Temu "surprised" by the lawsuit, plans to "vigorously defend" itself.
  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    200·
    6 months ago

    “Temu is designed to make this expansive access undetected, even by sophisticated users,” Griffin’s complaint said. “Once installed, Temu can recompile itself and change properties, including overriding the data privacy settings users believe they have in place.”

    That’s just nuts

    • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
      129·
      6 months ago

      Yeah, it is. It’s such an extraordinary claim.

      One requiring extraordinary evidence that wasn’t provided.

      “It’s doing amazing hacks to access everything and it’s so good at it it’s undetectable!” Right, how convenient.

      • GenitalHurricane@lemmy.worldEnglish
        99·
        6 months ago

        Libmanwe-lib.so is a library file in machine language (compiled). A Google search reveals that it is exclusively mentioned in the context of PDD software—all five search results refer to PDD’s apps. According to this discussion on GitHub, “the malicious code of PDD is protected by two sets of VMPs (manwe, nvwa)”. Libmanwe is the library to use manwe.

        An anonymous user uploaded a decompiled version of libmanwe-lib to GitHub. It reads like it is a list of methods to encrypt, decrypt or shift integer signals, which fits the above description as a VMP for the sake of hiding a program’s purpose.

        In plain words, TEMU’s app employed a PDD proprietary measure to hide malicious code in an opaque bubble within the application’s executables

        • sndrtj@feddit.nlEnglish
          7·
          6 months ago

          So wait, bit-shifting some integers is now considered being malicious? Is that really the defense here? Using that definition just about all software in existence is malicious.

    • paraphrand@lemmy.worldEnglish
      58·
      6 months ago

      This is why companies like Apple are at least a tiny bit correct when they go on about app security and limiting code execution. The fact it aligns with their creed of controlling all of the technology they sell makes the whole debate a mess, though. And it does not excuse shitty behavior on their part.

      But damn

      And if they got this past Apple in their platforms. That’s even wilder.

      • chiisana@lemmy.chiisana.netEnglish
        29·
        6 months ago

        The article linked to the analysis and on a quick glance, it seems to be done entirely against the Android variant of the app. This makes sense because if the alleged actions are true, they’d never have gotten on to the App Store for iOS Apple users… or at least as of a couple months ago. Who knows what kind of vulnerability is exposed by Apple only doing limited cursory checks for 3rd party App Stores.

      • GenitalHurricane@lemmy.worldEnglish
        18·
        6 months ago
        1. Dynamic compilation using runtime.exec(). A cryptically named function in the source code calls for “package compile”, using runtime.exec(). This means a new program is created by the app itself.—Compiling is the process of creating a computer executable from a human-readable code. The executable created by this function is not visible to security scans before or during installation of the app, or even with elaborate penetration testing. Therefore, TEMU’s app could have passed all the tests for approval into Google’s Play Store, despite having an open door built in for an unbounded use of exploitative methods. The local compilation even allows the software to make use of other data on the device that itself could have been created dynamically and with information from TEMU’s servers.
        • GenitalHurricane@lemmy.worldEnglish
          13·
          6 months ago

          Ah yes, delete your original incorrect comment instead of continuing the discussion about how wrong and lazy it was to make, nice.

  • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
    130·
    6 months ago

    I’m sure Temu collects all information you put into the app and your behaviour in it, but this guy is making some very bold claims about things that just aren’t possible unless Temu is packing some serious 0-days.

    For example he says the app is collecting your fingerprint data. How would that even happen? Apps don’t have access to fingerprint data, because the operating system just reports to the app “a valid fingerprint was scanned” or “an unknown fingerprint was scanned”, and the actual fingerprint never goes anywhere. Is Temu doing an undetected root/jailbreak, then installing custom drivers for the fingerprint sensor to change how it works?

    And this is just one claim. It’s just full of bullshit. To do everything listed there it would have to do multiple major exploits that are on state-actor level and wouldn’t be wasted on such trivial purpose. Because now that’s it’s “revealed”, Google and Apple would patch them immediately.

    But there is nothing to patch, because most of the claims here are just bullshit, with no technical proof whatsoever.

      • MajinBlayze@lemmy.worldEnglish
        73·
        6 months ago

        Here’s the actual relevant part

        These are security risks to be sure, and while these permissions are (mostly) on the surface, possibly defensible, together they do clearly represent an app trying to gather all of the data that it can.

        However, a lot of info from this report is overblown. For example code compilation is sketchy to be sure, but without a privilege escalation attack, it can’t do anything the app couldn’t do with an update.

        Also, there’s some weird language in the report, like counting the green security issues in other apps (like tiktok) as if they were also a problem, despite the image showing that green here means it doesn’t present that particular risk.

        All of this to say, if you have temu, probably uninstall it. It’s clearly collecting all the data it can get.

        But it’s unlikely to be the immediate threat that will have China taking over your phone like this report implies.

          • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
            15·
            6 months ago

            I’m blown away by how many people use apps when they don’t have to. There’s a reason companies are always trying to get you to download their app, and it’s so they can put their software on your phone and harvest more of your data.

          • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
            9·
            6 months ago

            Exactly why I use browser and not apps, too. and if they try to strongarm me with better prices or degraded services, I just stop using them all together.

            • Shyfer@ttrpg.networkEnglish
              4·
              6 months ago

              It’s why I stopped using Reddit on mobile lol. No, I don’t want to download your official app, and no you making it so I need it to access NSFW stuff will convince me to.

              Same with X/Twitter. I hate when people put information in those now because you can’t read more than one at a time in some reply to self thread on there without downloading the app. Especially when it’s important news or on the ground reporting. Screw that. All those reporters need to use mastadon.

            • aStonedSanta@lemm.eeEnglish
              3·
              6 months ago

              Yup. I used to watch TikTok’s sent to me. Now I can’t. They want me to use their app. LOL. Nah.

      • azuth@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        24·
        6 months ago

        That… is not a study by anyone who knows what they are talking about. It also does not mention fingerprints at all.

        They seem to believe that the app can use permissions undeclared in the manifest file because they obviously think it’s only for the store to show the permissions to the user. Android will not actually allow an app to use undeclared permissions. The most rational explanation is the codebase is shared with different version of the app (possibly not released) that had different manifests.

        It also makes a big deal of checking if running as root. That is not evidence of having an escalation exploit. If they have an ability to get root before running the app why would they need to use the app to exploit it? They could just do whatever they wanted and avoid leaving traces in the app. Though I doubt they would root phones to just brick them. It’s the kind of mischief you would expect from a kid writing viruses, not an intelligence agency or criminal enterprise.

        Users who root their own phones are very unlikely to run temu as root. In fact a lot of apps related to shopping or banking try to detect root to refuse to work as your system is unsafely. In any case it’s a very niche group to target.

        To keep things short, that ‘study’ does not really look credible or written by actual experts.

      • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
        38·
        6 months ago

        The analysis shows it’s spyware, which I don’t question. But it’s spyware in the bounds of Android security, doesn’t hack anything, doesn’t have access to anything it shouldn’t, and uses normal Android permissions that you have to grant for it to have access to the data.

        For example the article mentions it’s making screenshots, but doesn’t mention that it’s only screenshots of itself. It can never see your other apps or access any of your data outside of it that you didn’t give it permission to access.

        Don’t get me wrong, it’s very bad and seems to siphon off any data it can get it’s hands on. But it doesn’t bypass any security, and many claims in the article are sensational and don’t appear in the Grizzly report.

        • hummingbird@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          6 months ago

          That is not entirely correct. The reported found the app using permissions that are not covered by the manifest. It also found the app being capable to execute arbitrary code send by temu. So it cannot be clearly answered if the app can utilize these permissions or not. Obviously they would not ship such an exploit with the app directly.

          • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
            10·
            6 months ago

            The reported found the app using permissions that are not covered by the manifest.

            It didn’t found them using them, it’s an important distinction. It found code referring to permissions that are not covered by the Manifest file. If that code was ran, the app would crash, because Android won’t let an app request and use a permission not in the Manifest file. The Manifest file is not an informational overview, it’s the mechanism through which apps can declare permissions that they want Android to allow them to request. If it’s not in the Manifest, then it’s not possible to use. It’s not unusual to have a bunch of libraries in an app that have functionality you don’t use, and so don’t declare the required permissions in the Manifest, because you don’t use them.

            It also found the app being capable to execute arbitrary code send by temu.

            Yeah, which is shady, but again, there is nothing to indicate that code can go around any security and do any of the sensational things the article claims.

            The Grizzly reports shows how the app tricks you into granting permissions that it shouldn’t need, very shady stuff. But it also shows they don’t have a magical way of going around the permissions. The user has to actually grant them.

    • clb92@feddit.dkEnglish
      22·
      6 months ago

      Yeah, I don’t like Temu, and I’m sure the app is a privacy nightmare, but these claims don’t seem right. If it’s true, I’d like to see someone else verify it.

      • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
        6·
        6 months ago

        Yes, the phone does, but that data is protected in the hardware and never sent to the software, the hardware basically just sends ok / not ok. It’s not impossible to hack in theory, nothing is, but it would be a very major security exploit in itself that would deserve a bunch of articles on it’s own. And would likely be device specific vulnerability, not something an app just does wherever installed.

        • Lojcs@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          Pretty sure this is not true. That’s how apple’s fingerprint scanners work. On android the fingerprint data is stored either in the tpm or a part of the storage encrypted by it.

              • dev_null@lemmy.mlEnglish
                1·
                6 months ago

                I mean that I don’t know what part of my comment is “not true”. I welcome corrections, I just don’t see what is being corrected here.

                • Lojcs@lemm.eeEnglish
                  1·
                  6 months ago

                  It doesn’t send a yes/no signal it sends the fingerprint to be compared to the stored one

  • TwitchingCheese@lemmy.worldEnglish
    69·
    6 months ago

    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.

  • panicnow@lemmy.worldEnglish
    46·
    6 months ago

    I generally think arstechnica.com does a decent job of being a non-garbage news site. I pay a couple bucks a month for the ad-free RSS feed. This story feels terrible to me. I don’t doubt a law suit has been filed, but I would expect some investigation by the reporter of the extra-ordinary claims of privilege escape the application is claimed to be capable of.

    • explore_broaden@midwest.socialEnglish
      12·
      6 months ago

      Given that the headline says that it is a claim in a lawsuit, and the lawsuit is by a state attorney general and not some random nobody, I feel like they are being fairly reasonable.

      • Raploc@feddit.nlEnglish
        5·
        6 months ago

        Yes because AG’s from repub states never ever file frivolous lawsuits that suit their own agenda.

      • panicnow@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        6 months ago

        I would feel that it would be a reasonable if it was my local paper running the story. Arstechnica IS a primarily technical news site—I believe they should have a higher bar—otherwise they are just parroting a report and not providing useful (to me) news.

  • Bluefruit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    42·
    6 months ago

    Shocked i tell you. I am shocked.

    No way an app would collect data it doesnt need. Preposterous.

    Next thing you’ll tell me is that tiktok is doing the same thing!

  • Snapz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    40·
    6 months ago

    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!”*🎶

    • Captain Poofter@lemmy.worldEnglish
      24·
      6 months ago

      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.

      Edit: also, temu did not invent drop shipping. Shopping on amazon is literally the same thing.

      • PythagreousTitties@lemm.eeEnglish
        6·
        6 months ago

        Good to know people that are disabled don’t mind using shitty maleware apps, I guess?

        What’s your point combining using the malware app with you being disabled? Is that supposed to make the app better somehow?

        You’re not special because you’re disabled. Things you use aren’t magical amazing. You’re still the same as everyone else.

    • dan@upvote.auEnglish
      4·
      6 months ago

      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.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    6 months ago

    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.

    • MehBlah@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      6 months ago

      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.

  • GreatAlbatross@feddit.ukEnglish
    28·
    6 months ago

    I’m shocked, I say. Shocked!
    The idea of an app being used to gather additional datea from a customer!

  • kibiz0r@midwest.socialEnglish
    26·
    6 months ago

    Comments here: “Yeah right, I’ll believe it when they explain how.”

    Article: literally has a section explaining how

    Edit:

    Replies: “Yeah, but that’s just a summary. I’ll believe it when they explain in full detail.”

    Article: literally has a link to the detailed explanation

  • Captain Poofter@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    6 months ago

    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!!