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China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones

mashable.com

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Re: China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones

#31

Post by nunobrito »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #21
nunobrito wrote: post #11

Its their country and their laws, trying to solve the problem of Islamic extremism on their own. In western countries, you get detained for years in Guantanamo under torture without knowing for sure why you got arrested. Young girls get married as early as 12 to creepy old dudes and there is no need to ask for installing spyware because the phones and communications are already tapped by default. Anyone criticizing C…

> "Islamic extremism" In Xinjiang region, the concern is more about separatism , which is not terrorism, and which should be a right of any group. > "Anyone criticizing China while permitting their own country to do worse is an hypocrite" One can be critical of their own government while still being critical of others. Even in US, ordinary people don't have much control over the government, in particular over the sec…

Islamic extremism is deeply connected to separatism. That's what the "Islamic State" is all about.

You can surely be critical of others, your own government does comparably worse to the same minority without even letting ordinary people know. That is hypocrisy.

Re: China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones

#32

Post by Hasknewbie »

zython wrote: post #5

>The app reportedly scans for the MD5 digital signatures of media files in the phone, and matches them to a stored database of offending files classified by the government as illegal "terrorist-related" media. What a dumb way to scan for "illegal" content, considering the goverment already controls their portion of the internet. So instead of monitoring who is accessing what they decide to compare checksums of files…

In my opinion, in typical Beijing fashion the "competence" part of the equation is irrelevant. it's all about sending a message, loud and clear: "today we discriminate against YOU, by law, and there's nothing you can do about it". That the method used is laughably inefficient is not the point, it's all about keeping that boot in place on that throat, in a very visible manner.

Re: China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones

#34

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

mrkrabo wrote: post #6

This is interesting. It goes to show how an autoritarian government can fix some problems in a more effective way. You can remove terrorist propaganda from YouTube, but how do you stop the spread of those videos in private platforms or messaging applications? And even if the first version of this spying app only checks for md5 sums, which is arguably useless, I'm sure they're working on something more effective.

> "can fix some problems"

Ethnic separatism may be a problem to the Chinese state. But it is not a problem for the people or something that needs to be solved.

Re: China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones

#35

Post by jack9 »

eivarv wrote: post #15
nunobrito wrote: post #11

Its their country and their laws, trying to solve the problem of Islamic extremism on their own. In western countries, you get detained for years in Guantanamo under torture without knowing for sure why you got arrested. Young girls get married as early as 12 to creepy old dudes and there is no need to ask for installing spyware because the phones and communications are already tapped by default. Anyone criticizing C…

Yes, but a hypocrite can still be right.

If you think there's a right and wrong, a hypocrite is usually right in either deed or stated intent...

Re: China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones

#36

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

nunobrito wrote: post #31
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Islamic extremism" In Xinjiang region, the concern is more about separatism , which is not terrorism, and which should be a right of any group. > "Anyone criticizing China while permitting their own country to do worse is an hypocrite" One can be critical of their own government while still being critical of others. Even in US, ordinary people don't have much control over the government, in particular over the sec…

Islamic extremism is deeply connected to separatism. That's what the "Islamic State" is all about. You can surely be critical of others, your own government does comparably worse to the same minority without even letting ordinary people know. That is hypocrisy.

extremism != separatism.

Re: China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones

#37

Post by kijin »

libeclipse wrote: post #12
buttcake wrote: post #10

Wow, those chinese surely are totalitarian in the way they approach surveillance technology aren't they ? Good thing we have nothing like that. Only just closed hardware with closed or with some parts open complicated software mostly made by a few corporations which tend to and have in fact in past coopoerated with governments without even thinking about their customers.

Comparing potential backdoors in proprietary systems with forced installation of spyware on endpoint devices? I don't think they're the same.

Devil's advocate: Forced installation of highly visible spyware can be better in the sense that it makes people acutely aware of the fact that they're being spied on. From now on, separatists in Xinjiang will be reluctant to exchange their ideas on their phones and try to find other ways to communicate or circumvent the spyware. For example, someone might come up with a cracked version of the spyware that doesn't actually work although it looks okay upon casual inspection, and spread it like a virus in order to provide plausible deniability to people who are caught using it. On the other hand, if the surveillance apparatus were completely hidden, people will unknowingly expose sensitive communications to the authorities.

Of course, if I were the Chinese official responsible for this policy, I would use highly visible and easily circumvented spyware in addition to backdoors and other more covert forms of surveillance. The spyware would just be a diversion.

Re: China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones

#38

Post by striking »

pacificera wrote: post #33

At least the citizens know they are being surveiled.

That hardly changes how terrible these measures are.

What's more, they seem technologically ineffective. As if the government were just trying to make a show of its power rather than provide real solutions.

It's absolutely indefensible and you must know it, considering you opened a new account to comment this.

Re: China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones

#39

Post by OzzyB »

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Muslims—and everyone rejoiced in their unity of hating them together.

Re: China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones

#40

Post by yorwba »

mrkrabo wrote: post #25
sa-mao wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know how to fix the problem more effectively? try to find the root cause and fix it. It's simple and it works.

The west has been trying to do that for decades. Things just get worse and worse. What do you propose?

The West does not currently have much of a problem with violent separatism. Maybe someone got into a bar fight over Catalan independence or Brexit, but all recent conflicts I'm aware of were relatively peaceful. If you compare this to the situation in Northern Ireland, I'd say things have gotten much better.
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