One of the major issues with closed source operating systems is that there is no independent code review: you can never truly tell what is happening. Backdoors that have been placed in a device, maliciously or otherwise, could allow an attacker to have the power to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting victim. Paul Kocialkowski, a developer for a fully free/open version of Android, published a guest post on the Free Software Foundation detailing his discovery of a backdoor that has been implemented in a range of Samsung Galaxy devices. He commented on how he had found a Samsung program running in the background, binded to the communications processor, that allows the modem to remotely read, write, and delete files on the user’s phone storage. Several Samsung devices give that program sufficient rights to access and modify the user’s personal data. <more>

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