I guess by using this app, you basically give up all your info to chinese authorities. I would never used that
When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
31–40 of 60 posts
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#32I am in China right this instant and (like everyone) I have wechat on my phone. Perhaps the services mentioned don't have much use/appeal to expats, but I have never heard of any of the stuff mentioned in this article. Wechat to me is just a texting app because data is cheaper than texts (thanks China Mobile). At first I couldn't even find any of the features mentioned. some of the stuff (taxi's, planes) are hidden i…
> Wechat to me is just a texting app because data is cheaper than texts (thanks China Mobile). Well, I used China Unicom, but I noticed something similar. I got a SIM card about two years ago with "no internet plan". It turned out to have data connectivity anyway, so I just used it for that. Every month I'd get messages stating "you have used X amount of data, of which X is in excess of your monthly limit". And yet..…
I have no idea. TBH I haven't paid my phone bill in a while. I don't know how I even have phone service.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
A) Trust is not an issue in these regards in China. B) when your chat app generates a QR code that the chat app of the friend or the payment tool from a shop uses it's quite clear what the QR code means. It's not that there are random QR Codes everywhere on the street and you have to trust them. If you want to add me, I don't tell you my nick name but just show you my QR code on my phone and you add through your app,…
Oh no. Here's how an attack might go. I'm a shop assistant and show you a QR code to scan to make a purchase. Unknown to you, I'm not actually showing you the real app, but a fake app with fake QR code that will redirect you to a malicious website, which in it's turn will load the proper URL after having executed an unpatched zero-day on your device. You are sad because your device has just been pwned. You are at the…
What you say is true, and makes no difference. QR codes are very popular and in very common use in China.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#34It sounds like a world where AOL won and we all accessed the internet through keywords and paid everything through AOL, or very similar to France's old Minitel, except for mobile. Having everything in one app is interesting if only because it offers some powerful integration opportunities, but otherwise this sounds like a proto-Internet for a developing economy. $5 says they evolve past this in the next 3-5 years and…
Or the mobile messaging ecosystem in US will look a lot more like wechat in 3-5 years. China can be ahead in some areas.
More likely that the US is ahead. The GFW heavily props local companies. Chinese internet companies are much less market-tested than US companies.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
A) Trust is not an issue in these regards in China. B) when your chat app generates a QR code that the chat app of the friend or the payment tool from a shop uses it's quite clear what the QR code means. It's not that there are random QR Codes everywhere on the street and you have to trust them. If you want to add me, I don't tell you my nick name but just show you my QR code on my phone and you add through your app,…
Oh no. Here's how an attack might go. I'm a shop assistant and show you a QR code to scan to make a purchase. Unknown to you, I'm not actually showing you the real app, but a fake app with fake QR code that will redirect you to a malicious website, which in it's turn will load the proper URL after having executed an unpatched zero-day on your device. You are sad because your device has just been pwned. You are at the…
In this case, the scanning is done by the Wechat app not some general-use browser. You would assume they check the validity of the data in the QR code and don't do simple redirection to a random web page.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
A) Trust is not an issue in these regards in China. B) when your chat app generates a QR code that the chat app of the friend or the payment tool from a shop uses it's quite clear what the QR code means. It's not that there are random QR Codes everywhere on the street and you have to trust them. If you want to add me, I don't tell you my nick name but just show you my QR code on my phone and you add through your app,…
Oh no. Here's how an attack might go. I'm a shop assistant and show you a QR code to scan to make a purchase. Unknown to you, I'm not actually showing you the real app, but a fake app with fake QR code that will redirect you to a malicious website, which in it's turn will load the proper URL after having executed an unpatched zero-day on your device. You are sad because your device has just been pwned. You are at the…
This attack wouldn't work. Scanning a QR code which goes to a non-WeChat URL will flip to WeChat's built-in browser, which looks very different from the payment dialogue box.
In any case, how are QR codes different from text URLs? Do you check the destination of every web link and/or button before clicking? Do you disable JS so that you can be sure that the URL displayed in the status bar isn't different from the one which will really be launched?
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#37I think a great deal is being attributed to "leapfrogging" which should instead be attributed to idiosyncrasies in the Chinese market. Like that it's big, and that a great deal of software is bundled. For starters, surely there are other places around the world with nation-dominating highly-integrated platform apps. I mean, they name LINE and KakaoTalk. Is their point that China is 3x bigger than Japan and 10x bigger…
Line isn't bundled. It became popular through spammy marketing tactics (you can make free calls with Line!) then network effects. Kids can't use it (you need to prove you are 20+ and have a real cellphone number to get out of the noob garden), so I'm sure it won't be on top for much longer.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
If china is ahead in this, then humanity might as well pack it in. China's sandbox model works well when you've got a few hundred million uneducated peasants, but an educated populous (Which china is having more success stopping than I care to admit) wants diversity; It wants options, differing opinions, choices that cater to them, not to what people want to offer them.
China has an educated urban population about equivalent in size to the entire population of the US, and they're all using WeChat. My wife is a Nurse, has a 2:1 degree and although born in China has lived and worked in the UK since 2000 and she uses WeChat all the time, as do our kids. Educated non-techies don't want diversity, they want functionality and community.
Yup. My English sister has been using it because she gets better quality voice than Skype. Maybe Wechat is winning because it's the better product.
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#39I live in China, and resisted using wechat for a year or so, until it became clear that I was essentially removing myself from the majority of China's online world. I'm still highly annoyed when I get seven minutes' worth of 30-second voice clips from someone, or when people insist on using it as a replacement for email (essentially, using it as a replacement for all internet-based communication, period), but it's im…
Seriously, the wallet thing is both amazing and terrifying. Apparently the only thing standing between me and sending all my worldly wealth to a wechat contact is a six-digit PIN. Two-factor whut? Given what I know of the Wild-West Chinese internet, this is deeply worrying.
> Seriously, the wallet thing is both amazing and terrifying. Apparently the only thing standing between me and sending all my worldly wealth to a wechat contact is a six-digit PIN.
Indeed. My internet banking account (that my employer gives me) has the same PIN as internet password. Change the PIN at the ATM, and the internet banking password also changes. Change the internet PIN, and the ATM pin changes. Damn, they're the same.
BUT...
Do as locals do and maintains multiple bank accounts with different banks, and multiple credit cards with different banks.
This is not unique to China, but is also the case here. And it doesn't come from internet security, just from 'this is how it has always been done' via various banking promotions and access to local branch (China's banking network is, by policy, branch and region based). But it works here. I know no one that even keeps all their money in the same account, let along allows access to the same account via WeChat.
The big issue: WeChat is Tencent's bid to become a bank with full suite financial services. It will work against monoliths like Visa and MasterCard, even UnionPay. Because they don't bother with charging a transaction fee. What merchant doesn't like that?
Re: When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China
#40Wechat is shit. why Line has been blocked in China?