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WeChat and the Surveillance State

bbc.com

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Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#211

Post by jshc »

tanilama wrote: post #203
dheera wrote: post #70

I absolutely hate WeChat (not necessarily just for the reasons in the article, but many other technical reasons) but I'm forced to use it because all of my friends and my entire social life happens on it. And I live in the Bay Area. If I don't use it I would basically be locking myself up in a prison where I would never see my friends. Even the majority of my friends who work at Facebook and Google use WeChat to orga…

Why the hate. It is just a chatting tool, nothing more. Most of the functionality is useless in US.

it's actually more than just a chatting tool.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#212

Post by munmaek »

kpennell wrote: post #199
baby wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBF. This is because you only hang out with asian people. I live in the bay too and I don't know many people using wechat :|

lol, yeah. i've never even heard of someone in the bay having it.

It's specific to a certain demographic. Same with Kakaotalk for Koreans and Line for Japanese people.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#213

Post by mkbkn »

dheera wrote: post #70

I absolutely hate WeChat (not necessarily just for the reasons in the article, but many other technical reasons) but I'm forced to use it because all of my friends and my entire social life happens on it. And I live in the Bay Area. If I don't use it I would basically be locking myself up in a prison where I would never see my friends. Even the majority of my friends who work at Facebook and Google use WeChat to orga…

A genuine question: Why can't you just call them you're down in the lobby?

And do you think having WeChat installed is a prerequisite for a good friendship?

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#214

Post by stevenhuang »

pishpash wrote: post #62
komali2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NSA can't watch our every move, that's illegal. We learned from Edward Snowden that they do so for some people anyway, illegally. It's bad and wrong. It's not nearly at the level of China. America doesn't have xinjiang reeducation camps for political dissidents that also happens to be full of people charged with the crime of being religious. America isn't harvesting the organs of its prisoners against their will.…

If we're talking about what a state considers to be marginal groups, you must not compare your own imagined experiences if you're not part of a marginal group. The consequences of being caught by the police as a black man, for example, is far far worse in the US than it is in China or many other places. This is also a much more likely event. You might want to try arousing the suspicions of your own state to see how i…

Pointing out the marginalization of black people in US is not the argument you want to make. Are you aware of China's persecution of the Uyghur people? Internment camps, forced labour and reeducation?

Things are a thousand times worse over there. It's good to be aware of things we need to improve on, but do not lose perspective.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#215

Post by doctorstupid »

sho wrote: post #155
_hardwaregeek wrote: post #105

I was explaining what it's like to live in China to someone and it's like explaining a dystopian cyberpunk novel, but with a level of surrealism and just plain absurdity. A Gibson novel filtered through some Philip K. Dick. You have a gigantic surveillance state with unprecedented reach and control...banning people from referencing a cartoon bear. You have a society with an extremely sophisticated cashless economy——b…

Oh come on. Pollution is highly localised. Yeah, there's a few bad cities but it's a big place and 99% of it is fine. And no clean water, really? That will be news to the billion plus inhabitants who haven't realised they're dead yet from lack of clean water, sixth sense style. Nit picking aside - that surveillance state is maybe 5 years ahead of the west. I'm continually amazed that western governments have allowed…

Strongly encrypted private communications are already effectively banned in Australia.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#216

Post by tarsinge »

dheera wrote: post #204
pishpash wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a case of you don't know what you're missing. That's not a bad thing, but it doesn't mean you're not missing anything.

100% correct. I just happen to be on both FB and WeChat, because I have friends on both sides of the picture (English-/Chinese-speaking). I tend to have more social interaction with contacts on WeChat but many of them are conversely oblivious to the Facebook world. While they don't know about all your awesome house parties whose invitations appear only on Facebook, there are a whole slew of other awesome house partie…

I'm speechless, I had heard there was not much interactions between communities in the US but this is a whole new level.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#217

Post by godelski »

tarsinge wrote: post #216
dheera wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% correct. I just happen to be on both FB and WeChat, because I have friends on both sides of the picture (English-/Chinese-speaking). I tend to have more social interaction with contacts on WeChat but many of them are conversely oblivious to the Facebook world. While they don't know about all your awesome house parties whose invitations appear only on Facebook, there are a whole slew of other awesome house partie…

I'm speechless, I had heard there was not much interactions between communities in the US but this is a whole new level.

I'd argue that this is a reason for my original comment. Having friends that break out of the social media world forces you to contact them outside those spheres. Which also means that you're now operating in multiple spheres. It reduces the isolation.

Also, I wouldn't say I'm missing out. I'm in a PhD program with a pretty active department. It is pretty easy to find out what is happening. The only events I missed were when I first started, and I chalk that up to more people not knowing who I was.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#218

Post by rahimnathwani »

lame88 wrote: post #190
rahimnathwani wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a position between yours and sho's. Sure, if every federal crime were enforced through automatic fines, this could be a mess due to the complexity of the law. But what's your objection to a fine for changing lanes without indicating?

I had no objection to that fine. I had an objection to the an automatic mechanism to do it, or to perfectly enforce any law, no matter how trivial, Simply because these kinds of things don't happen in a vacuum; the mechanisms built toward these ends will not be limited to being used toward that one end. For example maybe there's cameras everywhere to enforce this law. But then there's cameras everywhere. I highly rec…

What if someone were to devise a mechanism to detect and prosecute people changing lanes without indicating, with the following properties?

- perfect accuracy (no FP; no FN)

- automated enforcement via a fine, without knowing the identity of the perpetrator (just assume it's possible; I know it's hard)

- no potential for the device or underlying technology to be used or repurposed for any other form of surveillance or enforcement

Would such a system (and automated enforcement) be OK?

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#219

Post by godelski »

dheera wrote: post #201
godelski wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Easy to say, but hard to do when the people who you genuinely value your relationship with don't use anything else. Honestly most of my friends talk and organize on Facebook. I deleted mine. Things haven't really changed much. I just get texts when something is happening. Your friends are still your friends without whatever technology facilitates your social sphere. My experience, and many others that I know, is th…

> Your friends will still be your friends. While this is true, you still do need to be able to contact them in today's isolated world where we don't run into our friends on a daily basis in public venues. For a vast amount of my friends, WeChat is effectively the only means of communication to organize an in-person meetup. For a certain group of people, it has replaced phones, e-mail, Facebook, and everything else. L…

So get their phone number. It sounds like problem solved.

I'm not saying you have to dump WeChat/Facebook/whatever. But I think saying that they are your only way to communicate with people is a bit ridiculous. We all have phones in our pockets. Your friends will use multiple systems. I guarantee that specifically your Chinese friends will, because they already have to operate in two worlds (unless they completely isolate themselves in America).

> have other groups of friends who organize real life events (hiking, dinner, etc.) on WeChat. Without WeChat I'd probably be left out of those.

I promise you that you won't miss out. Your friends are still your friends. They are your friends because you enjoy each other's company, not because you use WeChat. WeChat is a tool, it isn't the relationship. I don't know you, but I'm willing to bet that those friends enjoy your company enough to send you a text message instead of a WeChat message when they want you to be part of an activity. Though I'll admit that it might be bumpy in the start because people forget that you don't use a specific communication platform.

Re: WeChat and the Surveillance State

#220

Post by gdy »

codedokode wrote: post #197
rahimnathwani wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash doesn't have direct transaction costs, but: - it needs to be manually reconciled at the start/end of each shift - staff can steal it - robbers can steal it - it takes time to count out change (and to ensure you have enough small bills and coins) - it takes time to deposit it at the bank - it costs money to deposit it at the bank (even if Walmart is ok accepting cash for an iPad, I'm guessing Apple requires Walma…

Yes, cash can be stolen, but cards are much more dangerous to your privacy: bank knows where you go and what you buy, it can sell this information to anyone (of course, with hashing your phone number with military-grade algorithm to protect your personal data), shops know who you are and can exchange information about your purchases along with model of your face taken by the camera at the register, MAC address of you…

'Some countries' meaning Russia
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