Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 333 posts

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#71

Post by scohesc »

saagarjha wrote: post #35
Crinus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because if it is mandated by law then it will need to be available region locked in app stores for China. So with this stance (ie. against "side-loading" - what a crappy term) not only you make things worse for everyone (not being able to use their own devices as they see fit) even though they wouldn't be visiting China, you also validate region locking (another shitty practice that has no place in a global inter…

Note that the software does not currently appear on online marketplaces; it seems to be installable exclusively via sideloading. I don't think anyone has really tested what would happen when a government legally mandates for app stores to carry state-sponsored malware.

We'll definitely see it once Huawei releases their own app-store and ecosystem for China.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#72

Post by la_barba »

murbard2 wrote: post #6

The US is forcing its tourists to give away a list of all their social media accounts and all their email accounts. If you're a foreign journalist writing pseudonymously for your safety, you must now share that information with the US government to enter the country. This isn't quite on the level of forcing people to install malware on their phone yet, but give it a couple years.

Or they can just get the NSA to do their dirty-work. Non-US citizens have little to no protections against the NSA and the CIA spying on them.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#73

Post by BurningFrog »

0815test wrote: post #62
pjc50 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China was never really not a police state of some sort. The ancient Imperial system broke down at the dawning of the modern era, and the Kuomintang "Republic of China" arose to replace it. It never managed to achieve either internal security or nationwide fair elections, and got into an extremely brutal fight with Communist insurgents. The communists were forced into retreat (Long March) during which most of them die…

> China was never really not a police state of some sort. Even ancient Imperial China was very much like this. To the point where China basically had no such thing as a legal system in the Western sense! The only kind of dispute resolution was mutually-assured destruction via criminal-like prosecution, basically "If I think you've been trying to cheat me out of something, I can get government goons to beat you up, fo…

But that's what's interesting about China!

It's an alternative civilization!

The last 30 years we've seen it develop at a rate that is obviously impossible given the experience of all other countries. Yet this, very different, country does it.

It's good to have diversity in governance systems and be able to see the different outcomes, even from systems everyone "knows" shouldn't work.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#74

Post by lucb1e »

x2f10 wrote: post #5

I fear backlash from this comment, but is this a case against side-loading apps?

Introducing one evil to protect against another. To me, prohibiting apk installs would be similar to prohibiting mobile data and mobile calling/SMS altogether, since the technology can be used to track you. It would be workable and a huge improvement for privacy, even if there are major downsides.

Perhaps it is more illustrative to compare it with physical stores. The Google Play Store is one store, F-Droid is another well-known one, and there are others. Allowing only Google to install apps on your device would be like allowing people to only buy products from a store controlled by the producer of the product, reasoning that other stores might modify the product. If cheese was solely a Dutch product, the Dutch producer would get to prohibit Americans from buying cheese at stores other than a single Dutch chain, with no oversight of the American government (such as the FDA) for fear of product manipulation. They might infect it! Bringing it back to Android, I (a Dutchman) would only be allowed to get my apps from the Google store which is within some foreign jurisdiction.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#75

Post by [deleted] »

johnzim wrote: post #54
phy6 wrote: post #37

""What you’ve found goes beyond that: it suggests that even foreigners are subjected to such mass, and unlawful surveillance."" Pretty bold for them to call it unlawful in two places when it was not shown to be against that country's laws. Distasteful, yes. Unlawful? Hard to tell from just this article. Personally, I'm more worried about exported android devices.

Indeed. For something to be unlawful you must have a society beholden to the rule of law, which the PRC is most definitely not.

[deleted]

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#76

Post by rwmj »

hannob wrote: post #59
rwmj wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ESTA will be a bit different, but the exact question from the US visa application is: 7. Public-facing social media platforms and identifiers/handles used during the last five years. This includes any websites or applications the applicant has used to create or share content (photos, videos, status updates, etc.) as part of a public profile. I was advised by my lawyer that this covers Reddit and HN, and Facebook/…

Honestly I would been unable to give an accurate answer, I would certainly forget something I used in the past 5 years.

Well another question was much worse than that one:

1. Your complete travel history over the last 15 years, including source of funding for travel, in chronological order.

I don't know anyone who would be able to answer that one accurately.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#77

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

Circuits wrote: post #60
saagarjha wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the phrase you're looking for is "extremists have used $RELIGION to justify their actions throughout history, to the horror of most its practitioners". You can largely replace the specific religion with of an organized belief system of your choosing.

"You can largely replace the specific religion with of an organized belief system of your choosing." - Hinduism, Buddhism? Certainly Christianity at some point in history but I think if you read the Koran and then read the bible you will see that one has a propensity to incite violence and discrimination that far outweighs the other.

Your comments are bordering on islamophobic (and that's from a charitable interpretation of your intent).

Just don't. HN isn't the platform for hate.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#78

Post by pjc50 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #73
0815test wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China was never really not a police state of some sort. Even ancient Imperial China was very much like this. To the point where China basically had no such thing as a legal system in the Western sense! The only kind of dispute resolution was mutually-assured destruction via criminal-like prosecution, basically "If I think you've been trying to cheat me out of something, I can get government goons to beat you up, fo…

But that's what's interesting about China! It's an alternative civilization! The last 30 years we've seen it develop at a rate that is obviously impossible given the experience of all other countries. Yet this, very different, country does it. It's good to have diversity in governance systems and be able to see the different outcomes, even from systems everyone "knows" shouldn't work.

How is it "obviously impossible"? Most of the developed countries went through rocket growth phases at some point.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#79

Post by jlawson »

BubRoss wrote: post #56
Circuits wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of my information comes from history books and actually reading the Koran. I have also studied a bit on what life is like in countries where Sharia law is practiced such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan and tbh it's not looking to hot for Islam.

There are a billion muslims on Earth, maybe you should focus on statistics and talking to people instead.

[flagged]

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#80

Post by ticviking »

murbard2 wrote: post #11
beauzero wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this enforcable? ...or is it just the accounts that you will be using while in the US? Technically this seems difficult to enforce.

I think the point will be selective enforcement. Make a completely unreasonable request that travelers are unlikely to perfectly comply with (even if inadvertently -- do you remember your Digg profile?) and later enforce a penalty at your discretion. Soft-totalitarianism.

I've always liked the term Anarcho-Tyranny for this type of thing.

It's the biggest reason why I am a huge fan of the idea of mandatory prosecution. If we can't afford to prosecute all the crimes we have on the books perhaps we have too many crimes on the books

Post reply on HN