Live data from Hacker News

Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns

reuters.com

161–170 of 427 posts

Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns

#161

I think you would have to be mad to leave the stock ROM running on a Xiaomi phone, IIRC they were caught logging peoples browser history a few years ago. Several models have mainline LineageOS support, I'm running Lineage on my Mix 2S and hope to have years worth of updates going forward. The hardware is really good value as long as you install an non-tainted OS.

Most people don't care if another country spies on them, since their laws don't apply to them. They would care much more if they are profiled by their own government. Or more like tech companies on behalf of the government spying on them, and them being discriminated, harassed, or jailed based on that data. So in a way its actually kind of smart to go with a Chinese phone if you live in America.

[deleted]

Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are more powerful than you may realize. Work on supporting open source hardware and software options. 1. If you are a developer, consider buying a Pinephone [1] and contributing to the codebase. 2. If not a developer, you can submit bug reports and test fixes. Same for Purism Librem phone as well [2]. 3. If you are neither, or have no time to spare but do have money, you can always purchase one for kicks or donat…

I hate to say this, but OSS anarchism is not going to work. Most people cannot really work or live with those devices. This is a problem that needs to be solved with legislation, lobbying, superPACs, and candidates who are not ethically flexible. The solution to bad government is not "no government" and the solution to bad company behavior is better rules.

Certainly, legislation would be enormously helpful, but legislation isn't incantation. Economic factors are real.

Western countries need to rebuild their domestic manufacturing bases. There is no other way to guarantee that production will respect ethical norms and no other way to realistically punish violations. Legislation must incrementally direct industry back to the West and provide conditions under which it can flourish. This is easier said than done which is why any temptation to outsource ought to be VERY carefully considered because once you outsource industry, not only do you destroy the industrial base and mutually beneficial complex relationships, but you also starve domestic expertise and competence and the culture of that industry. Industry is a culture and culture is only transmitted when it is living, when there is a society of people who communicate and share and contribute and make use of it. If you ship textile manufacturing abroad, your domestic textile culture atrophies and withers. I think people underestimate this. It's not just a matter of willing something. You don't just say "well, all we need to do is build a factory for making X". Yeah? Who knows how to build that factory and to make X, and make it well so that it is competitive? Not you. Western cultures have forgotten how to make certain things. It's like trying to go into the pyramid building business by just wanting to do it or by looking over some old papyrus. Yeah, sure, you have to start somewhere, and do start, but don't expect it to be easy.

Decentralizing production is also better for security by removing unnecessary dependence. You want production to be distributed. You do not want one guy to make all of X.

And placing your bets on Chinese reform or political pressure on China to "be nice" is so ludicrous that I won't waste my proverbial breath. I will only say that the vast imperial ambitions of China are not only obvious, but that the elites of our own countries have taken a liking to their methods. The recent self-hatred of Westerners creates a vacuum, and Chinese ideas seem poised to fill it.

Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns

#163
post #150

What would people suggest with regards to IoT devices? I own a Xiaomi robotic vacuum for instance. I've taken the usual step of putting it on a segregated IoT network but it's also got a builtin camera.

Not trying to be a jerk, but the S in IoT comes from Security. I work in an area where IoT is the top buzzword of the past 3-4 years, I have nothing in my house and so far nothing in my work area of influence. I have a "smart" Chinese air conditioning unit with WiFi disabled and a "smart" Samsung TV with Ethernet not connected, not because I am paranoid but because I am old enough to have some life experience.

Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns

#164
post #152

From the shared PDF page 23... "It has been established that during the initialisation of the system applications factory-installed on a Xiaomi Mi 10T device, these applications contact a server in Singapore at the address globalapi.ad.xiaomi.com (IP address 47.241.69.153) and download the JSON file MiAdBlacklistConfig, and save this file in the metadata catalogues of the applications. A list of applications for whic…

So, what are the other entries, and why were they redacted out?

Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s underrated but DJI drones sold by millions is a great way to spy on what could not be gathered through satellite imagery. If not now then during war time, CCP has a million remote cameras in form of DJI drones and can turn it on in a snap. It would require nationwide firewall to stop. Of course, DJI drones require DJI flight app to even take off. Why isn’t US Gov putting together legislation for this sort of a t…

In your scenario, is China leveraging it's own DJI drones? Or DJI drones already owned by hobbyists?

Taking over drones owned by hobbyists.

There seems to be a onslaught of positive DJI YouTube videos about how creating a user account is great and easy. Including fake comments praising DJI. Just search on YT DJI Mavic Pro setup.

All this is too suspicious for me. I returned the drone for obvious reasons but millions of people are already buying into the ecosystem.

Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns

#167
post #68
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The allegation is that the censorship code is there. It's disabled on phones in western markets, but can be enabled remotely by the manufacturer.

So, it's better than US made spyware which cannot be removed from "our" PC CPUs? Best we can do is "disable" these features in the BIOS/UEFI and sleep well, even though we nothing's really stopped. Sorry for the whataboutism but I am lot less concerned about Chinese spyware because I know for a fact that my government serves the EU and the US. All this anti China propaganda is really tiresome. China this, China that.…

As you can see, one gets downvoted quickly when pointing out double standards, or posting anything else that could interfere with anti-Chinese propaganda efforts.

Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns

#168
post #62

I 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…

Western companies and business people have been remarkably myopic over the last few decades when it comes to the reality of doing business in China. The parent comment here is exactly right... this person knows what they are talking about yet somehow companies in the West seem to persist in trying to make a go of it. They almost all eventually learn their lesson but it doesn't have to be this way. This is not new info or new behavior.

Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns

#169
post #164
post #152

From the shared PDF page 23... "It has been established that during the initialisation of the system applications factory-installed on a Xiaomi Mi 10T device, these applications contact a server in Singapore at the address globalapi.ad.xiaomi.com (IP address 47.241.69.153) and download the JSON file MiAdBlacklistConfig, and save this file in the metadata catalogues of the applications. A list of applications for whic…

So, what are the other entries, and why were they redacted out?

PDF is here: https://www.nksc.lt/doc/en/analysis/2021-08-23_5G-CN-analysi...

...do you want me to post 449 items? :-)

Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns

#170

I'm really not sure how serious I should take the threat of Chinese made electronics - almost all electronics are made China, not just Xaiomi and Hauwei. My iphone is made in China by Chinese contract manufacturer (Foxconn) - does that mean all iphones could be compromised with Chinese malware? It could be possible, but how can you tell? Is it possible to observe network packets going form my phone to a Chinese or Ch…

Just a nit because you’re mostly right, but Foxconn is a Taiwanese company that does its manufacturing in China.
Post reply on HN