So let us start this by saying no, OnePlus is NOT sending your clipboard data to Chinese servers. OnePlus is again in the spotlight for the wrong reasons – and we’ve probably typed that line more than we should ever have to, so it is true that OnePlus needs to clean up its act. This new allegation comes from a Twitter post saying that OnePlus is identifying and uploading clipboard data like bank account numbers to a Chinese server. OnePlus has immediately come out to clarify the issue and deny the allegation.
According to the Twitter account @fs0c131y, they discovered a file within OxygenOS’s clipboard app called “badwords.txt”. The allegation made is that OnePlus uses this file to identify data to upload to a Chinese server. Of course, when the Twitter post hit Reddit, almost everyone was ready to crucify the company all over again. In the defense of the people, OnePlus has made some pretty big mistakes lately, like the credit card hack incident.
The @OnePlus #clipboard app contains a strange file called badword.txt ?
In these words, we can find: Chairman, Vice President, Deputy Director, Associate Professor, Deputy Heads, General, Private Message, shipping, Address, email, …https://t.co/ePQvD1citn pic.twitter.com/3dCh0joVkH
— Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) January 25, 2018
But OnePlus explained itself pretty much immediately to clarify the issue. First, this is an inactive file in the OxygenOS beta, because only HydrogenOS (the China version of OnePlus’s software) uses this file. And in HydrogenOS, this file is intended to watch for terms and phrases that it shouldn’t monitor with its smart clipboard app. The smart clipboard app – if you remember from the first OnePlus clipboard issue – is needed for decoding online shopping codes into real URLs.
In the end, OnePlus should see that there is a mistake they made here, and that was to include this HydrogenOS-specific file in the OxygenOS beta. It shouldn’t have done that, as it created much confusion. The company should learn its lesson, that they should be through enough in their software work, because the internet is pretty unforgiving for things like this.
VIA: Android Police
