I am more concerned that my phone is making regular connections to 61.135.185.18:5287 and 202.108.23.105:5287 than I am over the existence of the folder (it seems these are related to the baidu issue).
I do not like having my phone making unsolicited connections to parties unknown, especially not from pre-installed applications that I likely cannot uninstall without voiding my warranty.
Both those addresses terminate at China. At most, you could try blocking the My Xperia service using adb and then check if the addresses exist. I intend to flash this over twitter now, because Sony is not paying any attention to it. At least with the handle @sonyxperia. That way it will grab eyeballs to get those who are privacy & security conscious to think about whether to purchase Sony Xperia handsets.
That way it will grab eyeballs to get those who are privacy & security conscious to think about whether to purchase Sony Xperia handsets.
And tablets! The Xperia Z tablets suffers exacly the same problem!
Thanks for the suggestion. I blocked com.sonymobile.mx.android as per the instructions on page 3 (note it says com.sonymobile.android.mx on page 3 which wasn't the case on my Z3c). The folder hasn't returned so far and no further network traffic on those IPs.
I will keep an eye on it.
Re: [Warning] 'baidu' folder will be created on 10.5.1.A.0.283 in internal storage.
I've escalated this internally for more information. I will update you as soon as i get more information.
This was three weeks ago.
Can you tell us to what level you escalated this? Could it be escalation level 'cover-up'?
Would this level rise if you managed to convince someone up there that any moment now, Sony could get major media attention with headlines such as 'Chinese are looking over shoulders of Sony users', or 'What you didn't sign up for when buying Sony'?
All of the above can potentially be monitored and managed remotely via internet WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE OR PERMISSION!
Looks like Sony vanished. Can anyone from Sony update us on the progress on the issue of the unknown baidu folder?
This is escalated and i'm still waiting for more information on why this folder is created and what it's for. I will update you as soon as i have more information.
This folder will be removed in future software updates for the phone. Until then i can only advise that you delete it manually after a reboot if you want to remove it. It's safe to just delete it.