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Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

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Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#11

Post by murbard2 »

beauzero wrote: post #7
murbard2 wrote: post #6

The US is forcing its tourists to give away a list of all their social media accounts and all their email accounts. If you're a foreign journalist writing pseudonymously for your safety, you must now share that information with the US government to enter the country. This isn't quite on the level of forcing people to install malware on their phone yet, but give it a couple years.

How is this enforcable? ...or is it just the accounts that you will be using while in the US? Technically this seems difficult to enforce.

I think the point will be selective enforcement. Make a completely unreasonable request that travelers are unlikely to perfectly comply with (even if inadvertently -- do you remember your Digg profile?) and later enforce a penalty at your discretion. Soft-totalitarianism.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#12

Post by pulse7 »

murbard2 wrote: post #6

The US is forcing its tourists to give away a list of all their social media accounts and all their email accounts. If you're a foreign journalist writing pseudonymously for your safety, you must now share that information with the US government to enter the country. This isn't quite on the level of forcing people to install malware on their phone yet, but give it a couple years.

So much about falling freedom of press in the US...

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#13

Post by rwmj »

Before I went to China I bought a burner phone, mainly to install WeChat (which is also a kind of malware and also "required" in China). Basic Android phones are not too expensive these days - I wonder if it will become commonplace to own several and physically separate your life across them?

FWIW I got a Huawei phone (Honor 10 Lite) for under 200 EUR, but much cheaper phones than that are available.

Edit: To be clear this is not to avoid Chinese surveillance. That's unavoidable whatever you do because China is a police state. It's to separate out that surveillance from my contacts and my regular life at home. (I also think it's at least arguable that the Chinese government has a duty to look closely at what foreigners are up to. It's not an argument that I agree with myself very much because it infringes freedom while also making the wrong trade-offs, but given we live in a world of nation states it follows logically from that.)

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#14

Post by Crinus »

x2f10 wrote: post #5

I fear backlash from this comment, but is this a case against side-loading apps?

No, because if it is mandated by law then it will need to be available region locked in app stores for China.

So with this stance (ie. against "side-loading" - what a crappy term) not only you make things worse for everyone (not being able to use their own devices as they see fit) even though they wouldn't be visiting China, you also validate region locking (another shitty practice that has no place in a global internet and only serves whoever wants to divide people) including any tech necessary for it (and thus monetary incentives for whoever implements it) and not solve the issue at hand (people being forced to install malware) since it can be done just as easily through normal routes.

No, if you do not want such stuff then speak against it and do not put yourself in a position to be affected by it (do not visit China, use burner phones, whatever).

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#15

Post by lixtra »

murbard2 wrote: post #6

The US is forcing its tourists to give away a list of all their social media accounts and all their email accounts. If you're a foreign journalist writing pseudonymously for your safety, you must now share that information with the US government to enter the country. This isn't quite on the level of forcing people to install malware on their phone yet, but give it a couple years.

On the last ESTA form I saw, they were asking not for all, but specific accounts. Apart from fb and Twitter there was also github, but I don’t remember seeing mastedon for example. Did I miss something?

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#16

Post by komali2 »

tartuffe78 wrote: post #8

[flagged]

There's nothing inherent to the economic theory of Communism that requires a police state.

This is entirely due to the totalitarian ruling government in the PRC. Even the capitalist ROC was a totalitarian government for decades.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#17

Post by motohagiography »

Does Signal prevent this or not?

If the malware roots the device, probably not, but if it takes read.sms permissions, it should only get ciphertext. if it replaces the main SMS messenger, then it breaks, but you'd know.

I just did a rough threat model on this exact scenario and worked with the assumption that Signal's MasterSecret covered it in the sms DB - but haven't done a thorough code review yet.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#18

Post by folkrav »

murbard2 wrote: post #6

The US is forcing its tourists to give away a list of all their social media accounts and all their email accounts. If you're a foreign journalist writing pseudonymously for your safety, you must now share that information with the US government to enter the country. This isn't quite on the level of forcing people to install malware on their phone yet, but give it a couple years.

They already can force you to give up physical access to your phone, which is basically the worst option.

Re: Chinese authorities install app on phones of people entering Xinjiang

#19

Post by rovek »

murbard2 wrote: post #6

The US is forcing its tourists to give away a list of all their social media accounts and all their email accounts. If you're a foreign journalist writing pseudonymously for your safety, you must now share that information with the US government to enter the country. This isn't quite on the level of forcing people to install malware on their phone yet, but give it a couple years.

This was optional on the ESTA form when I completed it less than a month ago, maybe it's different for different countries.

Not a good direction but also not enforced in my experience.

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