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@ 2011/10/03It turns out that the slew of HTC devices the Taiwanese company is fighting to keep in shops are allegedly leakier than a paper sieve.
The clever-clogs over at Android Police spent some time looking at the deepest, darkest corners of devices which have the latest HTC software installed. That includes the EVO 3D, 4G, Thunderbolt and plenty others, the report says.
In an in-depth analysis, it's claimed that HTC has been keeping an awful lot of its user's data. Apple will not want to claim this feature is a copycat in the courts.
The finding reveals that any app which requests android.permission.INTERNET, which is just about every app that goes online or has adverts, is able to download a full list of user accounts, and with that email addresses and sync statuses. It can also snatch the network details and every GPS location, take numbers from the phone log, and SMS data.
Thanks to HTC's tinkering, your device is also leaking system logs which covers a wide variety of useful bits of data, such as private information like phone numbers and email addresses, according to the report.
There's proof of concept and further screenshots and details on the Android Police blog. The authors claim HTC is now aware of the problem and looking into it.
What is interesting for the Taiwanese company, is that its home country has brought bigger firms like Apple and Google to book for less. The world and its dog is now demanding disclosure on what's tracking them and why - most recently and spectacularly about location - so just why HTC has allegedly decided to dump loggers in the latest update is anyone's guess.
HTC told us: "HTC takes our customers' security very seriously, and we are working to investigate this claim as quickly as possible. We will provide an update as soon as we're able to determine the accuracy of the claim and what steps, if any, need to be taken."
The clever-clogs over at Android Police spent some time looking at the deepest, darkest corners of devices which have the latest HTC software installed. That includes the EVO 3D, 4G, Thunderbolt and plenty others, the report says.
In an in-depth analysis, it's claimed that HTC has been keeping an awful lot of its user's data. Apple will not want to claim this feature is a copycat in the courts.
The finding reveals that any app which requests android.permission.INTERNET, which is just about every app that goes online or has adverts, is able to download a full list of user accounts, and with that email addresses and sync statuses. It can also snatch the network details and every GPS location, take numbers from the phone log, and SMS data.
Thanks to HTC's tinkering, your device is also leaking system logs which covers a wide variety of useful bits of data, such as private information like phone numbers and email addresses, according to the report.
There's proof of concept and further screenshots and details on the Android Police blog. The authors claim HTC is now aware of the problem and looking into it.
What is interesting for the Taiwanese company, is that its home country has brought bigger firms like Apple and Google to book for less. The world and its dog is now demanding disclosure on what's tracking them and why - most recently and spectacularly about location - so just why HTC has allegedly decided to dump loggers in the latest update is anyone's guess.
HTC told us: "HTC takes our customers' security very seriously, and we are working to investigate this claim as quickly as possible. We will provide an update as soon as we're able to determine the accuracy of the claim and what steps, if any, need to be taken."
