I hate Temu, but this (apparently contracted?) Grizzly Reports report isn’t really all that trust inspiring, tbh.
Our experts identified a stack of software functions that are completely inappropriate to and dangerous
The stack difference to the Amazon app they list:
- Package compile
- Requesting system logs
- Some code obfuscation
- Mac address collection
- Install permission
- Wake lock
Meh. That’s just a sliver worse than your regular, off the shelves proprietary corporate app.
I do believe they hover up data, but they aren’t otherworldly super hackers. They will probably just ask for the data and the users will hand it over in a second. For most people, it really is that simple.
since people are yelling about it.
It’s probably not blatantly bypassing security and privacy features, what it is PROBABLY doing is using the user to bypass them by simply manipulating them to do it.
Social engineering is way easier than whatever bullshit you would need to do to bypass sandboxing and dynamically recompile, or whatever people are claiming, and my guess would be that this is what they’re doing.
If the suit is claiming they are doing what i said, that’s probably legal, and not going anywhere, unless tiktok ban bill 2.0. If the suit is claiming what others are claiming, it’s still probably wrong and probably going to be tiktok ban bill 2.0.
Unfortunately these things aren’t all that exciting at the end of the day.
Not enough just to get someone else to take your cheap plastic shit to landfill after it’s cluttered their space then I guess.
Can someone explain to me how you can just simply program something to bypass privacy and security features? What is the point of having these features if you can literally just program something to ignore them? Like…??? Temu is obviously bad if this is true, but if it IS true, it shouldn’t have been possible to begin with!!
one of the most obvious ways is to simply not bypass them, and then do it from within the application itself. That way you can essentially man in the middle the rest of it, though this would require a rather specific set of events and a particularly nested design of an app.
By exploiting unknown vulnerabilities in the operating system.
Im not sure how they specifically bypass the features in other ways but I imagine some of it is from users accepting permissions under the guise of another use. For example, maybe you accept the microphone permission on tik tok to record video. With that permission in theory the app could now use it maliciously. Of course it should all depend on the users choice for that and im not sure beyond the scope of that.
TORfdot0 shared this comment below:
Someone else posted this report in this thread which does a good job of the deceptive practices and API calls the app uses to trick the user into giving permissions up willingly and otherwise collect data it shouldn’t.
Looking forward to someone answering this
At what point does this all just become sinophobia?
Probably when the software isn’t malware.
But in this case it is.
Comments here: “Yeah right, I’ll believe it when they explain how.”
Article: literally has a section explaining how
It states that it’s somehow breaking the permissions sandbox by dynamically recompiling code after the app is opened. Unless there is some undisclosed exploit that it’s using to break the sandbox, it’s outside most people’s understanding of how these platforms work
It only explains how it would pass (automatic) reviews. Not how it would bypass the sandbox. So yeah, you’re right, not enough info sadly.
Someone else posted this report in this thread which does a good job of the deceptive practices and API calls the app uses to trick the user into giving permissions up willingly and otherwise collect data it shouldn’t.
The claim is they completely bypass all Android and iOS security is pretty unbelievable.
That source looks better indeed.
Ars quotes nonsense like “bypasses the security” and “exploit the user”.
Those terms have meaning and they aren’t applicable here.
Also fuck their landfillware Chinesium “products”.
That’s also most of what’s on Amazon these days.
Amazon is just faster shipped temu garbage
Every person I’ve heard hate on temu shops on amazon, too. It’s pretty ironic.
If it’s $5 and some random assortments of letters for a brand name you might as well just light your money on fire whether you order from temu or amazon or Walmart for that matter
I mean, some things are fine?
I’m shocked, I say. Shocked!
The idea of an app being used to gather additional date from a customer!“Additional date”
Have any of you actually ever stopped to process what the tagline, “I’m shopping like a billionaire” means?
I’ve always interpreted it as,
I’m needlessly buying things that don’t make me happy, but making the purchase without any hesitation, knowing that the purchase price could never financially impact me in any real way. When I purchase the thing, I’ll probably never use it or actually take it out of the box even. It is just empty, hollow. And somewhere inside, I always know that it’s all only possible, because I’m actively exploiting the cheap labor of scores of other people that are made to perpetually suffer in generations of abject poverty to allow for my relative comfort…
🎶*“I’m shopping like a billionaire!”*🎶
I think you cracked the case on that one, that’s gotta be what it means.
My interpretation of that tagline is that since the prices on Temu are cheap, it means you can shop as if you had a lot of money, without actually spending that much.
I am disabled and have limited income I don’t have control over increasing or decreasing. I use temu to save a lot of money on essential things that should be cheap but are still overpriced in America. Sponges. Rags. Soaps. Pens. Tools. Home improvement hardware. Plant grow supplies. Gifts for me nieces. The tagline, is just a tagline. Billionaires are not like me and scouring for cheap magic sponges.
Good to know people that are disabled don’t mind using shitty maleware apps, I guess?
That’s… not what they were saying? They were responding to a comment saying it encourages consumerism by saying that they use it for better prices on things they need regardless
What does being disabled have to do it?
That’s why they’re broke
Anti China propaganda.
All companies spy on you.
The only thing their mad is that the spying is not being done by them. That’s it.
There wouldn’t be so much anti-china propaganda, if the popular companies didn’t do so much shit behind people’s back to drown out the good things coming out of China.
I mean China is becoming a economic powerhouse, just make your companies not be backdoors until your influence and trust increase without competition. But nooooo, they have to do every worse thing other big tech companies do, but at a script-kiddie level.
The ‘But, everyone is a bit evil’ argument is such bullshit, the concern here is obviously the extent of the surveillance, but no one can say you’re entirely wrong because the definition of that is so broad.
It’s kind of technical, but there are comparisons on the report itself, even a fancy table, to other popular shopping apps and there are some legitimately troubling items. For anyone else, I’d recommend skipping direct to the source:
Like a worse AliExpress
Yesterday, I saw a Temu ad for something and I just wanted to open it to read the info and there were so many popups and “spin the wheel for a prize” and “enter your email here” and so on that I gave up and just looked for the info elsewhere. Never clicking on a Temu link again.
I get their CAPTCHA where I have to slide the puzzle piece over to look at one of their ads. More than half the time I will do this and it will fail saying I didn’t do it right. So yeah temu has become a trash site.
That CAPTCHA isn’t specific to Temu.
"So yeah temu has become a trash site. "
one of the best decisions you’ll ever make, next to dns level blocking it on your network.
All I want to know is what do these Temu people think my life is like?
deleted by creator
I just thinks you’re a garden variety redneck.
Weaponized fishing for covert military operations.
Code Name: Go Fish!
On a skateboard… with tits!
Are you a busty outdoorswoman?
Your life looks pretty sick to me!
he’s batman
Batwoman
Bustybats
Batmare
No, you don’t get it.
These massive Batman pecs need support.
Clearly you use adbloker or something cause temu just got excited when you opened up the link.
I mean, you’re obviously a sexy military mechanic woman, who goes into battle with fantasy battle armor and goes fishing as a hobby! Duh.
Any good RPG has a solid fishing mini game tbh
The bearings combined with the wrenches made me think, like, roboticist. So maybe they make fishing robots that double as sexbots?
Trust me, fish dont need to be robots to be fucked…
I was wondering what that blue thing was. I thought it was a weird personal tool…
It looks like an archery release, used by compound bow shooters to pull the bow string back and release with a trigger or button
How about pass and enforce strong digital privacy protection laws you fucking cowards. When other countries spy on us it’s scary and bad, but for US companies? Best we can do is ban porn and demand backdoors to stop E2EE messaging.
California (and a few other states) are trying. The CCPA and CPRA are a good step in the right direction. If you’re a California resident, you can request all the data a business has collected about you, tell them to stop sharing it with business partners, or tell them to completely delete it, similar to the GDPR in Europe.
Oh don’t worry, they’re going to try and kill that too before it hurts them too much, and with the audacity of calling it the “American Privacy Rights Act”. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/eff-opposes-american-privacy-rights-act
Ugh. I hate this so much.
I’m pretty sure Temu is Chinese.
That would hurt the advertising, spam, blackmail, malware, and propaganda industries. We can’t rip out the economic spine of big tech since they pay the best bribes.
Unfortunately they care more about spying on us themselves.
The only thing annoying to me about temu is the cheesy popups for “free” gifts and percent-off wheel spinners.
And the product thumbnails that all look like sex toys.
