Samsung Sparks Confusion After Sending Out Mysterious '1' Notification To Smartphones (cnbc.com) 77
Users of Samsung's Galaxy smartphones got a surprise Thursday morning as they were sent a random notification for its mobile tracking app . From a report: The notification, which some CNBC employees also received, was for Samsung's own "Find My Mobile" app and showed the number "1" twice, with no other information. Once clicked on, the notification disappeared, and some users reported via Twitter that it used up a chunk of their battery life. According to Samsung, the "1" notification was sent out by accident to a number of Galaxy phones as part of "internal testing."
1 Post! (Score:2)
Happened to me!
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Illuminati (Score:3, Funny)
It was supposed to be a secret signal that indicated that the next phase Illuminati plan was to be put into action immediately. Rats, foiled again. Oh well, back to watching Netflix.
Today (Score:2)
I was # 1 !!!
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YOU'RE Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen?!
Real men ... (Score:5, Funny)
... test in Production
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... test in Production
...blame the intern!
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Probably true (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure it was part of testing with the 1's being script return codes. The question is what were they testing.
least they didn't try to send a binary message (Score:2)
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You forgot the space.
01010111 01101000 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01111001 00100000 01101000 01101001 01100100 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 01110011 01100101 01101100 01100110 00100001
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Honestly, maybe that should be the new trend. Messaging in binary.
in binary via UTF-16 using emoji 0's and 1's from the keypad section.
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You forgot the word "01111001 01101111 01110101 00001101 00001010".
Confused me (Score:4, Interesting)
I was wondering why I got this notification. I looked in the app section of the settings and I don't even show "Find My Mobile" app installed on my phone. My battery was also really low, but if I get notifications overnight the vibration can sometimes move my phone enough off my wireless charging pad to lose connection.
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You have to check the "Show System apps" box, then you'll see it. I was unable to disable this app, which is a bit disconcerting.
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"It's a bummer we can't just install a Vanilla Android."
Did Samsung stop unlocking bootloaders?
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Yeah, Bixby really chaps my ass too. And every other cancerous maleficence that Samsung (and other vendors) foist upon their devices. I love the Samsung hardware, I've had a few Galaxy revisions now and they were all pretty solid hardware wise, it's the software that really takes away from the experience. It's a bummer we can't just install a Vanilla Android.
I also really like Samsung hardware, particularly my Note. Lineage runs on a lot of Samsung phones, it's probably better than vanilla Android. Otherwise remapping the Bixby key helps a lot.
Re: Confused me (Score:2)
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I was unable to disable this app, which is a bit disconcerting.
It's a core security feature built into the phone. The fact that it is a separate system apk is not relevant. It's actually quite reassuring that you weren't able to disable this app as:
a) you don't want someone stealing your device to disable it
b) users have time and time again been shown to do stupid things, and given enough rope will hang themselves leading to broken devices (you can't disable every home screen either, but if it were possible someone would do it).
c) that's standard on all devices includi
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I understand your point, but I dislike that even though I've had all the user controllable options for this app disabled, the app still is enabled.
When I turn this off, why isn't it off?
Which leads to more paranoia:
When I turn location services off, is it really off?
When I deny mic access to everything but the phone app, is the mic really off when I'm not in a phone call?
If I can't trust that things I've turned off are really off, can I really trust anything on this phone?
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I actually got this on my wifi-only Tab S6. I don't have an active Samsung phone right now and this tablet doesn't have cellular.
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Showed up on my wifi only Samsung tablet also, as well as my phone.
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Useful to know. Not that I ever had the slightest intention of buying a wireless charger.
Re: Confused me (Score:2)
The wife thought my nightstand was too cluttered so she got me a clock with a built in charging pad
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The radio synch works fine - I've tested it across about 1/3 of the Earth's surface.
But the solar cell technology ... rather relies on people not wearing jumpers, long-sleeve shirts or full-arm flameproof coveralls. Which describes my clothing on the worksite, or in the 10-to-20 degree temperature of a warm day at h
also confused (Score:3)
I received it (Score:2)
I wasn't even aware the app existed. I guess I am now. I wonder if that was the intent?
Not just Galaxy (Score:3)
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Oh, so a little less than usual?
Why rely on a device you have no control over? (Score:2)
Re:Why rely on a device you have no control over? (Score:4, Funny)
How is that open source phone working out for you?
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Disabled long ago (Score:2)
I disabled all the Samsung Spyware on my phone long ago. However it seems to keep coming back like bad Chinese Food. (And unlike Chinese food, a good burp doesn't get rid of it).
I wonder how one permanently banishes everything Samsung connected from the Phone? I want none of it!
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Don't buy a Samsung. Get a pixel 4. That's as stock as it gets, and they are able to be unlocked. If you get rid of all the samsung crap on your phone, that's basically what you'll end up with anyways.
Re: Disabled long ago (Score:3)
I wonder how one permanently banishes everything Samsung connected from the Phone? I want none of it!
Easy!
Buy an iPhone.
And before you Snark, you can actually Delete (not just Disable) all built-in Apps on iOS/iPadOS, except for a very few, such as âoeSettingsâ.
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File a suit against Samsung for CFAA violations for putting shit back on your system, without your permission, after you explicitly removed it.
Then send them a bill for rent on the space you cannot reclaim because of their bloatware that you do not want.
Until you get off your ass and do this, you're just another sucker complaining. Get shit done. You're supposedly retired, you should have the fucking time.
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Buy an unlocked phone that supports Lineage.
Done.
It was a mis-type (Score:2)
It should have been 'Order 51', but obviously autocorrect mangled it.
Figures (Score:2)
Battery life (Score:2)
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Continuously powering the GPS chip during that test most likely.
Re: Battery life (Score:2)
Someone made the claim that it was eating battery life with no evidence or explaination how they determined that. You just assumed that claim was valid.
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There is a reply here from a user saying his battery was drained, and it was in the article (yep, I read the TFA, shame on me).
So I think its safe to say that Samsung owes it's users a full explanation of what happened, and exactly why this caused the battery problems. It's this kind of opaqueness in companies that lead to deadly scandals such as the "Ford Memo".
it's an older meme, but it checks out, sir (Score:2)
It's obviously Samsung's implementation of the prime number shitting bear's [alpha61.com] lesser known cousin the fibonacci burfing monkey [newgrounds.com]
Great (Score:2)
I was wondering what that was all about, Good thing my phone was on a charger. It's a good little reminder that when samsung takes over the world they'll start with my phone and a notification like this
Executive Order 1 (Score:2)
Another U2 Promo? (Score:2)
One. [youtube.com]
Honest mistake (Score:2)
This was an honest mistake, what they meant to send out is "Click here for this one time amazing offer, act now while supplies last!". The keys are right next to each other.
Soooo, eleven? (Score:2)
and showed the number "1" twice
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Obviously (Score:3)
Korea has created the first 21st century numbers station.
I got it as well (Score:2)
sign that things are still centrally controlled (Score:1)
SMS Commands and Android 4.4+ (KitKat) "Locate" (Score:2)
There is a command set that allows remote control over an Android handset and the first command in the list is "Locate", which is probably the value 1. The purpose of the "Locate" command is what Samsung said they were trying to do, and the power usage spike is probably because of the protocol which tells the phone to use the GPS to acquire a better fix o the location before responding to the command message. If the GPS can not get a fix because you are indoors you batter might get sucked dry in the process
You don't say (Score:2)
Reminds me of an old story (Score:2)
IIRC, it was a router or something where somebody was using their IP for testing while debugging the firmware. They forgot to take that out, and shipped it. As the routers hit the market, they eventually ended up pinging that guy's IP with what turned out to be one of the biggest DoS events the Internet had seen. So it could be worse. There are plenty of other stories of tests that escaped the testing lab and/or developers that "left a sponge in". Anybody else got an interesting story?
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Yes! Thank-you. It was the Netgear router that I was thinking of.
Sorry, we were testing something (Score:2)
Just be glad we didn't send out the real code.
That's the Brick Me code.
Look, you think DARPA was just for fun?
The most embarrassing thing (Score:2)
The most embarrassing and little known detail was that Samsung's QA department was expecting a Zero on their phones. Seems that everybody else got the code alright, but it's the wrong one
Its a countdown (Score:2)
What happens when it gets to zero?!
(Dramatic Music)
Checkmate.