| EDIT2:
|
| https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/305766503?pli=1
| V__ wrote:
| Locking down phones so much was really a mistake. If you have
| to do what basically amounts to voodoo just to restore it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Factory wipe/reset followed by 'Reload' sounds like you end up
| losing all of your data if it wasn't backed up elsewhere.
| Usually the value of the data outweighs the value of the
| device, especially with phones that are harder to backup than
| they should be.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >is only a medium level severity ticket and with no one
| assigned
|
| There are likely internal issues for the actual bugs.
| xaerise wrote:
| Interesting that Google is keeping their mouth shut....
|
| I think someone is getting a lawsuit and another one is getting a
| box for their stuff...
| curiousgal wrote:
| So glad I moved off buying Google phones after the shit show
| the Pixel 6 has been.
| bloopernova wrote:
| If factory resets are indeed happening, maybe it's the device
| management service thinking it got a remote wipe request?
|
| (Pixel 8 Pro owner, full disclosure and all that guff)
| nightfly wrote:
| "indistinguishable from ransomware" would be if you could pay
| google to free your data. Hyperbolic titles suck
| eschneider wrote:
| So..."worse than ransomware?"
| dirtyhippiefree wrote:
| You can pay extortionists to get your data back.
|
| If your phone automatically factory resets, all the money in
| the world won't recover your data...sadly worse than
| ransomware...
| blibble wrote:
| at least the randomware people have someone you can contact
| cafeinux wrote:
| Well, NotPetya was a ransomware, yet paying wouldn't have
| decrypted any data.
| GTP wrote:
| It was actually a wiper.
| cageface wrote:
| I now ignore all Ron Amadeo articles on Ars. I don't know where
| his disdain for Google originated but his predictably snarky
| dismissals of all things Google are just bad and lazy
| journalism.
| dirtyhippiefree wrote:
| This is the flipped script for our social contract with
| Google...they release product, they don't have any obligation
| to care about users...dismissing us less loudly than the
| author, but no less real...
| joecool1029 wrote:
| I really wonder if the Android engineers just use iPhones. Quite
| a few of the security isolations/sandboxing have lead to some of
| the more basic usability bugs.
|
| My dad hit one a few days ago, complained he couldn't restart his
| phone. I proceeded to watch him hold down the volume and power
| button to get the prompt to shutdown/reboot. Upon clicking, it
| did nothing. So I tried it then, still nothing. Realized at this
| point that the device had lockscreen locked. After unlocking the
| screen and repeating this it rebooted fine. (My first gut
| reaction was 'can't you just hold power button to get the reboot
| screen?', but nope that pops up some google assistant crap
| instead, so now he has to juggle not having it screenshot each
| time he needs to shut it off or restart it)
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| FYI there is a toggle in Settings to switch between the power
| button either bringing up the shutdown/reboot prompt or the
| Google Assistant.
| Aleklart wrote:
| Haha silly, expected that power button will work as power
| button by default in Android. Just set it the in the
| settings, really, dude! Can iphone's power button run
| spyware? I guess not LMAO on them.
|
| Seriously, there should be a law that elders and kids allowed
| to buy only iphones, because google primary preying on less
| cautious and computer illiterate people.
| scohesc wrote:
| Absolutely amazing how Google can release these updates for
| devices that _they make and support themselves_ without first
| running tests on the operating system and making sure these
| things don't happen.
|
| Yes, I'm sure there's hard to track down bugs and this is likely
| one of them - but the fact that people are trying to get Google's
| attention because their phones are soft-bricking and Google
| continues to do nothing about it says volumes about how much they
| care about their customers.
|
| I ran into a problem with the Pixel 5 I was running at the time.
| Woke up in the morning and the phone was off. Wouldn't boot.
| Wouldn't respond to anything at all. Thousands of people were
| having the same issue all within the span of a few months -
| Google Bug was created, nothing was done for 3-4 weeks while
| hundreds of users added their input on the bug... then the issue
| was suddenly closed with "won't fix" with no explanation.
|
| I know the law is toothless against these massive corporations
| because the governments been bought out for decades at this
| point, but I'd sure love to see a company like Google/Alphabet
| shattered into tens of different companies. There's no reason why
| they need to control Search, Ads, Cloud Computing, Device
| Manufacturing, Operating System Development, etc. Same goes for
| all the other large companies doing the same thing.
| josephcsible wrote:
| If not for locked bootloaders, it would be trivial for everyone
| to recover all of the data that this bug is affecting.
| btreecat wrote:
| I'm currently impacted by this bug. My grandfather just passed
| away and the family has been trading pictures in group messages.
| I've nowost access to my copies of those images.
|
| Yes, it's my fault I hadn't backed up yet. However it's not like
| _i did something_ to invite this, like jump in a pool with my
| phone or lose it out a car window.
|
| I'm typing this message on this phone, and I'm hoping a fix
| comes, because I really don't want to lose those photos.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I have said this before and I'll keep saying it until it changes:
| updates suck for 'regular' users, it's like a grenade with five
| pins, one of which will give you a working machine with some
| improvements and the other four will result in data loss, loss of
| critical functionality that you relied upon, more advertising and
| security issues. It's a total crap shoot and manufacturers should
| realize that with every botched update user trust in the
| computing industry is further eroded (assuming that is still
| possible).
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(page generated 2023-10-27 23:00 UTC)