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Android

Samsung Sparks Confusion After Sending Out Mysterious '1' Notification To Smartphones (cnbc.com) 77

Posted by msmash from the bizarro-world dept.
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."
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Samsung Sparks Confusion After Sending Out Mysterious '1' Notification To Smartphones More

Samsung Sparks Confusion After Sending Out Mysterious '1' Notification To Smartphones

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  • Happened to me!

    • "1" can mean "it works" during a test phase. In the future, instead of your phone saying that it "got the message", it will automatically and instantly perform some operation requested by the mother company Samsung, like "give me some of your data", or "remove that app".

  • Illuminati (Score:3, Funny)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @11:23AM (#59746800) Homepage Journal

    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.

  • I was # 1 !!!

  • Real men ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ardmhacha ( 192482 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @11:30AM (#59746822)

    ... test in Production

  • Probably true (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @11:30AM (#59746826)

    I'm sure it was part of testing with the 1's being script return codes. The question is what were they testing.

  • "Fuck you" in binary = 01000110 01010101 01000011 01001011 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100001 Now that would have seriously fucked with peoples minds.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by krray ( 605395 )

      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

  • Confused me (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @11:45AM (#59746872)

    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.

    • 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.

      • yeah...makes me super unhappy that CyanogenMod was discontinued :(..... This strikes me as the same as that blasted "Bixby" button (I refuse to setup that thing)..and it bugs the heck out of me every time I accidentally tap the thing, and it nags me to set it up (or update it)....

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Pascoea ( 968200 )
          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.

          • "It's a bummer we can't just install a Vanilla Android."

            Did Samsung stop unlocking bootloaders?

          • 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.

        • CynogenMod became LineageOS (https://lineageos.org/) didnâ(TM)t it?
          • Yeah saw that a few minutes after I posted, and of course my phone hardware is no longer maintained: from https://wiki.lineageos.org/dev... [lineageos.org]: "WARNING: The Samsung Galaxy S9 is no longer maintained. A build guide is available for developers that would like to make private builds, or even restart official support." scary thing is that I'm toying with trying to go the route of the private build...

      • 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

        • 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?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Vrallis ( 33290 )

      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.

    • 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.

      Useful to know. Not that I ever had the slightest intention of buying a wireless charger.

      • The wife thought my nightstand was too cluttered so she got me a clock with a built in charging pad

        • I know that feeling. The wife got me a wristwatch with (1) solar cell charging and (2) automatic time updating from LW radio signals. And it is waterproof, so I can use it for SCUBA diving too.

          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)

    by rkhalloran ( 136467 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @11:50AM (#59746892) Homepage
    went to grab my phone off the charger this morning and saw this, nothing pulled up in the app when I tapped it. ???

  • 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)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @12:08PM (#59746950)
    I've got an A20 and I got the message. My phone also used 40% of it's battery overnight.
  • The fact that so many people rely on these devices that they have NO control over blows my mind. I would never rely on one of these things for anything important.

  • 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!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pikoro ( 844299 )

      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.

    • 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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Khyber ( 864651 )

      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.

    • Buy an unlocked phone that supports Lineage.

      Done.

  • It should have been 'Order 51', but obviously autocorrect mangled it.

  • I got mine late last night and it was concerning. Didn't notice any battery drain, though.
  • Why would sending out a "1" eat up the battery? There's more going on here.

  • 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

  • ... hey, where are all the Jedi?

  • One. [youtube.com]

  • 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.

  • and showed the number "1" twice

  • Obviously (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday February 20, 2020 @01:39PM (#59747246)

    Korea has created the first 21st century numbers station.

  • I thought it was a hack of some kind. Thanks /.!
  • sketchy - dont like that samsung mess up can cause my phone to do things I dont want it to.

  • 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

  • Samsung doing something stupid. Who would have thunk. Maybe it is just Microsoft's envy?

  • 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?

  • 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 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

  • What happens when it gets to zero?!
    (Dramatic Music)
    Checkmate.

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