Theories of phone spying

If you've ever dealt with something Chinese, don't think you're going to get off that easily, my old Huawei P Smart Z told me the other day and smiled, not smugly, but with a "that's the way it is" kind of smile.

No, I'm not freaking out. This is exactly how my phone would behave if it was animated. 😅
"I may be old and infirm, already quite out of date, but I have locked your data inside me (just like those padlocks you show here - there is no love in them, and never has been), guarding it jealously, and I will not let it go and give it to you until I die. Point.", it continues. "Oh yeah, and I won't tell you where it is either. Point."

This is not some conspiracy theory where the victim is some ridiculously ordinary citizen. That's the case, and everyone should keep that in mind when buying one of these, even sometimes fairly expensive phones that work well, take nice pictures with an AI camera, or just tie themselves in some other way to some Chinese product that pulls and stores data.

A few days ago I told you how I finally managed to buy a new phone because, to be honest, the company-financial or downright 'political' problem with this particular brand of phones scared me a little. But here after a few days or weeks, I find myself again with a sim card back in this old phone, waiting for another and probably last attempt to transfer the data of some applications to the new phone.

I don't know how I did it two years ago when I was transferring data to that ill-fated Nokia phone. In fact, for several years this has been taken care of by my partner, as he is the technology and technical person with all the knowledge in house. It is true that it happened precisely because of him that I lost data, due to his haste, but at the same time the fault is also mine, because I was convinced that I could not handle it myself and it was better that someone else does it for me.

At the same time, I remember the last time I bought a phone many years ago, when I went into a phone store just for fun, but after a few minutes I found myself with a new, very nice and high-quality phone for its time, and my data was transferred right in the store from the girl who sold it to me.
But these are other, glorious times that can no longer be returned. As I have already said once, the phones that were sold in the country before were of better quality, and the information that we stored in them and used was not as important and essential as it is now, with all the banking and financial applications, etc.

But let me return to the present case. When I was transferring my data from the old phone to the new one, I didn't realize that I couldn't transfer the WhatsApp and Viber chat history. That somehow didn't seem so important to me that day, other applications were more important. Viber has been sending me messages that it is not possible to make a backup for quite some time, which I ignored. And WhatsApp didn't notify me of anything. However, on the day I started using both applications on the new phone, I saw how much I missed the information from the old chats. So I went back to the old phone to find a way to restore them.
It took me at least two consecutive days of scouring the internet to transfer WhatsApp chat history. Don't say it's easy because it turns out nothing works right on this "old" phone. I had to try different ways, one after another and several times, syncing my google account, turning off Wi-Fi and whatnot so that I can make a backup, uninstalling the app several times on the new phone, until it shows me the desired data transfer option etc. Here, even my partner couldn't handle it and would almost delete my entire history instead of transferring it.

Anyway, I was finally able to handle that, but not the next one - transferring chat history of Viber. I don't know how many of you are using this app and you must be thinking why bother with it when you have whatsapp? But Viber is mainly used in Bulgaria, WhatsApp not so much, so I need this app for my daily life, connection with family and friends, even with companies. And encouraged by my success with the other platform, I decided I'd have a go at this one myself.
But it turns out that's not the case. Why? Because my old Chinese Huawei phone somehow managed over the years to appropriate the app as if it was downloaded from its app store called Huawei AppGallery. I don't know how this is possible since I don't have a registration and an account in this system, and I have never used it to download any app, but I later confirmed with my own eyes that this was the case after seeing another app assigned waiting for an update in this gallery, although I never had it downloaded from there. It was a financial application and that's even more disturbing now. So I'm glad that I had already managed to transfer it to the new phone without any problems, so I just deleted it from the old one.

Because what happens when an app is appropriated by this Huawei's own gallery - in Viber's case, I no longer have any control over my chat history and I can't back it up to my google drive. I can only back it up on Huawei drive, which I can't access because I don't have a registration and most importantly - I don't want to have a registration there. Whether I'm wrong about that or not doesn't really matter. The very fact of misappropriation of applications, the control of personal data in which is lost, is, in my opinion, brutal and illegal.

I found, of course, other cases like mine, in forums and the solution for this - downloading and installing the Viber apk file on top of the already existing version. OK, I did it, but guess what - my phone won't let me install that latest update file, so it reverts to the google play store version.

I tried to disable this Huawei internal gallery altogether, but of course it won't let me again because it wants me to create an account first to let me go inside. I'm pretty sure now that even if I make an account, they won't let me deactivate this most important data collection source of theirs, so I'm not wasting my time on it.

Tech savvy people wrote on Reddit a few months ago that the only way to use and maintain normal apps on a Huawei phone is to download these apk files for all of them and update them manually. Which is quite time consuming and tedious I guess. And maybe it's not worth it. And like I said, I'm not even allowed to do that.

Hey, I haven't tried the new Samsung camera yet, because of this stupid reason and wasting time with the old rogue Chinese spy. I'm pretty sure that Samsung will also have problems in this regard. This was seen at the very start when it forcefully installed 3 games on the device which stopped the transfer of my important data while they installed, even though I checked or rather unchecked that I didn't want them on my phone. Then I uninstalled several times, really, it didn't happen with just one uninstall!!! apps like LinkedIn, Spotify, Netflix and whatnot that I don't need. 😠

So, what could be the solution to all this? Nokia? This defective device that they sold me in Bulgaria, in the store of the telecommunications company? No. Pixel? This is a phone I can't afford. But does the brand show anything at all and does it make sense to change anything?

Yesterday I received an SMS from my new telecom provider. "An exclusive gift for you - iPhone 15", they write to me. "We know you want it."
Well, let me tell you, that already sounds creepy. Yes, I really want it. But how do they know that? Why don't they offer me another phone that I don't want? For example - Huawei, Xiaomi, Poco, Hero or some other Chinese spy sh^t?

As an employee in their office once told me, supposedly jokingly - "we monitor everything. Well, not exactly when you go to the bathroom, but basically everything."

Well, try to take this statement as a joke. It's a bit difficult, isn't it? 🤔

Thank you for your time! Copyright:	@soulsdetour
	Soul's Detour is a project started by me years ago when I had a blog about historical and not so popular tourist destinations in Eastern Belgium, West Germany and Luxembourg. Nowadays, this blog no longer exists, but I'm still here - passionate about architecture, art and mysteries and eager to share my discoveries and point of view with you.

Personally, I am a sensitive soul with a strong sense of justice.
Traveling and photography are my greatest passions.
Sounds trivial to you?
No, it's not trivial. Because I still love to travel to not so famous destinations.🗺️
Of course, the current situation does not allow me to do this, but I still find a way to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, new places, beauty and art.
Sometimes you can find the most amazing things even in the backyard of your house.😊🧐🧭|