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Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

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71–80 of 254 posts

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#71
post #30

“It’s a lot worse than any of the mainstream browsers I have seen,” It's a lot worse than Chrome ? The Xiaomi browser tracks your browsing. The Google browser in combination with the most of the sites in the internet track your browsing, your location, and a lot of other things. Choosing the lesser evil is quite popular now days, and it's obvious which one it is.

I'd much rather be tracked by Google than CPC

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#72

Just wait till they: - start encrypting all the data they collect (with real encryption, not base64 encoding) - saving up the data for hours or days at time and sending it in bursts (so there is no immediate connection to a remote server) - sending the data to plausible U.S.-registered domains (rather than to Singapore and Russia) - monitoring at the kernel or firmware level so that it doesn't matter what browser or…

Why would they go to all that trouble? Just 1. keep sending any and all data without any obfuscation 2. blanket denial of any wrong doing, regardless of how obvious 3. decent hardware for zero down on a contract

profit!!!

your way is so much more work...

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#73

Before you go shaming those bad, bad Chinese companies, imagine my surprise when I restored my Apple iPhone from iCloud only to find my (always set to private!) Safari back there with every tab I ever opened.

I sincerely doubt the veracity of your claim.

Apple keeps private browsing tabs open until you close them - I think.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#74

Just wait till they: - start encrypting all the data they collect (with real encryption, not base64 encoding) - saving up the data for hours or days at time and sending it in bursts (so there is no immediate connection to a remote server) - sending the data to plausible U.S.-registered domains (rather than to Singapore and Russia) - monitoring at the kernel or firmware level so that it doesn't matter what browser or…

When a new guy on the team refers to base64 encoding as encryption. /me - oh you must be new here?

Serious note - welcome to the future. Nothing is private anymore.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#75
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than the tracking, would you recommend it? Is LineageOS available? I've been curious about trying a Chinese phone for a while, but would only do it if Lineage is available, since I'm annoyed by anything more busy than stock Android.

I have lineage on my xiaomi. The bootloader is locked by default but if you ask for it to be unlocked they will do it. The process is intentionally manual to prevent hacking, but ultimately smooth.

Things might have changed since last year, but it hasn't been smooth at all for me.

Not only you need a Windows computer to unlock, but then it takes literally months to proceed and if you happen to do something that you're not told you should not do (like logging out or re-trying to unlock), the counter is reset and you have to wait even more. Plus the unlocking program on Windows randomly doesn't work and error messages are not helpful at all.

My Xiaomi is an impressive, nice and powerful phone that hasn't cost much. But it was so much pain to root that I won't probably ever buy a phone from them in the future.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#76
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I root my device and only allow apps I trust internet access.

Root and then get flagged by Google's SafetyNet, preventing you from Netflix, banking apps etc? That's a brave but big sacrifice

Not with Magisk.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#77

Just wait till they: - start encrypting all the data they collect (with real encryption, not base64 encoding) - saving up the data for hours or days at time and sending it in bursts (so there is no immediate connection to a remote server) - sending the data to plausible U.S.-registered domains (rather than to Singapore and Russia) - monitoring at the kernel or firmware level so that it doesn't matter what browser or…

With some fleshing out, this is an excellent rendition of the { DRM, malware, spyware } evolutionary path, pretty close to what was described to me by RealNetworks back in the dotcom era.

Need to add anti-reverse-engineering techniques - obfuscation, self-modifying code, custom and hard to reason about embedded VMs, etc. other than anti-debugger and test harness detection. I think earlier on.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#78
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I root my device and only allow apps I trust internet access.

Doesn't that permanently disable some features on Samsung? I read they use a goddamn eFuse for it

I am using a Google Pixel device. I have no idea whether Magisk works on Samsung phones.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#80
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my brain's classifier would predict upon hearing just huevos => mexican spanish. i'd imagine southern cone speakers would say pelotas, but might be way off here.

That's pretty much spot on (more generally, I think it's a Central-American thing). Either "pelotas" or "bolas" are the common ones in South America (huevos is present, but rarely used in the same way—"huevón" is the classic insult used throughout).

Not at all. Huevos is the preferred term in Argentina/Uruguay.
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