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Is the AYANEO Pocket DS spying on you? Here's why a user found over 1,000 hidden screenshots
- A user accused AYANEO of spying after discovering over 1,200 screenshots and 12GB of data usage linked to the AYAWindow app on their Pocket DS handheld.
- An AYANEO representative (likely) responded that the screenshots are the result of a bug where app thumbnail caches are not being cleared as intended.
- Further, high data usage reports may be misleading because of how Android calculates traffic for apps sharing a system UID.
AYANEO started the year with a boycott on their hands, for which they promised a “Service Improvement Plan” turnaround. The company is just about settling in, but a new PR crisis is already brewing. A user has now accused AYANEO of spying on them through their Pocket DS after finding over 1,000 screenshots and excessive data usage. But the situation might not be as nefarious as the accusation.
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A user posted on YouTuber Mr. Sujano’s GitHub page, highlighting that AYANEO could be spying on them through their Pocket DS. The user noticed that the AYAWindow app was storing over 1,200 screenshots of the user across various games, with new screenshots being added continuously.
To complicate matters, the user claims that the AYAWindow app also transmitted over 12GB of data off their devices since November.
In response to the user, another user (who we suspect is an AYANEO representative) clarified that the Pocket DS generates app thumbnails for cache. However, due to a bug, the generated cache isn’t being cleaned up. The bug has been identified, and AYANEO will push a fix soon.
Further, the data traffic that the user is seeing is a symptom of how Android calculates traffic. AYAWindow is said to use the system UID (android.uid.system), and all traffic from apps sharing that UID is counted together. All UID-sharing apps will show similar traffic, so the number depicts total usage across apps, and not just AYAWindow.
We’ve reached out to AYANEO for comments on the issue and to confirm if the person replying to the post is an AYANEO representative. We’ll update this article with more details when we hear back from the company.
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