I installed NetGuard about a month ago and blocked all internet to apps, unless they’re on a whitelist. No notifications from this particular system app (that can’t be disabled) until recently when it started making internet connection requests to google servers. Does anyone know when this became a thing?

Edit 2: I bought my Pixel 6 phone outright, directly from Google’s Australian store. I have no creditors.

Were the courts not enough control for creditors? Since when are they allowed to lock you out of your purchased property without a court order?

I don’t even live in the US, so what the actual fuck?

Edit 1: You can check it’s installed (stock Pixel 6 android 14) Settings > Apps > All Apps > three dot menu, Show system > search “DeviceLockController”.

I highly recommend getting NetGuard, you can enable pro features via their website if you have the APK for as low as 0.10€, but donate more, because it’s amazing. You can also purchase via Google Play store.

  • BrikoX@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2391·
    9 months ago

    In 2020 Google claimed it was supposed to be limited to a single region in partnership with a single carrier. And was never meant to be put up on Play Store.

    A spokesperson from Google reached out to clarify some details about the Device Lock Controller app. To start with, Google says they launched this app in collaboration with a Kenyan carrier called Safaricom.

    Google has confirmed that the Device Lock Controller app should not be listed on the Google Play Store for users in the U.S., and they will work to take down the listing.

    Source: https://www.xda-developers.com/google-device-lock-controller-banks-payments/

    Of course, it was a lie since it’s still on Play Store an of today and in use.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldOP
      911·
      9 months ago

      It must be globally, I’m in Australia. What utter bullshit, since I would have never known if it weren’t for my NetGuard firewall app.

      • noorbeast@lemmy.zipEnglish
        751·
        9 months ago

        Being Australian this is likely one to report to the ACCC, as Aussies at least have basic consumer protection, though that get murky with overseas tech entities.

        • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldOP
          322·
          9 months ago

          Unfortunately the ACCC gives fewer fucks than you may expect. An airline once cancelled a flight on me and kept the cancellation fee, despite producing no evidence that any government had forced them to cancel the flight (this was during COVID).

          ACCC did not care one bit

          So while we do have some consumer protection (better than most) I would be surprised if they cared.

          • MalReynolds@slrpnk.netEnglish
            21·
            9 months ago

            It’s 5 minutes out of your life to try, as an aussie, please do, for charity if nothing else, who knows, you might benefit…

            • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldOP
              13·
              9 months ago

              I am a serial complaint lodger, just that I’m much busier than I used to be. I may do it once I figure out what’s going on with it on my phone.

                • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldOP
                  12·
                  9 months ago

                  Thanks for you understanding friendo 🇦🇺

                  If it tickles your fancy, I once lodged a complaint with the national measurement institute to get a bar to stop selling American pints.

                  And they now sell it by the mL, beautiful

        • MeetInPotatoes@lemmy.mlEnglish
          5·
          9 months ago

          though that get murky with overseas tech entities.

          I mostly agree, but you gotta admit the EU has been sticking it to the tech giants lately.

      • No1@aussie.zone
        3·
        9 months ago

        I’m in Australia, and when I search for Device Lock Controller in Play Store, it says “This app is not available in your region”

        This happens on 2 separate devices from different manufacturers. Both devices were purchased in Australia and have Australian ROMs

        • Baku@aussie.zoneEnglish
          4·
          9 months ago

          Also in Australia and it shows that to me as well

          But going into my app list and showing system does show it

        • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldOP
          3·
          9 months ago

          Check your installed apps (I left an edit in th post where to check). Just because it’s not listen in the Playstore for Australia, doesn’t mean it’s not installed.

    • Gerowen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      40·
      9 months ago

      I’m using CalyxOS and it’s pre-installed as a system app, so this seems like something that’s being built in at the AOSP level of development.

        • Salix@sh.itjust.works
          13·
          9 months ago

          Are you looking at system apps? It’s installed as a system app on my phone using GrapheneOS

          com.android.devicelockcontroller

          Looks like it’s an AOSP app

          • TWeaK@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            9 months ago

            Yep, I checked a few places, in the end ClassyShark seemed to be the best place to see everything.

            I don’t doubt it’s part of AOSP, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be left in the ROM.

        • AmbiguousProps@lemmy.todayEnglish
          3·
          9 months ago

          Did you check your system apps? It’s an AOSP app, so I would be surprised if this were the case. It could be under either com.google or com.android.

            • AmbiguousProps@lemmy.todayEnglish
              2·
              9 months ago

              I still would be very surprised if this were the case. Unfortunately it seems that OxygenOS does not have public repositories to actually check the source code (!), but there are apps that will actually show you all of your installed packages and I bet one of those would show that it’s installed.

    • Ledivin@lemmy.world
      201·
      9 months ago

      Of course, it was a lie since it’s still on Play Store an of today and in use.

      FWIW, I just searched it up and it’s listed as unavailable in my region (USA) 🤷‍♂️ so at the very least, they scoped it down a little bit

      • BrikoX@lemmy.zipEnglish
        17·
        9 months ago

        So they region locked it from US, but it can still be pre-installed as a system app from AOSP. And it’s available in EU, while was meant to be in Kenya only.

      • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldOP
        171·
        9 months ago

        Just because it’s not in the Playstore, doesn’t mean it’s not installed.

        It’s not listed in the Australian Playstore either, yet here we are with it making internet requests.

        It’s definitely installed.

        • Baku@aussie.zoneEnglish
          4·
          9 months ago

          It’s not just you, it’s phoning home for me too. Pixel 7, also Australia, bought outright from officeworks. I don’t log network reqs so I don’t know exacts, but it’s using 25kb every 3 days or so, so it’s doing something.

      • fishos@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        9 months ago

        Checked my pixel 6 and it’s on mine. Might not be in the store for everyone, but it’s installed on my owned device.

    • Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml
      9·
      9 months ago

      I’m surprised it would be on the play store since presumably if you were a carrier or creditor of some kind you want this installed in a pretty clandestine way and wouldn’t want to draw attention to it by having an app store listing.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
        5·
        9 months ago

        Being on the play store means it can be updated and managed like a normal app and not stuck on whatever version shipped with the OS

      • dev_null@lemmy.ml
        4·
        9 months ago

        I’d assume they want to be able to update it and that’s why it needs a store listing.

  • Night Monkey@sh.itjust.works
    1291·
    9 months ago

    This type of tech is already being put into vehicles as well. I used to get laughed at 20 years ago when I predicted this. Nobody is laughing anymore. If anything, they just accept it.

  • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldOP
    1132·
    9 months ago

    Requests the app made today.

    This is my phone I own outright, by the way. I don’t have any creditors.

    Update for those curious:

    • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
      48·
      9 months ago

      adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.devicelockcontroller

      If you’re using Shelter, then in addition to that command, replace --user 0 with --user 10

      You don’t need root to do this. You can also uninstall other bloatware using this same method.

      • MisterFrog@lemmy.worldOP
        16·
        9 months ago

        Hero, I just have to get around to doing it 😅 (I will, but grumble, grumble this is why most people don’t bother battling for privacy)

      • bigkahuna1986@lemmy.ml
        11·
        9 months ago

        I tried this on a Pixel 7 and am getting:

        panther:/ $ pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.devicelockcontroller

        Failure [DELETE_FAILED_INTERNAL_ERROR]

        I also tried disable and got:

        Cannot disable a protected package: com.google.android.devicelockcontroller

      • _tezz@lemmy.world
        5·
        9 months ago

        New to this depth of phone administration, where are you entering this command? Is there a developer CLI I should be looking for or is this done with a third party app or something?

    • Salix@sh.itjust.works
      18·
      9 months ago

      I find it interesting that yours is com.google.android.devicelockcontroller.

      I checked mine on GrapheneOS and it looks like it’s the AOSP version of the package: com.android.devicelockcontroller

    • codapine@lemm.ee
      71·
      9 months ago

      Mvp comment there. I checked mine and I am in the US, on a phone I originally bought on credit. I do not have that app installed. Go figure. 🤷‍♂️

      Definitely worth checking out your app list to make sure. I wonder if it accidentally came downstream from AOSP into the alt ROMs, and that’s why it’s not in my stock, proprietary, US market, flagship Google pixel device.

    • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
      1162·
      9 months ago

      I was able to start some of its private activities with ActivityLauncher as root. Most of them just crash immediately, but the help page is available. And yikes, they got them covered against a possible bypass, no developer tools or sideloading.

      Still disappointed this is shipped in LineageOS, but I suspect not for much longer with that publicity.

      • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
        438·
        9 months ago

        So, that looks like this is less insane than it sounded… This is for if you buy your phone on a payment plan? Not for creditors more generally to have a option to repossess/dispossess your phone?

        • SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world
          211·
          9 months ago

          Yeah, this is likely something that’s configured on an OS level to talk to some server when being sold.

          However, note that SIM cards can have a flag that might enable this app (given how much power sim cards have over phones)

          Note: no source, just assumptions

          Edit: second note: this app isn’t present on my EU OnePlus Nord.

        • Hazzia@discuss.tchncs.de
          14·
          9 months ago

          I’m worried about the “if you stop using their SIM” part. It’s one thing if you switch providers before paying it off, but that’s already covered with the skipped payments part. This implies that even after you finish paying it off, you can get locked out. Either way, I’m curious if the app even has any way of knowing whether the creditor really is using it “as intended,” or just trusting that a creditor wouldn’t want to lock the phone of an active, paying customer. I don’t have time to dig through the code myself though, so I’ll just hope this blows up enough for somebody else to figure it out.

          • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
            6·
            9 months ago

            if you switch providers before paying it of

            Usually a financed devicd is financed through the carrier, and therefore a carrier branded device, and therefore locked to the carrier (yes they have the unlock option but compatibility tends to be far more limited than on the manufacturer unlocked version of the model)

        • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
          9·
          9 months ago

          That is both Google’s official version and what it looks like poking at it.

          I haven’t dug in the code, so I don’t know if this is theoretically possible for a shady carrier to enable after the fact. But it very much looks like a dormant feature nobody uses.

          I guess I could see that making sense in poorer countries where carriers might have issues of people signing up for phone plans and never paying. A carrier locked flip phone was pretty useless, but nowadays cutting your phone/data off is more of an inconvenience than a dealbreaker, you’ve still got WiFi and a nice phone.

      • marci33@feddit.it
        12·
        9 months ago

        On my lineage for micro G install it’s not present (or at least I didn’t spot it) maybe it’s a regional thing? I’m not in the us

  • Dr. Wesker@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    83·
    9 months ago

    I’m using a fresh install of GrapheneOS, and this is installed too. Not sure what that suggests, except that it’s possibly some core system level app.

  • lemmy_at_em@lemmy.world
    51·
    9 months ago

    Version 14 is installed on my Pixel 7 in the USA. I bought this phone outright, no credit, directly from the Google store.

  • rockstarmode@lemmy.world
    7527·
    9 months ago

    I know this is a privacy community, but I’m not sure I’m onboard with the outrage on this particular one. If you rent/lease or go on a payment plan for the device you’re using, then it isn’t yours, it belongs to the entity you borrowed it from.

    If I don’t make car payments, the bank can repossess my ride. If I dont pay my mortgage or rent, I can be evicted by my landlord or bank.

    If I don’t make my phone payment, the company should have recourse to prevent me from using their device.

    This could open up the ability for bad actors to disable my device, and I agree that’s a horrible prospect. But the idea of a legitimate creditor using this feature to reclaim their property is not something I find shocking.

    • namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev
      641·
      9 months ago

      All your points are sound. The issue that I have with this is that remote disable functionality is not necessary to achieve any of these aims. Before they were connected to the internet, people were still able to rent/lease autos and the world managed to survive just fine. There were other ways for lenders to get remunerated for breaking lease terms - they could issue an additional charge, get a court order for repossession, etc. Remote disable was never needed or warranted.

      So let’s start by considering the due process here. Before, there was some sort of process involved in the repossession act. With remote disable however, the lender can act as judge, jury and executioner so to speak - that party can unilaterally disable the device with no oversight. And if the lender is in the wrong, there is likely no recourse. Another potential issue here is that the lender can change the terms at any time - it can arbitrarily decide that it doesn’t like what you’re doing with the device, decide you’re in breach, and hit that remote kill switch. A lot of these things could technically happen before too, but the barriers have been dramatically lowered now.

      On top of this, there are great privacy concerns as well. What kinds of additional information does the lender have? What right do they have to things like our location, our habits, when we use it, and all of the other personal details that they can infer from programs like this?

      There are probably lots of other issues here, but another part of the problem is that we can’t even start to imagine what kinds of nefarious behaviors they can execute with this new information and power. We are well into the age where our devices are becoming our enemies instead of our advocates. I shudder to think what the world would look like 20 years from now if this kind of behavior isn’t stopped.

    • tetris11@lemmy.ml
      222·
      9 months ago

      Oh nono no, the world is much worse than that:

      • If you make all your car payments on time except one, the bank can still repossess your car.

      • If you pay your mortgage or rent on time every time except once, the bank can initiate the process of eviction.

      Remember: the power triangle points down

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.worldEnglish
        15·
        9 months ago

        I paid off a car without ever being late, and they reported my account as unpaid and in collections at the end. They had no reason to do so and to this day I still don’t understand why they did it. I contested it and the best I was able to accomplish was getting the entire loan removed from my credit report. So 2 entire years of on-time payments and satisfactory completion of a loan resulted in no positive credit boost for me, and a big PITA, just because the company made a mistake. Companies are not responsible enough to wield the type of power that this app grants.

    • retrieval4558@mander.xyz
      12·
      9 months ago

      Not an unreasonable thought, but my question is what is the process to disable? In your examples, there are legal steps/requirements to repossess those assets.

      In this case I can’t imagine the process is longer than “press the brick button and extort money”

      • abbenm@lemmy.ml
        5·
        9 months ago

        And there’s the rub. Sure, it’s a financed phone. It doesn’t follow that we have to suspend judgment on the means they resort to, to enforce their terms.

    • youmaynotknow@lemmy.ml
      3·
      9 months ago

      For every single one of those scenarios, a set of legal processes need to be exhausted. This app gives the lender the ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want, without following a set of legal processes.

      That’s dystopian mentality at it’s greatest.

    • Wes_Dev@lemmy.ml
      3·
      9 months ago

      When I saw this on a custom ROM, it was basically the same thing, but said that my financial institution or whoever had admin access to my phone, including seeing texts and everything else, until my phone was paid off. Still not sure why that was there in a custom ROM, but I ended up not using it.

    • FritzGman@lemmy.world
      3·
      9 months ago

      What about for people like me?

      I bought my device outright. No loans, no payment plans and no reason for that functionality to exist on my phone. Yet there it is, just waiting to be taken advantage of whether there is a valid reason or not.

      This is the kind of apathy that leads to phrases like, “If only we had known” but we do … and do nothing about it.

      I can and will at least do my part for myself and encourage others to do the same.

    • s38b35M5@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      8 months ago

      This is classic efficient market hypothesis brain worms, the kind of cognitive dead-end that you arrive at when you conceive of people in purely economic terms, without considering the power relationships between them. It’s a dead end you navigate to if you only think about things as they are today – vast numbers of indebted people who command fewer assets and lower wages than at any time since WWII – and treat this as a “natural” state: “how can these poors expect to be offered more debt unless they agree to have their all-important pocket computers booby-trapped?”

      -Cory Doctorow from his blog, unintentionally addressing you

  • smb@lemmy.mlEnglish
    6116·
    9 months ago

    anyone remember the time when google removed(!) their internal “don’t be evil” rule? guess this is part of the outcome of that “be evil” that came along with removal of the opposite. Abuse of this mechanism is IMHO veery predictable ;-)

    There are plenty of google-free cellphones, one could easily stick to better products of better companies. help yourself, google’s not gonna do that for you within the next 5billion* years as they IMHO already stated they “want” to be evil now, always remember that ;-)

    *) thats round about when our sun expands too much for earth, so i currently dislike doing any predictions beyond that point ;-) i do not predict google would last that long, only that they’ll keep beeing evil until their end.

    • dev_null@lemmy.ml
      601·
      9 months ago

      anyone remember the time when google removed(!) their internal “don’t be evil” rule?

      I remember when media falsely reported clickbait articles that they did and people bring that up to this day. They moved it from the introduction to the closing statement. Which you can argue makes it less prominent or whatever, but it was never removed.

      Of course it makes no difference, it wasn’t followed either way, and definitely isn’t followed now. But no, it was never removed. You can see it yourself right here at the end: https://abc.xyz/investor/google-code-of-conduct/

          • FoxBJK@midwest.socialEnglish
            6·
            9 months ago

            And yet it needs to be said because even 6 years after this didn’t happen people are still convinced that it did. It’s brought up way too often and I’m beyond tired of it at this point. Hate on Google for things they actually do, not because they moved 3 words to the bottom of a webpage.

            • yetiftw@lemmy.world
              21·
              9 months ago

              my point was that the only reason anything ever receives attention in any way is due to an agenda

      • nibble4bits@lemm.ee
        1·
        9 months ago

        it was never removed

        Context is key. It went from

        Google Code of Conduct is one of the ways we put “Don’t be evil” into practice

        to

        And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!

        So from a “we won’t be evil” to telling others to not be evil.

        So yes, the context in which the statement was applied, means its very basis was removed.

      • smb@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        hm you have a point that it might not have been removed completely, but the problem with that point that i personally have is that this reached me too late to just believe it was really never removed. For some reasons i would not believe blindly in “evidences” that are in control of the one that is in question and could manipulate it later for such claims and also was experienced to not be trustworthy for what they say…

        saying that, there are ways to check if something was there at a time or not. the one source i know that could help here only seems to store records from 29th jun 2023 18:44:33 onwards which is too late for this.

        https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/https://abc.xyz/investor/google-code-of-conduct/

        you are right, it does not make a difference in if they can be trusted, but it makes a difference in why not and what to expect if you do so despite the red flags or -as a gov- just let things go on. A person who by accident was speeding should maybe be treated differenrly than a person who intentionally(!) does so while risking others lifes. and what would be more proof of intention than a written statement or removed canary? thus such a statement does make a difference in terms of they just cannot handle their stuff, don’t care at all or maybe even have evil intentions.

        examples:

        some kids making a fire in the forest cause they don’t know the risks

        vs.

        some young adults making a fire in the woods cause they just don’t care despite knowing the risks

        vs.

        a company making fire in the woods because its cheaper to do stuff there and they lack the resouces to do it safe and someone else will pay the firefighters anyway.

        vs.

        a company stating to want to do so cause they like it despite they could afford doing it secure but just no one could or would sue them anyway.

        while i don’t want to say google is like no.4 here, to me these examples all make huge differences, no matter if the woods actually cought fire or not.

    • Nom Nom@lemm.eeEnglish
      113·
      9 months ago

      Devs still need to eat so we will need a better alternative to adsense. As long as we depend on these corporate services their stranglehold will only continue strengthen like this.

      • smb@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        ok, i have to admit, that i was thinking of google-“services” free phones like the new ones from huawei. but sure android is made by google (but not “owned” by them). however i can try to “rescue” my argument by saying something like “just use a nokia 3310! they’re still working and the batterie should still last a week if not more” ;-)

        however projects like lineage os might be a good choice to have threeth (as in more than “both”), more security, less dependency from google, and also more influence on the actual software included in the build, if it’s not even possible to just compile it yourself and have freedom of changing every line of code as you wish.

        • michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org
          1·
          9 months ago

          Huawei doesn’t even provide possibility to unlock bootloader, so it’s big NO. Currently I’m using Lineage OS on my primary phone and Linux on secondary phone. But the main problem is big amount of proprietary staff like modems, that can even work bypassing SOC and OS. I found only one phone with truly open-source hardware. It’s Liberty phone from Purism. It costs 2000$ and has perfomance comparable to 50$ Android phone.

          • smb@lemmy.mlEnglish
            1·
            9 months ago

            my idea currently is to finish some projects that have priority and afterwards then look for lineage os on raspberry pi, combined with gsm modem and maybe a gps module, all powered by a slim powerbank. might make up a huge bulky phone but i almost want to start building it now. On the other hand if i wait until my other projects are finished, the whole thing might be ready made available for self assembly…

            • michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org
              2·
              9 months ago

              I thought about it too, but I want to make a tablet based on RPI 5. I have a 3D printer, so I hope to be able to make an adequately sized case.

  • alonely0@programming.dev
    37·
    9 months ago

    Yeah it’s because they ship the same OS image for everyone, be it US on a carrier plan or otherwise. Google services has complete control over your device (more than just locking it down), and that’s what you should be upset about. For you that app is just harmless bloat, what’s actually spooky is google play services as a system app. Do yourself a favor and install grapheneOS.

  • coffeeClean@infosec.pub
    34·
    9 months ago

    The fun aspect to this is that some banks have forced customers to use an Android for all their banking ops. So:

    ① You’re late paying a bill
    ② Creditor locks your phone
    ③ You cannot access your bank to make the payment because your phone is locked

    Brilliant.

  • Sims@lemmy.ml
    303·
    9 months ago

    That’s just disgusting, but still so normal in the market religion. Google act as judge and executioner above all local laws. Never ever buy a phone that can’t be rooted and reconfigured. …oh, and never again deal with anything Google… …oh, or any other big US tech for that matter. …fuckit, never deal with ANY Capitalist cheater/scumbag unless you have to.

    • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      12·
      9 months ago

      Unfortunately GrapheneOS still only supports Google Pixels, otherwise I would use something else in a heartbeat

        • AmbiguousProps@lemmy.todayEnglish
          4·
          9 months ago

          I did before I used Graphene, and my experience was a lot worse to be honest. Has it improved over the last two years?

          • nolight@lemm.eeEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            You are much better off using a Pixel with GrapheneOS as far as privacy and security are concerned. Believe it or not, Google Pixels are the best smartphones to use de-googled. Truly outstanding.

            Look up why Graphene team only supports these phones, it’s on their FAQ page.

            • AmbiguousProps@lemmy.todayEnglish
              1·
              9 months ago

              Lots of apps straight up didn’t work, that was the main thing. The other thing was I had to use a VPN app to block app network access, something that is a built in feature of Graphene. Further, Graphene has much more built in security features including actually using secure boot.

              • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
                2·
                9 months ago

                Did you get your apps from F-droid? I run Lineage completely stock with F-droid. It might be good to make a distinction between regular Lineage OS and Google Lineage OS.

      • Luke@lemmy.mlEnglish
        7·
        9 months ago

        You don’t see how a corporate entity like Google is related to capitalism? What exactly do you think capitalism means?