Rabat_ Social Media Exchange (SMEX)—a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing human rights in digital spaces across MENA [Middle East and North Africa] — is warning that Israeli-linked software secretly embedded in Samsung phones across the Middle East and North Africa region poses a serious surveillance threat.
According to SMEX, Samsung’s A and M series devices either come preloaded with the app “Aura” or install it automatically through system updates, without the user’s consent. The application reportedly collects a wide range of personal and device-specific data, including IP addresses, device fingerprints, hardware details, and network information.
Rogers in Canada has pixels that allow unlocking the bootloader (just got a pixel 9, and once I have some time I’m going to try putting a custom build on it).
Mine went fine. I kept the radios off before using it and fully flashing just in case.
I read on the grapheme forums that some carrier software might flip a bit or something if it gets downloaded/provisioned.