if one company is doing it, they're all doing it.
From the snowden leaks we know the NSA puts their own firmware into enterprise hardware.
One should assume that they're in american consumer hardware firmware as well
Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
101–110 of 427 posts
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#102I wonder how long it will take until $RANDOMCOUNTRY says the same thing about US phones.
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#103I just helped someone remove the built-in Chinese malware from a US Government provided phone. It's insane. https://blog.malwarebytes.com/android/2020/07/we-found-yet-a...
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Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#104Are there any good non-Chinese smartphone besides Samsung? Preferably someone who delivers a stock android?
Just buy Pixel phones, the pure Android experience and day 1 updates are worth it. The new Pixel 6 will use LTS kernel and custom SoC, rumored to have updates for 5 years instead of what was a standard of 3.
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Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#105I just helped someone remove the built-in Chinese malware from a US Government provided phone. It's insane. https://blog.malwarebytes.com/android/2020/07/we-found-yet-a...
Wow thanks for all that you do and blogging about this.
HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28499918
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#106pfff... this is nothing. the government simply stop you on the roadside, demand you unlock your phone and if they find any vpn, or god forbid any "anti national content", beat you to a pulp and then charge you for terrorism. state sponsored mobile surveillance is too far away.
edit: the downvoters think i am just bluffing? https://thekashmirwalla.com/not-pegasus-kashmiris-are-worrie...
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#107I just helped someone remove the built-in Chinese malware from a US Government provided phone. It's insane. https://blog.malwarebytes.com/android/2020/07/we-found-yet-a...
This is what kinda terrifies me about today's digital landscape. Now it's so cheap to hide surveillance capabilities (spyware, hidden microphones or cameras) that bad actors can just embed surveillance into every cheap device, hoping just by sheer numbers to get one into a sensitive area (e.g. Pentagon, Langley), and then remotely activate surveillance. With the computational capabilities of today's data centers, they don't even have to be all that selective anymore. They could just be monitoring everyone, at some granularity, dumping logs into a massive database with just enough metadata to make it searchable/queryable.
It's downright dystopian.
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#108I wonder why is anybody still surprised. China has no qualms invading privacy of anybody. They will try any and every way to get whatever they need and they are pretty effective at it. Ever read about making business in China? What we call cheating or stealing is a standard business practice there. If you point it out they will back off and try somewhere else, ad nauseam. It is practically part of Chinese culture and…
I think the focus on China with respect to privacy is misplaced. This is a problem with many tech companies now. Just look at how smart TVs hoover up data from their customers. There's a danger to painting this as a problem with China's tech industry because it implicitly lets other tech companies off the hook for their horrendous privacy practices. > What we call cheating or stealing is a standard business practice…
Appreciate your perspective here, you're right. The insidious "filter list" in the dictionary is sensational and the meta-story is around the worldwide invasion of user privacy.
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#109From the article: Relations between Lithuania and China have soured recently. China demanded last month that Lithuania withdraw its ambassador in Beijing and said it would recall its envoy to Vilnius after Taiwan announced that its mission in Lithuania would be called the Taiwanese Representative Office No one trust China but this sure looks like politically motivated. Was someone else able to authenticate or reprodu…
You can read the report and literally look up file on your Xiaomi phone which contains censored words.
Most people don't have Xiaomi phones. And it's worth noting that the document only mentions some of those, from over 300 entries. What are the others and why were they redacted out?
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#110I wonder why is anybody still surprised. China has no qualms invading privacy of anybody. They will try any and every way to get whatever they need and they are pretty effective at it. Ever read about making business in China? What we call cheating or stealing is a standard business practice there. If you point it out they will back off and try somewhere else, ad nauseam. It is practically part of Chinese culture and…
I think the focus on China with respect to privacy is misplaced. This is a problem with many tech companies now. Just look at how smart TVs hoover up data from their customers. There's a danger to painting this as a problem with China's tech industry because it implicitly lets other tech companies off the hook for their horrendous privacy practices. > What we call cheating or stealing is a standard business practice…
> I think the focus on China with respect to privacy is misplaced. This is a problem with many tech companies now.
Yes and no.
Yes, it is a problem with many tech companies, I agree.
But the way China does this is something completely different. Tech companies do this for their profit. China as a country exploits every single avenue to steal information and protect their position.