Rumor: Xiaomi RedMi Note 'may be' sending your SMS & photos to Chinese Servers

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avi

avi

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It's not confirmed, however there are rumours popping up online claiming the phone is sending your personal data to Chinese servers. It was first discovered in a Taiwanese forum post

The claim says that phone would periodically connect to Chinese servers, upload your images and SMSs.

It is also found that even if you flash a different ROM it's still connecting to servers!
 
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I somehow thought this few years back that something like this may happen.
If there is any bit of truth in this then I will try to do some analysis and research on this :p
 
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"
"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized."

"



1984 by George Orwell.
 
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The same allegations were there with Huawei too. But with rooting data transmission could be blocked with Huawei. Not sure why it won't happen with Xiaomi.
 
Is there any proof that they are transferring "media" files to that particular server?

All I can conclude from the given screenshot is Messaging application is poling to IP address : 42.62.48.157. But again, there's one thing.. Their messaging app has cloud backup option. What if MiCloud app is not in the picture while transferring data to the servers and Messaging app is doing it individually..

I am not sure, there are no strong proofs. Anyway, if they are stealing media then there's a problem.
 
check what Hugo says
Q: Online articles recently referred to some privacy issues with the Redmi Note, claiming that photos and text messages are sent to China secretly. Are they true?

A: An article severely misinterpreted a discussion thread asking about the Redmi Note's communication with a server in China. The article also neglected to refer to a Chinese version of this Q&A already posted on the Xiaomi Hong Kong Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Xiaomihongkong/posts/799059896795602). MIUI does not secretly upload photos and text messages.

MIUI requests public data from Xiaomi servers from time to time. These include data such as preset greeting messages (thousands of jokes, holiday greetings and poems) in the Messaging app and MIUI OTA update notifications, i.e. all non-personal data that does not infringe on user privacy.
Click to expand...

https://www.facebook.com/hbarra76/posts/10152156213696612
 
I find the statement that changing the ROM would still continue the phone to send the data to the Chinese servers ridiculous. Apart from that, not really much of a botheration, since Google already knows a lot about me, so now the Chinese govt knows it too :P

So, install CM11 :P
 
guys who own this phone can actually verify this...

simply connect your phone to your home wifi only (dont enable 3g) and then connect pc to the router using lan cable. then install wireshark on the pc and put the nic in promiscuous mode. this will capture all the network traffic in the local area network. you can put filters to the phones ip and can actually verify if this is true.

on the other hand if the phone is rooted, you can directly install wireshark or iptraf directly on phone using busybox and ssh access.

please somebody do this... :)
 
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This is on MI3, running OS Monitor; shutting down 3G and enabling WiFi!

doubt1.jpg
doubt2.jpg


I haven't really signed into MI Cloud, but still seems to connect to 42.xx.xx.xx; tried APP Ops launcher to shut it down, I wasn't able to find MI Cloud in it. Also tried going to Settings> Apps and couldn't find the Mi Cloud either in that too! Even Explorer gets connected, i dont know how come! Now it raises my eyebrows seriously, not that I'm too paranoid, but yes, want to know how its active!

@boo, is there anyway to see what info is actually being sent through these?
 
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abracadabra said:
This is on MI3, running OS Monitor; shutting down 3G and enabling WiFi!
I haven't really signed into MI Cloud, but still seems to connect to 42.xx.xx.xx; tried APP Ops launcher to shut it down, I wasn't able to find MI Cloud in it. Also tried going to Settings> Apps and couldn't find the Mi Cloud either in that too! Even Explorer gets connected, i dont know how come! Now it raises my eyebrows seriously, not that I'm too paranoid, but yes, want to know how its active!
@boo, is there anyway to see what info is actually being sent through these?
Click to expand...
Hmm... yes.
root the phone and then install https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lv.n3o.shark&hl=en shark for root.
this will create a dump of all the network traffic. you can post that dump here for others and also analyze using wireshark application.

Actally..., thank you for doing this :)
 
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I read a lot about it and reports say that its build into the firmware of the phone so cannot be wiped out. I will take that with a grain of salt. For this very reason HUAWEI has been under microscope in the US since early 2000 . Even though they denied any report of spying .
 
Jo pakda gaya wo chor . I dont think we have anything hidden. Whatever is in our phone is already out there. While installing apps in our phones we share not only our information but also our contacts info . Even Apple was keeping a track of its users which they later said was a software glitch . But then the hype has been made and this will hurt a bit for Xiaomi esp in the sales.
 
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