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“Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

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Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#12
post #5

If China wants to use protectionism to wage digital economy warfare, let's respond in kind. No more Wechat, TikTok, Alipay, or League of Legends or Valorant, until China gives equal treatment to foreign internet firms. Note: Valorant installs a kernel driver as part of the "anti-cheat" system; described by many as a rootkit: https://www.osnews.com/story/131665/riot-games-maker-of-leag... Valorant's parent company is…

This behavior isn’t unique to Chinese companies.

That's basically the problem, isn't it? In order to address this behaviour, the West would have to admit that it was bad, and that it was also bad when done by western companies, and have a coherent theory of privacy.

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#13
post #5

If China wants to use protectionism to wage digital economy warfare, let's respond in kind. No more Wechat, TikTok, Alipay, or League of Legends or Valorant, until China gives equal treatment to foreign internet firms. Note: Valorant installs a kernel driver as part of the "anti-cheat" system; described by many as a rootkit: https://www.osnews.com/story/131665/riot-games-maker-of-leag... Valorant's parent company is…

This behavior isn’t unique to Chinese companies.

Correct, but it is much more typical and common of them than any other nation.

This has been a major issue for decades across many countries, all of whom have been lobbying (for instance in the WTO) to crack down on Chinese IP theft, their use of non-Chinese citizens' data for censorship training purposes, etc

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#14
post #5

If China wants to use protectionism to wage digital economy warfare, let's respond in kind. No more Wechat, TikTok, Alipay, or League of Legends or Valorant, until China gives equal treatment to foreign internet firms. Note: Valorant installs a kernel driver as part of the "anti-cheat" system; described by many as a rootkit: https://www.osnews.com/story/131665/riot-games-maker-of-leag... Valorant's parent company is…

> If China wants to use protectionism to wage digital economy warfare, let's respond in kind. No more Wechat, TikTok, Alipay, or League of Legends or Valorant, until China gives equal treatment to foreign internet firms.

That's not how the US Judiciary systems works. You can't ban dozen of apps based on "suspicious behaviour". You need to start an investigation , then you need to collect proofs , then based on those proofs prosecutor we'll be able to decide to sue or not , and ultimately a judge will decide to ban those apps or not.

It's why our western constitutional democracy are doomed to fail.

Our democracies move and react slower than authoritarian regime like China , Russia plus we have many economic interest with them. It's unlikely any politician would ban those apps .

Trump tried with Tik Tok, a judge blocked the order[0], and I agree with the justice. You can't block an app because you don't like it. You need some solid evidence to prosecute and stop a private a entity.

[0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-download-ban-is-blocked-...

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#15
post #7

How does this work? does this run inside the browser views inside the QQ app? Does Instagram do the same?

It just reads the history file off of the disk directly

Doesn't Android block apps from reading each other's saved files?

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#17
post #14
post #5

If China wants to use protectionism to wage digital economy warfare, let's respond in kind. No more Wechat, TikTok, Alipay, or League of Legends or Valorant, until China gives equal treatment to foreign internet firms. Note: Valorant installs a kernel driver as part of the "anti-cheat" system; described by many as a rootkit: https://www.osnews.com/story/131665/riot-games-maker-of-leag... Valorant's parent company is…

> If China wants to use protectionism to wage digital economy warfare, let's respond in kind. No more Wechat, TikTok, Alipay, or League of Legends or Valorant, until China gives equal treatment to foreign internet firms. That's not how the US Judiciary systems works. You can't ban dozen of apps based on "suspicious behaviour". You need to start an investigation , then you need to collect proofs , then based on those…

> It's why our western constitutional democracy are doomed to fail.

Quite a hyberbolic leap from not being able to arbitrarily ban foreign software to “democratic countries are doomed”. Weird

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#19

This is the type of behavior Apple intends to prevent with their signed app distribution, loathed by so many here.

Not loathed here. As an end user I am consciously paying for the sand boxing and permissions features of iOS and the app review process. With so much shitty behaviour out there it’s a trade off I’ve had to make.

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#20

This is the type of behavior Apple intends to prevent with their signed app distribution, loathed by so many here.

I guess the people who loathe it (not me though) are very well aware of this particular benefit and still think isn’t enough justification to enable it by default.
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