Last I checked the default keyboard samsung installs on their phones was collecting what you typed and sharing/selling that data with third parties. I try not to store or access any personal information on my cell phones when i can avoid it, but at a certain point, just having one is enough to seriously compromise your privacy. Strong regulation with real sharp teeth is the only thing that can fix this situation.
I'm glad they let people know it's possible, a keyboard isn't something you should install without some careful consideration because they can be used as keyloggers. I just wish they'd been as clear about that with the keyboard already installed on the phones when they ship. Anyone seeing that warning might easily think it's safer not to replace their stock keyboard even though it's already doing the very thing they fear a new keyboard might do.
> a keyboard isn't something you should install without some careful consideration because they can be used as keyloggers
To be frank, Android should not allow input methods access to internet/filesystem in the first place. But that would have hindered Google's own keylogger, so...
I use Google Pinyin Input. (Which seems to have been deprioritized or something, but still...)
The general shape of input methods that let you produce 汉字 is that you provide some type of input that hints at the character(s) you want, the input method displays a menu of options that match your input, and you select the correct option from the menu. For example, if I'm using pinyin entry and I type `shi`, I can choose from 是, 时, 事, 使, 试, 世, 市, 十, 式, 师, 石, 室, ......, which are all pronounced shi. (And heck, those are just the top 12 suggestions. They mean things like "ten", "be", or "stone". The `shi`s go on for several pages.)
You can enter more than one character at once. If I type `bhys`, I'll see the suggestion 不好意思 ("sorry").
The presented options are chosen based on what the input method predicts I'm most likely to want. They are context-sensitive -- the order of suggestions will change depending on what I typed just beforehand -- and the likelihoods and the phrases are collected from what people elsewhere in the world type. Suggestions can be quite current! Without an internet connection, this would be a much worse experience; the predictions would be wrong or useless much, much more often.
It wouldn't be as bad as you might think without prediction - back in the days with "dumb" input method, the word choices would be listed by frequency of use, and you'd remember which choice the word you want would be.
So you'd type shi and click the first choice for 是, second choice for 时, etc without even needing to read the options since they'll always be in that slot. If there's a word you use frequently but is listed late in the list you can change that in the settings file. Same for shortcuts like bhys and you can always add your own shortcut.
The Chinese keyboard I use does not have internet access and only does prediction based on set phrases - eg if you type 时 it'd offer 間, 代, 事, 空 etc; if you type tmd it'd give you you-know-what, and I prefer it over the Google keyboard since my muscle memory can do most of the work instead of my eyes.
One may replace the keyboard, but the underlying "input method" framework is still under OEM's (in this case, Samsung's) control: That is (afaik), they could key-log just fine regardless of whatever keyboard one may install / use.
I've tried both anysoftkeyboard and openboard, and liked openboard layout better but wanted swiftkey like support from anysoftkeyboard. Looking at reddit fossdroid I discovered the one fitted me better as a closer to openboard with swiftkey support : FlorisBoard
I was also a long-time fan of Swiftkey, and switched to OpenBoard a few months ago. The main differences are lack of swipe input which I miss dearly, and slightly less intuitive correction. I think since switching I've put a little more effort into being more accurate which has helped.
FlorisBoard is another open source keyboard project that has experimental support for gesture/swipe typing. It requires a bit more accuracy than spyware keyboards but might be worth a try.
Hi! I have a Samsung and I looked around online and couldn't find any real info on this topic. I don't doubt it's quite possible, but where is your source from? It's been hard for me to confirm. A good point, though, I'll look at the open source options....
Samsung's own privacy policy and those of the 3rd parties they use. It's been over a year and checking now some things have already changed, but if you click on the gear icon from within the keyboard you can select "about sumsung keyboard" which should give you a list of policies including gify and tenor (both used for gifs I guess) but i didn't even check those. The one you want is the legal info which tells you that in addition to samsung's privacy policy (which outright says it's collecting and selling everything it can get their hands on (see https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-sellin...) you also have to accept the policy of a 3rd party called Nuance which they use for "language data".
The wall of legal text there eventually links to their privacy privacy which opens in the browser. They collect and store things like "your choice of words, speech and writing patters, how you use your keyboard, custom words you add, the number of charters you type, your typing speed, etc. and they share (read sell) that data to affiliates, subsidiaries, vendors, subcontractors, etc (pretty much anyone they feel like). They specifically state they use this data to draw inferences reflecting your characteristics, behavior, abilities, preferences and aptitudes all of which they can sell to anyone at any time without even telling you about it because what they learn about you by going over all your data is their data and they don't have to tell you anything at all about what they do with their data.
This is super brilliant thank you. I have never personally done that much searching through the EULA / Privacy Policy. I'll take a deep dive and look for alternatives.
Samsung could really make some advances on Apple by just being more clear on these aspects of their data collection. Even if they just said "We want to collect your data, but it's YOUR data, so we will always ask for your permission, and in case you are wondering what we collect, you can find it all here..."
Samsung's own privacy policy and those of the 3rd parties they use. It's been over a year and checking now some things have already changed, but if you click on the gear icon from within the keyboard you can select "about sumsung keyboard" which should give you a list of policies including gify and tenor (both used for gifs I guess) but i didn't even check those. The one you want is the legal info which tells you that in addition to samsung's privacy policy (which outright says it's collecting and selling everything it can get their hands on (see https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-sellin...) you also have to accept the policy of a 3rd party called Nuance which they use for "language data".
The wall of legal text there eventually links to their privacy privacy which opens in the browser. They collect and store things like "your choice of words, speech and writing patters, how you use your keyboard, custom words you add, the number of charters you type, your typing speed, etc. and they share (read sell) that data to affiliates, subsidiaries, vendors, subcontractors, etc (pretty much anyone they feel like). They specifically state they use this data to draw inferences reflecting your characteristics, behavior, abilities, preferences and aptitudes all of which they can sell to anyone at any time without even telling you about it because what they learn about you by going over all your data is their data and they don't have to tell you anything at all about what they do with their data.
Strong regulation by whom? The organization that brought us the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of “security” bureaucracies that spy on us arbitrarily?
Strong regulation could easily worsen the problem, as it can lead to a ratcheting up of the regulatory burden until only mega corps like Apple and Google could afford to make phones, and upstarts like Purism and Pinephone get squeezed out.
How about before getting so gung ho with pointing the government gun at everyone’s head, we consider the option of rolling back the unjust regulations that already exist which give the mega corps undue government privilege (patents are a good place to start), and encouraging (by voting with our wallets) organic alternatives to emerge, like they already are doing.
> The organization that brought us the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of “security” bureaucracies that spy on us arbitrarily?
Which origination do you think that is? you think they all came from the same place? Every one of these agencies came into existence under very different circumstances at different times and they fall under different branches and operate in different areas. Do you mean "government" in general?
Yes, it's a horrible thing that these agencies are being used to spy on all American citizens in violation of our freedoms, but that fact doesn't mean that we shouldn't allow any government agency anywhere enforce regulations. How that does that make any sense at all? You could say the same for literally anything. "Who should regulate the amount of lead in our drinking water? The organization that brought us the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of “security” bureaucracies that spy on us arbitrarily?"
> Strong regulation could easily worsen the problem, as it can lead to a ratcheting up of the regulatory burden until only mega corps like Apple and Google could afford to make phones, and upstarts like Purism and Pinephone get squeezed out.
It literally couldn't worsen the problem of our privacy being violated and used against us by cell phone companies. If it's illegal for Google to do it, and we had regular independent verification that they were not violating those laws, than it wouldn't matter if the only cell phones that existed on the whole of Earth were made by Google. Google still wouldn't be doing the bad thing we're trying to stop.
Yes, I'd prefer to have more choices but there's zero requirement that regulations make it prohibitively expensive for any company even an upstart. In fact, because this would be regulation against collecting, securing, maintaining, analyzing, marketing, and selling our personal data it'd actually save companies tons of money since they'd no longer be dong any of those things. Established companies who are currently exploiting consumers won't get to profit off of them as they are currently, but they will still save a lot of time and money not exploiting the public.
> How about before getting so gung ho with pointing the government gun at everyone’s head, we consider the option of rolling back the unjust regulations that already exist which give the mega corps undue government privilege (patents are a good place to start)
This isn't an either/or type of thing. There's a lot of great and important things we should be doing. This is one of them. Let's do them all.
> and encouraging (by voting with our wallets) organic alternatives to emerge, like they already are doing.
If "the market" were going to solve this problem, if it were capable of solving this problem, it would have been solved already. It's not. Until strong regulations are in place there will continue to be a very very strong perverse incentive to not solve this problem. We're coming up on 50 years of mobile phone technology and at present there are no comparable options for cell phones and mobile networks that preserve privacy. None. It's not regulations forcing Google and Apple to collect our personal data. They are choosing to do it. They could stop tomorrow if they wanted to. They don't want to. They won't stop until they are forced to stop.
