In this segment of not-a-Black Mirror-episode-apparently, Samsung phones are gaining some sort of sentience as a report indicts that select Samsung phones send random photos to people in your contact list. Now, we’re deleting our extensive collection of cockroach taxidermy thirst trap pictures.
Albeit, this report could just be written by that inconspicuous frat dude who claims he totally didn’t send you those 15 dick pics last Saturday at 3:00 am. But, a plethora of Samsung phone owners are reporting this weird, but shocking, glitch.
Digital Trends reports that certain Samsung phones, including the latest Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus, are capable of texting photos from your image gallery to your contacts. While this might seem like a nifty bonus feature, apparently these Samsung phones are sending unauthorized pics on their own—and this isn’t exactly how we remember the Skynet revolution starting. (Clearly, using our sensitive photos are virtual blackmail seems like a more productive method of world domination and subsequent human enslavement though.)
According to Gizmodo, hundreds of disgruntled Samsung costumers noted the issue on Samsung’s official forums and Reddit—because Reddit is basically a news source at this point.
One Redditer writes, “Huh, something similar happened to me - my phone's battery was super low overnight so maximum power saving had kicked in from a routine I set with Good Lock, and two or three people had been sent photos (just one each, and they were photos I had sent them in the past). This is on AT&T, and there was record of it in Pushbullet, but terrifying to say the least until I confirmed exactly who had been sent what.”
Whereas another adds, “Give me a spontaneously exploding phone any day of the week, Samsung, instead of this nightmare scenario.” Harsh, but definitely relatable. After all, spontaneous combustion could be considered a ~feature~ in contrast to having your phone hijack the autonomy to your media.
Regardless, this is a troubling issue, seeing as many people rely on their phones for a one-stop shop to connect with their professional network, friends and take photos. If a Samsung device unintentionally sends a lewd photo to your boss or your significant other’s friend, it can obviously have devastating outcomes (like job losses, breakups and quarrels)—especially since this Samsung issue seems to happen unbeknownst to the device owner.
We’re still uncertain what’s causing these rogue Samsung phones to send unwarranted photos (other than the fake that these specific Samsung models are clearly wannabe photographers who are just trying to self-promote their art). However, there is a promising theory as to why these phones are slowly evolving into a subsidy of Cyberdyne Systems.
One commenter on the Samsung forums notes that the issue might come from the default setting in the Samsung Messages coupled with the Rich Communication Services (RCS) profile updates that certain phone carrier issued recently. CNET adds that the RCS update is meant to streamline SMS communication; however, several Samsung owners have noticed that this issue has afflicted multiple carriers—from AT&T to T-Mobile—and the unsolicited photos aren’t distributed solely through SMS. Seeing as, several Redditers have indicated that their photos were sent via MMS messages rather than an SMS link.
Thankfully, there is a way to prevent this issue from occurring. According to another Redditer, if you go into your app settings and disable storage under the permissions tab, you can omit your Samsung device for sending unauthorized pics to your friends and family.
While this option might make it virtually impossible to use your standard Samsung SMS app, depending on your phone model (because it disables your permission to use it), you can download a non-default messaging app to bypass this issue as Samsung works on a permanent solution. "We are aware of the reports regarding this matter and our technical teams are looking into it. Concerned customers are encouraged to contact us directly at 1-800-SAMSUNG," Samsung tells Gizmodo.
Although we’re now motivated to clean-up our image gallery, we hope that Samsung can fix this issue soon.
