Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA

Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by OutOfHere on Saturday June 21, 2025 @12:44AM (#44334583)

Samsung currently has an unremovable spyware app on North American phones that pastes (records) everything copied to the clipboard by any app. It is the Samsung Keyboard app. It cannot be removed. It doesn't matter if you're using any other keyboard app. Samsung Keyboard pastes (records) everything that gets copied to the clipboard by any app. The Samsung Keyboard app cannot even be disabled from Android.

As an aside, I recall getting a lot more ads when I used Samsung Keyboard.

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by noisy_boy on Saturday June 21, 2025 @12:59AM (#44334649)

Sometimes I will see a small random "copied" floating notification (not in the notification tray) and I always wondered where it came from. Maybe they have put in some code to suppress it but due to some bug, it leaks out. No proof but I can only hypothize.

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by bapak on Saturday June 21, 2025 @02:09AM (#44334978)

Every day it feels like regulators need to increase enforcement by an order of magnitude. For every fine they dish out, 10 more abuses go unnoticed.

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by logicchains on Saturday June 21, 2025 @06:10AM (#44336242)

The regulators work for the same governments and intelligence agencies that are making companies add such clandestine spyware.

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by stevenhuang on Saturday June 21, 2025 @04:30AM (#44335756)

https://www.reddit.com/r/samsunggalaxy/comments/mtakqq/how_t...

Yeah, all Samsung software is a liability.

Don't even get me started on the Samsung smart TVs. Just horrible all-around.

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by spinlock_ on Saturday June 21, 2025 @05:15AM (#44335982)

Thats why my Samsung TV has no internet access and I'm using Apple TV instead.

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by Dah00n on Saturday June 21, 2025 @06:57AM (#44336469)

From the fire into....

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by spinlock_ on Saturday June 21, 2025 @07:23AM (#44336632)

Into what? Though I have no illusions about any tech company, I trust Apple more than Samsung right now. It's all relative, not absolute.

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by amlib on Saturday June 21, 2025 @06:54PM (#44341343)

It's a slippery slope. Apple is as bad as Google was about 10 years ago and things seems to be degrading faster and faster. Give it another 5 years and they will be as bad as Google/Samsung is today.

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by joshstrange on Saturday June 21, 2025 @07:32AM (#44336681)

Do you wanna expand on that or just make vague statements with no facts?

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by rs186 on Saturday June 21, 2025 @10:19AM (#44337806)

Thanks for mentioning this! I saw it but never put much thoughts into it. Now it seems a huge security risk/active security exploit.

Strangely enough, I cannot reproduce this now.

I'll see when it happens again, and if I can uninstall keyboard via adb. It's just a pre-installed app, after all.

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Re:Samsung Embeds IronSource Spyware App on Phones Across WANA by OutOfHere on Saturday June 21, 2025 @01:04PM (#44339055)

What do you mean you cannot reproduce it? Enable the setting in your Android to notify you whenever any app pasted from the keyboard.

Unless you have already used adb to disable or remove the app, the issue is guaranteed.

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