The journalists also asked researchers at ... Open Technology Fund, an initiative funded by the United States government under Radio Free Asia ... so the CIA basically?
Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang
241–250 of 333 posts
Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd wager that they have a enterprise certificate to sign the iOS app with. Then it's a matter of sending the spy victims to a URL, installing the app and granting access to photos/ location/ whatever.
Nope.. the user would also have to open Settings and explicitly mark the vendor certificate as trusted.
It says the devices were unlocked then the device was connected. I would assume the device is in the custody of the Chinese authority at this point. Thus, they can just go into Settings and trust the cert.
Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang
#243The headline is really alarmist, implying China in general is applying this practice, while the reality is that this is a practice limited to sensitive regions. It's pretty much in line with the status quo in Western China. China has been very protective of the Xinjiang region for a long time, and very restrictive on travel in and out, especially for foreigners. But here we go, we've started an alarmist comment threa…
Nobody can afford to care about all of the bad things in the world all of the time. Unfortunate but true. When people do find the attention budget to care about a bad thing, why is that a bad thing? Why is it appropriate to be dismissive?
Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang
#244The headline is really alarmist, implying China in general is applying this practice, while the reality is that this is a practice limited to sensitive regions. It's pretty much in line with the status quo in Western China. China has been very protective of the Xinjiang region for a long time, and very restrictive on travel in and out, especially for foreigners. But here we go, we've started an alarmist comment threa…
What is a sensitive region? Are there any similar regions in Western Europe?
Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang
#245The headline is really alarmist, implying China in general is applying this practice, while the reality is that this is a practice limited to sensitive regions. It's pretty much in line with the status quo in Western China. China has been very protective of the Xinjiang region for a long time, and very restrictive on travel in and out, especially for foreigners. But here we go, we've started an alarmist comment threa…
Move on, nothing to see here. Our investors would be very unhappy if we ACTUALLY had to take a moral stand on the human rights violations in our Shenzhen supply chain.
Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it is. The airport is past gigantic for the city of its size, and landing fees are said to be quite low. I think nearly all companies flying narrowbodies from Europe to China do stopover here, except for Central Asian airlines who have a natural option of doing stopover in home countries. I flew through it once, and now I will never do it ever again... I do feel that bigger name European airlines opting to rero…
Who is flying narrow bodies between Europe and China? Moscow (via Aeroflot or whatever) works better for trips to Europe given earth curvature. The only nonstops I can find are Moscow, St Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Baku, Astana, Tbilisi, which all makes sense, most of those are Central Asia or almost so, and then Russia. What am I missing?
Russia is one of few countries not giving a "freedom of air." Overflight rights are only given to flag carriers at extortionate rates, most EU-China flights have to take rather weird routes.
There used to be flights through Urumqi on EU-China routes just 2 years ago with stops just in it or in Almaty by quite a number of airlines.
The accursed flight I was on was done by China Southern
Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang
#247Earlier 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…
Why is it surprising? Maybe the Chinese have discovered the only way to build a lasting civilization that doesn't bomb itself into oblivion every century like Europe does.
Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang
#248The headline is really alarmist, implying China in general is applying this practice, while the reality is that this is a practice limited to sensitive regions. It's pretty much in line with the status quo in Western China. China has been very protective of the Xinjiang region for a long time, and very restrictive on travel in and out, especially for foreigners. But here we go, we've started an alarmist comment threa…
The head line is:
> China Snares Tourists’ Phones in Surveillance Dragnet by Adding Secret App
and subtitle :
> Border authorities routinely install the app on the phones of people entering the Xinjiang region by land from Central Asia, gathering personal data and scanning for material considered objectionable.
Considering the scale of what China is accused of doing in Xinjiang and China's role as the vanguard of modern surveillance, what is alarmist about this?
Do you think that China is unwilling to use this same tech at the Pudong airport?
Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang
#249The headline is really alarmist, implying China in general is applying this practice, while the reality is that this is a practice limited to sensitive regions. It's pretty much in line with the status quo in Western China. China has been very protective of the Xinjiang region for a long time, and very restrictive on travel in and out, especially for foreigners. But here we go, we've started an alarmist comment threa…
> It's pretty much in line with the status quo in Western China
It's not bad because it's exceptional, it's bad because it inerhently is. If else the fact that it is normal makes it even worse
Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang
#250Before I went to China I bought a burner phone, mainly to install WeChat (which is also a kind of malware and also "required" in China). Basic Android phones are not too expensive these days - I wonder if it will become commonplace to own several and physically separate your life across them? FWIW I got a Huawei phone (Honor 10 Lite) for under 200 EUR, but much cheaper phones than that are available. Edit: To be clea…
Next time when you buy a burner phone, please try to be more conscious.
Huawei is likely one of the companies that contributed to this very Xinjiang endeavour [0].
Even if it's not directly related, by buying a Huawei phone, you are voting with your money to support a company that's been hurting innovation with IP theft through the years [1].
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/05/25/huawei-ac...
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/huaweis-yearslong-rise-is-litte...