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Proprietary Back Doors

Nonfree (proprietary) software is very often malware (designed to mistreat the user). Nonfree software is controlled by its developers, which puts them in a position of power over the users; that is the basic injustice. The developers and manufacturers often exercise that power to the detriment of the users they ought to serve.

This typically takes the form of malicious functionalities.

Some malicious functionalities are mediated by back doors. Here are examples of programs that contain one or several of those, classified according to what the back door is known to have the power to do. Back doors that allow full control over the programs which contain them are said to be “universal.”

If you know of an example that ought to be in this page but isn't here, please write to <webmasters@gnu.org> to inform us. Please include the URL of a trustworthy reference or two to serve as specific substantiation.

Spying

  • 2020-08

    Google Nest is taking over ADT. Google sent out a software update to its speaker devices using their back door that listens for things like smoke alarms and then notifies your phone that an alarm is happening. This means the devices now listen for more than just their wake words. Google says the software update was sent out prematurely and on accident and Google was planning on disclosing this new feature and offering it to customers who pay for it.

  • 2017-06

    Many models of Internet-connected cameras contain a glaring back door—they have login accounts with hard-coded passwords, which can't be changed, and there is no way to delete these accounts either.

    Since these accounts with hard-coded passwords are impossible to delete, this problem is not merely an insecurity; it amounts to a back door that can be used by the manufacturer (and government) to spy on users.

  • 2017-01

    WhatsApp has a feature that has been described as a “back door” because it would enable governments to nullify its encryption.

    The developers say that it wasn't intended as a back door, and that may well be true. But that leaves the crucial question of whether it functions as one. Because the program is nonfree, we cannot check by studying it.

  • 2015-12

    Microsoft has backdoored its disk encryption.

  • 2014-09

    Apple can, and regularly does, remotely extract some data from iPhones for the state.

    This may have improved with iOS 8 security improvements; but not as much as Apple claims.

Altering user's data or settings

Installing, deleting or disabling programs

  • 2022-10

    Xiaomi provides a tool to unlock the bootloader of Xiaomi smartphones and tablets, but this requires creating an account on the company's servers, i.e. providing your phone number. This is the price you have to pay for “legally” running a free software operating system on Xiaomi devices. But the manufacturer retains control of the unlocked device through a backdoor in the bootloader—the same backdoor that was remotely used to unlock it.

  • 2022-08

    Tesla sells an add-on software feature that drivers are not allowed to use.

    This practice depends on a back door, which is unjust in itself. Asking users to buy something years in advance to avoid having to pay an even higher price later is manipulative.

  • 2021-10

    Adobe has licensed its Flash Player to China's Zhong Cheng Network who is offering the program bundled with spyware and a back door that can remotely deactivate it.

    Adobe is responsible for this since they gave Zhong Cheng Network permission to do this. This injustice involves “misuse” of the DMCA, but “proper,” intended use of the DMCA is a much bigger injustice. There is a series of errors related to DMCA.

  • 2021-08

    Recent Samsung TVs have a back door with which Samsung can brick them remotely.

  • 2021-06

    Google automatically installed an app on many proprietary Android phones. The app might or might not do malicious things but the power Google has over proprietary Android phones is dangerous.

  • 2020-12

    Adobe Flash Player has a universal back door which lets Adobe control the software and, for example, disable it whenever it wants. Adobe will block Flash content from running in Flash Player beginning January 12, 2021, which indicates that they have access to every Flash Player through a back door.

    The back door won't be dangerous in the future, as it'll disable a proprietary program and make users delete the software, but it was an injustice for many years. Users should have deleted Flash Player even before its end of life.

  • 2020-07

    BMW is trying to lock certain features of its cars, and force people to pay to use part of the car they already bought. This is done through forced update of the car software via a radio-operated back door.

  • 2019-08

    A very popular app found in the Google Play store contained a module that was designed to secretly install malware on the user's computer. The app developers regularly used it to make the computer download and execute any code they wanted.

    This is a concrete example of what users are exposed to when they run nonfree apps. They can never be completely sure that a nonfree app is safe.

  • 2019-07

    Apple appears to say that there is a back door in MacOS for automatically updating some (all?) apps.

    The specific change described in the article was not malicious—it protected users from surveillance by third parties—but that is a separate question.

  • 2018-11

    Corel Paintshop Pro has a back door that can make it cease to function.

    The article is full of confusions, errors and biases that we have an obligation to expose, given that we are making a link to them.

    • Getting a patent does not “enable” a company to do any particular thing in its products. What it does enable the company to do is sue other companies if they do some particular thing in their products.
    • A company's policies about when to attack users through a back door are beside the point. Inserting the back door is wrong in the first place, and using the back door is always wrong too. No software developer should have that power over users.
    • “Piracy” means attacking ships. Using that word to refer to sharing copies is a smear; please don't smear sharing.

    • The idea of “protecting our IP” is total confusion. The term “IP” itself is a bogus generalization about things that have nothing in common.

      In addition, to speak of “protecting” that bogus generalization is a separate absurdity. It's like calling the cops because neighbors' kids are playing on your front yard, and saying that you're “protecting the boundary line”. The kids can't do harm to the boundary line, not even with a jackhammer, because it is an abstraction and can't be affected by physical action.

  • 2018-04

    Some “Smart” TVs automatically load downgrades that install a surveillance app.

    We link to the article for the facts it presents. It is too bad that the article finishes by advocating the moral weakness of surrendering to Netflix. The Netflix app is malware too.

  • 2015-11

    Baidu's proprietary Android library, Moplus, has a back door that can “upload files” as well as forcibly install apps.

    It is used by 14,000 Android applications.

  • 2011-12

    In addition to its universal back door, Windows 8 has a back door for remotely deleting apps.

    You might well decide to let a security service that you trust remotely deactivate programs that it considers malicious. But there is no excuse for deleting the programs, and you should have the right to decide whom (if anyone) to trust in this way.

  • 2011-03

    In Android, Google has a back door to remotely delete apps. (It was in a program called GTalkService, which seems since then to have been merged into Google Play.)

    Google can also forcibly and remotely install apps through GTalkService. This is not equivalent to a universal back door, but permits various dirty tricks.

    Although Google's exercise of this power has not been malicious so far, the point is that nobody should have such power, which could also be used maliciously. You might well decide to let a security service remotely deactivate programs that it considers malicious. But there is no excuse for allowing it to delete the programs, and you should have the right to decide who (if anyone) to trust in this way.

  • 2008-08

    The iPhone has a back door that allows Apple to remotely delete apps which Apple considers “inappropriate”. Jobs said it's OK for Apple to have this power because of course we can trust Apple.

Full control

Other or undefined

The EFF has other examples of the use of back doors.