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China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

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Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#151

Post by rconti »

dirktheman wrote: post #140
rconti wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Yes, I've always had to use my passport with my Eurail passes; though often it's to prove I'm an American who is eligible for the cheaper pass. 2. No, only in certain countries. I've bought SIMs from vending machines in Iceland and Denmark. In Italy the merchant made me seriously promise, I really mean it to send him a photo of my passport as soon as I returned home with my SIM. He gave me his personal gmail addre…

From June 2017 there will be no extra dataroaming charges in the EU. So you could buy a non-registered SIM card in The Netherlands (you can even buy them at the checkout counter at the supermarket) and use it all over EU member states. Strange situation...

The world can't wait -- but I'd not call it strange.

I hadn't been to Europe since 2004, and on my subsequent visit in 2011, I just casually told my wife "we'll just buy SIMs at the first country we go to, surely they've sorted out this stupid roaming-when-you-travel-a-few-hundred-miles thing by now." WRONG.

So glad this is coming to an end. I've wasted far too much time and money country-hopping and having to spend 30-90+min in each country trying to get a working mobile phone. Locals probably don't realize how bad it is, but on prepaid plans you often cannot roam in foreign countries at any price. So as absurd it is to pay ATT here in the US $60 for 200mb or whatever insane rate, sometimes I wonder if it's worse to spend $40 per country per SIM card if I'm only there for a few days. Not to mention changing phone numbers constantly, assuming you would like to be reached...

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#152

Post by wfunction »

lsmarigo wrote: post #22
throwaway91111 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do any credit card services not do this? It's really unnerving to see recent purchases when browsing online.

Don't know of anyway to avoid this other than using cash. The speed the sharing takes place is pretty insane as well, I've made purchases of a new brand of X item at my local grocery chain only to have amazon suggest the exact item to me on the same day.

This sounds almost unbelievable. How sure are you that it wasn't suggested for some other reason? And how did they know WHAT you bought, given credit card companies don't get that info?

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#153

Post by FabHK »

idra wrote: post #116
contingencies wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physically: Fights are rare, guns are extremely rare, even if a disagreement turns loud and verbal it usually works out without police involvement. Cars: lots of 'em, but they don't move fast so the roads tend to be friendlier to pedestrians and cyclists. Medical care doesn't have overheads so high as to result in triple-mortgages and suicide watch. Socially: Urban environments tend to offer more of a sense of commun…

Lies. Fights are very common, especially in the north-east. Foreigners are often assaulted for being foreigners. Last year, a foreigner-Chinese couple was attacked by a sword-wielding man for being a foreigner-Chinese couple in one of the busiest areas of Beijing, rife with police. The woman died [1]. Roads are very friendly to pedestrians indeed, where the driver will most likely try to run you over again to kill yo…

No.

Citing one anecdote does not change the facts: China and HK have about the same homicide rate as Germany (namely less than 1 per 100,000 per year), that's about a quarter of the US rate.

As for healthcare, if I were to get seriously ill, I would frankly not want to be in mainland China or the US. Similarly for litigation, in fact.

Lamentably, while Chinese used to be rather friendly and curious towards foreigners, now one observes more incidents of parochial, jingoistic hostility.

All in all, though, I agree with GP's assessment: As long as you keep out of politics, you feel both safer and freer in China than in the US as a foreigner (which is not saying a lot).

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#154

Post by fornever »

rconti wrote: post #150
stpe wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IIRC I could not buy a SIM in Sweden as a non-resident though. You can definitely buy a SIM-card in Sweden without any kind of identification. However, if it is a SIM-card with a (non prepaid) subscription, THEN you have to ID yourself and be credit worthy (since you can potentially run up a huge bill that is invoiced afterwards).

Right, I'm an idiot. I have a Swedish SIM somewhere. It was Germany I was thinking of (and then, 3mo later, on a subsequent trip, easily bought a SIM anyway). So much misinformation out there -- and I suppose I'm not helping. It's amazing how hard it is (as a foreigner) to come by solid information on the legal situation around SIM card purchases. It seems every company is different, and the more restrictive ones hav…

This is the wiki you want: http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#155

Post by FabHK »

idra wrote: post #138
sangnoir wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fights are very common, especially in the north-east. I would say per-capita stats are ideal for objective comparisons rather than picking individual instances. Would you have those by any chance?

Unfortunately, the problem with stats from China is that they are most certainly fake. Even if I had those, they would arguably be worse than anecdotal evidence. I provide fake economic stats as an example, since it's something the rest of the world cares and writes about [1] [2]. So take this as a personal account from someone who lived in China for over a decade. [1] http://fortune.com/2015/12/14/china-fake-economi…

While comparing statistics between countries is very problematic indeed, homicide statistics are considered among the best (a dead body is easier to define than unemployment or income or so).

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#156

Post by FabHK »

verst wrote: post #31
notliketherest wrote: post #17

As an American, I would never download a Chinese app like WeChat or use a digital service based in China.

I'm German and (as stereotypes would have it) extremely privacy conscious. Having lived in the US for over a decade I've reluctantly come to terms with the lesser privacy standards here. For a long time I refused to keep a lot of information on Facebook as Facebook seemed to only consider privacy as an afterthought after users expressed outrage (I appreciate transparency about the use of data so I can make my own dec…

I wish everyone would just install Signal and Wire - it's not that hard :-/

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#157

Post by peteretep »

bad_user wrote: post #141
peteretep wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google allowing apps to read > phone IMEI in Android An unpopular sentiment, but this is why I love iOS. I genuinely don't think any of my apps can meaningfully spy on me without my having told them they may. I even get reminders if I've let an app read my location in the background, to check that's what I want to do.

Even though I like Android more, I have to agree that iOS has had a better privacy story. But even iOS has problems. For example I cannot force apps like Waze or Uber to only use my location while using them, you have to either disable location for them completely, or to allow them to take your location while running in the background. It's an either/or proposition and the result is that Waze and Uber users do have t…

Yeah, those are valid concerns.

The other thing I'd like is incompatibility with password managers being an automatic approval fail for the app store, in particular fields that disable paste for passwords.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#158

Post by FabHK »

greggman wrote: post #139
plaguuuuuu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep voicing concerns about Google Wallet in that respect but nobody takes it seriously.

Is any service better? Apple Pay?

My understanding is that Apple Pay enables the payment, but Apple does not collect or retain any data such as to whom you paid how much. Here's what Apple's iOS Security Guide say:

"Apple Pay is also designed to protect the user’s personal information. Apple Pay doesn’t collect any transaction information that can be tied back to the user. Payment transactions are between the user, the merchant, and the card issuer."

https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#159

Post by kriro »

baybal2 wrote: post #78

This is what comes out of Google allowing apps to read phone IMEI in Android. I have no concrete proof, but the reason why all major Chinese apps snoop after phone IMEI is said to be that the commies have secretly demanded Chinese dotcoms to collect and report phone IMEIs. For example if you have a 6.0 or later Android, Alibaba app will block you if you disabled the permission to read IMEI or it detects spoofing. htt…

On Android 6.0+ you can deny the READ_PHONE_STATE permission and stop using apps that won't work if you do. A quick search seems to indicate that there is an Alibaba app for iOS. Do you think Apple negotiated that the IMEI isn't required for the iOS version?

Personally I don't trust Android (or the hardware companies that sell Android devices) or iOS but picked an Android 6+ device because in principle I'd rather have an operating system that's more open. AFAIK all the Apple privacy stories have been about US cases so as a non-US person I'm also not sure they'd apply the same standards to me.

Re: China has wealth of data on what individuals are doing at a micro level

#160

Post by kuschku »

sametmax wrote: post #146
demosthenes111 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to expand on that?

You need a network of people you can trust, or build some fake lifes, or do a lot of things in parallel of the system. Most of the time all of them together. It's work, but it's possible. The problem is: it's more work for ordinary people. The systems in place are making it difficult for citizen to exist outside of the system, change it, or express differences. But it doesn't make it as difficult for criminals to be…

> build some fake lifes

How do you plan on doing that if most stores and banks stop accepting cash, and to get a debit or credit card you need to show government ID, which is electronically verified (it has an RSA keypair, signed by the government, stored on its chip).

It becomes impossible.

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