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We Chat, They Watch

citizenlab.ca

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Re: We Chat, They Watch

#471

Post by jbombadil »

jdm2212 wrote: post #122
notlukesky wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is your link downvoted?

People might've mistaken it for pedantry/condescension? I certainly didn't take it that way (gave it an upvote) -- though I have read that paper, and was thinking of it when I wrote my original comment :)

It was not my intention to be condescending. I legitimately enjoyed that paper (the technical part mostly), and thought it was relevant to what you were saying. I've found a lot of many interesting articles in hackernews comments and wanted to share one back.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#472

Post by AlchemistCamp »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #302
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what your service is but I simply wouldn't be able to use it as my only phone number is Google Voice. It's highly likely that prospective users just leave when encountering your restrictions and having their phone numbers rejected.

It’s a B2B service (“B2SB”?) - not targeting people/consumers - so it’s reasonable to assume they have a real phone number.

I run a business. Why is it reasonable to assume the use of legacy phone numbers?

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#473

Post by avbanks »

wolco wrote: post #193
MattGaiser wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook at least tells you, but yes, this is concerning.

I just visited that site. The concerning thing is the site isn't spam and offers a political view with photos/videos of real moments that may reflect poorly on joe . To censor that is crossing the line into censoring valid political speech.

Just curious, does the information on that site ever change?

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#474

Post by Atlas »

bosswipe wrote: post #321
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. A service I built+run started getting overrun with bot users. The signup CAPTCHA didn’t help because they’d sign-up for accounts using humans - then after that’s done they’d copy their access tokens to the bot users. We couldn’t use a CAPTCHA for every operation on the platform. But by requiring a real phone number that we verify (by placing a TTS phone call - not an SMS - as processing received TTS calls is mu…

> but also looking-up the phone number’s SS7 info Does that really work? I'd like a service like that for my personal phone.

Truecaller is the easiest way to access this data for consumers. https://www.truecaller.com/. The two commercial data providers for this are Telesign and Neustar.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#475

Post by Atlas »

bosswipe wrote: post #321
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. A service I built+run started getting overrun with bot users. The signup CAPTCHA didn’t help because they’d sign-up for accounts using humans - then after that’s done they’d copy their access tokens to the bot users. We couldn’t use a CAPTCHA for every operation on the platform. But by requiring a real phone number that we verify (by placing a TTS phone call - not an SMS - as processing received TTS calls is mu…

> but also looking-up the phone number’s SS7 info Does that really work? I'd like a service like that for my personal phone.

Also https://www.opencnam.com/

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#476

Post by pmachinery »

mellow2020 wrote: post #466
pmachinery wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not what I said. Then what you said has nothing to do with what I was commenting on, which was not a claim that Hollywood will do what it has to do to access the Chinese market, but a claim that "they" own stakes in media companies to push pro-Chinese propaganda to the American public. Do you have some examples of that?

Imagine Germany successfully putting pressure on American movie makers to make Jewish figures in their stories be no longer Jewish, because in it's official German policy that Jews do not exist, they've always been just Germans or something else. You can split hairs and say that's technically not pro-German, but anti-Jewish or whatever, and put "they" in quotes all you want; nobody who cares about the actual individu…

And you can carry on avoiding the question all you want, if you can't bring yourself to call out a rancid old racist conspiracy theory for what it is.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#477

Post by hzhou321 »

fiblye wrote: post #121
yingliu4203 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Chinese-Americans have no choice when they need to communicate with family and friend living in China. No outside communication tools allowed in China.

Outside of China, we're pretty lucky that we can just register for random sites like HN with nothing more than a username and password and start talking. Every Chinese site I've ever used requires phone number or ID verification. Most of them only allow Chinese-registered phones, meaning it's absolutely impossible to communicate with Chinese people from the outside world, aside from a very small number of carefully v…

> Most of them only allow Chinese-registered phones, meaning it's absolutely impossible to communicate with Chinese people from the outside world, aside from a very small number of carefully vetted services like WeChat.

Indeed. I am very appreciative to wechat that I can keep in touch with my family and friends and enjoy the technology. By valuing my freedom and the freedom of my Chinese contacts, I do not communicate sensitive materials on wechat. The freedom is only ensured within boundary so know thy boundaries. I have plenty of channels to enjoy my western freedom. Whether we should impose our western freedom upon "Chinese freedom"? That is a good question. Fortunately that is not a question I need to resolve.

It is illuminating that those who try to exercise their western freedom on the Chinese domain is helping China to the opposite of their goals. If you have that honorable goal, do your due diligence of educating yourself with the right technology.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#478

Post by goatlover »

liberal_098 wrote: post #388
not_exactly__ wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I agree that most in China don’t think much of it (or often don’t even realize censorship is happening on their exchanges). But it’s still tragic. And I’m happy to see Silicon Valley come to its sense regarding WeChat. A few years back, VC’s were tripping over each other to sing the praises of WeChat and how much better it made China with its mobile payment and mini apps.

> Yeah I agree that most in China don’t think much of it (or often don’t even realize censorship is happening on their exchanges). But it’s still tragic. Hm... Why is it tragic? Simply rephrase it: most Americans do not even realize there is censorship". Is it tragic? If yes then for whom? Probably not for them but rather for external observers.

It's tragic for people being censored, and worse, like public humiliation and jail, depending on what's been shared.

That's an objective assessment. It is tragic for those people, whether anyone else cares.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#480

Post by goatlover »

SkyBelow wrote: post #456
arcticbull wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the ban may not be perfect, but as a Canadian, I can say unequivocally: I don't need perfect to be the enemy of good. There's no reason to possess these weapons any more than there's a reason to possess nuclear warheads. The next bill can ban more, fix the bugs, etc, but the flag has been planted: there's no room for those weapons in Canada. A huge number of people have wanted to ban weapons like these since Eco…

>There's no reason to possess these weapons any more than there's a reason to possess nuclear warheads. I've yet to see any valid reasons to possess drugs or alcohol. With guns, there is at least the justification of self defense. >and pray the crime away. Is that not what is being done with all crimes (drunk driving, but also many assaults) associated with alcohol? There are two ways government can work. You can eit…

> I've yet to see any valid reasons to possess drugs or alcohol.

For recreation, therapy, socialization, experimentation, mysticism, or just because it's my own damn body.

> With guns, there is at least the justification of self defense.

That would be fine if gun violence wasn't a thing.

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