F-Secure: Xiaomi Smartphones Do Secretly Steal Your Data

They may be well reviewed and China's new top selling phone, but reader DavidGilbert99 writes with reason to be cautious about Xiaomi's phones: Finnish security firm F-Secure has seemingly proven that Xiaomi smartphones do in fact upload user data without their permission/knowledge despite the company strongly denying these allegations as late as 30 July. Between commercial malware and government agencies, how do you keep your phone's data relatively private?

Why "relatively" private?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I want it totally private. Has the concept of privacy gotten so totally lost that people seem okay to settle for relative privacy?

By the way, the best way to keep your data private is to keep it out of your untrusted phone/computer/whatnot, and use bogus data when you need to enter something.

Exemples: use "Acme inc." as your home phone number's name in your addressbook, and nicknames for your contacts. Don't enter your full address as your home in your satnav's app but someone's address in a street close-by, etc.

Re:Typical

[rebelwarlock]

So in your mind, only American companies should be in the news when they do something like this?

China can have it.

[DMJC]

Frankly at this point, I'd rather the Chinese have my data to be honest. They won't share it with the Australian/Five eyes governments, and since I live ina Five eyes country, that works better for me. It's not like they'll put me in a prison from China for some BS they find on my phone. My own government on the other hand is much more likely to screw up my life using my own private data.

Re:Off-topic rant...

[Immerman]

In fairness there's not a lot of US or European articles that don't include slants against those governments/corporations as well. The governments and corporations of the world seem to be rapidly sliding toward an invasive authoritarian dystopia. Great for big business and other power-mongers, but not so much for the rest of us. Are you really so surprised we give extra grief to those countries such as Russia and China who wear their fascism openly? We're not ranting against the *citizens* of those countries, we're ranting against their governments and corporations, just as we rant against our own. If you don't like it, go home and fix your country. And while you're at it share your techniques so we can do the same.