please help

[gxyS3_918]

Hi i own a galaxy s3 with sprint. I've only had it 2 weeks or so. I was just fiddling around and i went to my device administrators under security settings i noticed one of them was.

com.sec.sprextension.phoneinfo

I tried to deactivate it but it won't do it. Can anyone tell me what this is, how to deactivate it and if i should be worried?

View attachment 57395

 

[emoge]

Hi my name is Liz I work for sprint customer care actually if you are woried about the file on your phone you can do a hard reset on the phone if its still there after the reset then its a required profile for the phone to work on sprints network I would greatly recommend saving any contacts to your SD card by opening your contact menu hitting the actual menu button then import/export then export to SD first though b/c if you do the reset it will delete them from the phone to reset your phone go to settings general about phone then reset I believe for that model just make sure that reformat memory card is not checkmarked .... If you can't find it there you can go to your sprint.com profile and click support to download your device tutorials to fond the directions.... Hope this helps

 

[emoge]

I just looked at the screenshot you provided very helpful this in all honesty is nothing to worry about.... The admin profile is whY would allow you to manage your outside of cellular data connections... Basically.meaning to ensure that no one acess your phone data or Bluetooth connection without your permission.

 

[gxyS3_918]

Thank you both for the input. Unless i start noticing anything weird going on I'm just going to leave it alone.

 

[sknopster]

Current Info regarding com.sec.sprextension.phoneinfo.DeviceAdminPhoneInf oReceiver

I have talked with SEVERAL levels of tech support at Sprint... the first person admitted that she couldn't help me, but that it sounded suspicious. She then sent me to a dude who actually said that I "... am too deep into the phone. Most people don't get that deep into the settings." I explained that just installing Lookout and /or Carbonite Mobile will ask you to go to SETTINGS - SECURITY - DEVICE ADMINISTRATORS... it's only the second level once you're in settings. I also explained that this can NOT be disabled, that it says it can activate the microphone and camera without my knowledge and when the device appears to be off. This to me is NOT COOL. He then actually said... "Oh, so this is a conspiracy?" Conspiracy? WTF? I am only asking him if it is a SPRINT App. If it is, I would tend to let it go, but if he could NOT tell me that it was a SPRINT app, I DO NOT trust it. After getting past this pin-head, I spoke to a guy name Keith, who instantly said that he would not want that on his phone. Great Answer! we then spent 140 minutes talking, while he was getting other, higher level tech involved.

The final answer was "It IS NOT A SPRINT APP, WE NEED TO GET THAT OFF OF YOUR PHONE". He then deirected me to to a factory reset similar to what emoge (Liz) described. However, he strongly advised me to remove the SD card before proceeding. When I got the to point to push the button, the screen warns you that "The encryption key for the SD card will be deleted and you will not be able to access files on the card" (paraphrasing, but very close). He could not tell me for certain that I would be able to use my backed up info on my SD card and recommended that I either back up to the cloud (Dropbox or similar), or that I take the phone to a tech center and have them do it.

As of 11-18-12 at 12:40 am, I have not done that yet, as I am waiting for a response from Lookout as to whether or not they show this as Malware or similar. The Lookout scan does not catch it, which makes me feel comfortable, but I spent days studying this and hours with SPRINT tech support and I DO NOT TRUST THIS DEVICE ADMINISTRATOR or whatever it is.

btw, I had to change my screen font to see the entire file name, which is precisely "com.sec.sprextension.phoneinfo.DeviceAdminPhoneInfoReceiver" all caps are intentional. I can see that there are several people asking this same question, and as far as I can tell so far, the information I have just provided is the most complete to date. But I am not done yet. I want to know who owns this app, and why it's on my phone.

Updates to follow.

 

[sknopster]

Forgot to mention that I used Astro File Manager as well as Samsung's file manager to search for the file by name,portions of the file name and searching all text for the file name and portions of it. It DOES NOT SHOW. This thing is hidden. I can't find it anywhere on internal SD or External SD. If anyone knows more, please share... I don't like this far reaching, Big Brotherish, listening, watching app on my phone. It's obviously a "conspiracy" like the dip$h!t at Sprint said :blink:

 

[gxyS3_918]

I have talked with SEVERAL levels of tech support at Sprint... the first person admitted that she couldn't help me, but that it sounded suspicious. She then sent me to a dude who actually said that I "... am too deep into the phone. Most people don't get that deep into the settings." I explained that just installing Lookout and /or Carbonite Mobile will ask you to go to SETTINGS - SECURITY - DEVICE ADMINISTRATORS... it's only the second level once you're in settings. I also explained that this can NOT be disabled, that it says it can activate the microphone and camera without my knowledge and when the device appears to be off. This to me is NOT COOL. He then actually said... "Oh, so this is a conspiracy?" Conspiracy? WTF? I am only asking him if it is a SPRINT App. If it is, I would tend to let it go, but if he could NOT tell me that it was a SPRINT app, I DO NOT trust it. After getting past this pin-head, I spoke to a guy name Keith, who instantly said that he would not want that on his phone. Great Answer! we then spent 140 minutes talking, while he was getting other, higher level tech involved.

The final answer was "It IS NOT A SPRINT APP, WE NEED TO GET THAT OFF OF YOUR PHONE". He then deirected me to to a factory reset similar to what emoge (Liz) described. However, he strongly advised me to remove the SD card before proceeding. When I got the to point to push the button, the screen warns you that "The encryption key for the SD card will be deleted and you will not be able to access files on the card" (paraphrasing, but very close). He could not tell me for certain that I would be able to use my backed up info on my SD card and recommended that I either back up to the cloud (Dropbox or similar), or that I take the phone to a tech center and have them do it.

As of 11-18-12 at 12:40 am, I have not done that yet, as I am waiting for a response from Lookout as to whether or not they show this as Malware or similar. The Lookout scan does not catch it, which makes me feel comfortable, but I spent days studying this and hours with SPRINT tech support and I DO NOT TRUST THIS DEVICE ADMINISTRATOR or whatever it is.

btw, I had to change my screen font to see the entire file name, which is precisely "com.sec.sprextension.phoneinfo.DeviceAdminPhoneInfoReceiver" all caps are intentional. I can see that there are several people asking this same question, and as far as I can tell so far, the information I have just provided is the most complete to date. But I am not done yet. I want to know who owns this app, and why it's on my phone.

Updates to follow.

When you hear back from lookout, let me know what you find out. Because I too use lookout on my phone. Very interesting post and info.

 

[sknopster]

Response from Lookout

As promised, I am posting the response from Lookout. Disappointing to say the least!

david.ngo, Nov 19, 2012 04:30 pm (PST):
Hi XXXXXXXXXXXXX,

I had a security engineer take a look at the app and there isn't a lot of info about the app. We know that it is a Sprint app which has a lot of permissions but not sure why it is needed. I'm sorry we couldn't help you with the request and Sprint would only have the information on why this app is needed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for using Lookout!

david.ngo,
The Lookout Team

Have another question about Lookout? It might already be answered here, https://support.lookout.com/home.

 

[sknopster]

Notice in the Lookout response that they say "...we know that it is a SPRINT app which has a lot of permissions but not sure why it is needed." That's strange... SPRINT never actually admitted to it being their app, but Lookout sounds pretty certain that it is. You'll notice that the FINAL ANSWER that I received from SPRINT was "IT IS NOT A SPRINT APP, WE NEED TO GET THAT OFF OF YOUR PHONE".

PLEASE CALL SPRINT AND DEMAND TO KNOW MORE! If they are not letting their own partner know what the app does, I don't like it.

 

[RNdude]

sprextension.phoneinfo.deviceAdminPhoneInfoRecieve r

There is another discussion on this that I found in the search that lead me to this thread, on xda-developers:

[Q] com.sec.sprextension.phoneinfo.deviceAdminPhoneInf oReciever - xda-developers essentially claiming it seems to have been put on the phone by Sprint but doesn't know what it does or why it needs all those permissions.

I would like to know more about it, too.

I don't know why the forum ads a space to the message title. Perhaps a character limit, but I think it may limit search results including this page if the full name of the app is used in searches.

 

[sknopster]

I've noticed the same thing... "the forum ads a space to the message title". I've seen that happen in a few places and I couldn't find a pattern i.e., number of characters preceding it, etc.

Back to the topic of the post, I have spent an additional 4 1/2 hours with SPRINT and they do not/will not acknowledge this as being their application. I believe it is, though I'm not willing to perform the factory reset just yet. If anybody happens to be at a place where they are willing to "factory reset" your S III, please take note if the app is there before AND after the reset. This will give us a lot to work with. Or even if you your wife, child, friend, (wife & girlfriend, husband & boyfriend :blink: ) etc. has it on their phones... at least we would have more to learn from. I am the only one in my circle with the S III currently.

I will be going into the SPRINT service center soon, and will ask to see one of their phones to determine if they have it on their phone.... while I am asking there tech to explain the reason for the app.

 

[kuroyoma]

I finally got my... | Facebook

No an answer as I have been looking for it as well but It is word from Samsung directly.

 

[Chadleek]

I had the same thing on my phone. I work with someone who also has a galaxy s3. Its not on his. He is with Verizon, though, whereas I am a sprint customer. I did a hard factory reset and it is still there. I found it because I wanted to root my phone after an app I use stopped working after the Jelly Bean update (which I wish I could undo if someone knows how to return to the prior operating system). In preparing to root it I downloaded the samsung drivers for the phone to my computer but it still doesn't recognize my device. When I was looking into that issue one of the peices of advice was to insure there were no administrators enabled preventing the communication. When I checked my administrators, I found the source of discontention in this thread and my experience was the same... it will not allow me to deactivate it. I found this thread via google trying to find out what it was and how to ditch it. Not sure if it is a sprint thing, a jelly bean thing, or something else. Would like it gone though since I didn't put it there. Even more than that I would like to return to my prior OS so my apps would work again!

 

[kuroyoma]

I found it because I wanted to root my phone after an app I use stopped working after the Jelly Bean update (which I wish I could undo if someone knows how to return to the prior operating system).

Why get rid of root? Googlesearch Odin stock sph l710. Not only will you find how to get rid of root. But you will find how to go back to ICS.

On a side note I have looked at 11 SGS3' s and found they all have it.

 

[emoge]

I've noticed the same thing... "the forum ads a space to the message title". I've seen that happen in a few places and I couldn't find a pattern i.e., number of characters preceding it, etc.

Back to the topic of the post, I have spent an additional 4 1/2 hours with SPRINT and they do not/will not acknowledge this as being their application. I believe it is, though I'm not willing to perform the factory reset just yet. If anybody happens to be at a place where they are willing to "factory reset" your S III, please take note if the app is there before AND after the reset. This will give us a lot to work with. Or even if you your wife, child, friend, (wife & girlfriend, husband & boyfriend :blink: ) etc. has it on their phones... at least we would have more to learn from. I am the only one in my circle with the S III currently.

I will be going into the SPRINT service center soon, and will ask to see one of their phones to determine if they have it on their phone.... while I am asking there tech to explain the reason for the app.

The thing is that sprint dies not load the phones Samsung does Amy preinstalled software or firmware on the phones comes from them... the only "apps" that are sprint apps will be labeled as sprint apps on the phones... those are the only ones we have any information on in our systems. The process servers all come directly from Samsung... in shirt directly from someone who works for sprint we most likely would not have the information about the process that is running on the phone. I do work for sprint but in customer care in all honesty the only difference between a care keep and a tech tennis three tools and the ability to is Google while on a call. If the phone has been master reset bad the process is still running as an admin on the phone it's probably there for a reason as much as I hate to say that have you talked to Samsung?