Not going to buy any Samsung device again.

Probably was used during development.

Or as other poster mentioned before this:

http://webcazine.com/1414/how-to-upgrade-firmware-over-th...

Never assign to malice that can be trivially explained by incompetence or just laziness. If you have proof that is something else.

However: The reality is that there is nothing unique about this with Samsung. Every other phone on the market is going to have similar issues.

If you want to have a secure phone the most important part of the phone is the actual radio. Samsung may or may not have used this feature for evil purposes, but it absolutely has the significant potential for abuse. This way you can control the information going in and out of your phone. Without you having control over the radio then whoever does actually control the radio controls the most important feature of your phone.