Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use • Hacker News Board

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#101

Post by m463 » Fri, May 01, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #33

zaro wrote: post #30

“It’s a lot worse than any of the mainstream browsers I have seen,” It's a lot worse than Chrome ? The Xiaomi browser tracks your browsing. The Google browser in combination with the most of the sites in the internet track your browsing, your location, and a lot of other things. Choosing the lesser evil is quite popular now days, and it's obvious which one it is.

> it's obvious which one it is. Indeed: it's Firefox.

Firefox does a lot of phone home stuff too. (Not like chrome's built-in tracking)

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#102

Post by grawprog » Fri, May 01, 2020, 1:13 AM UTC

thelittleone wrote: post #83

nogabebop23 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they go to all that trouble? Just 1. keep sending any and all data without any obfuscation 2. blanket denial of any wrong doing, regardless of how obvious 3. decent hardware for zero down on a contract profit!!! your way is so much more work...

Parents option would likely get around privacy regulations in some countries. So they can do the “much more work” you mentioned and also sell decent hardware for zero down on a contract, getting a bigger total market and more surveillance info.

I think that comes down to cost of work vs. fines at that point and which would cost more. If the fines are cheaper they may just opt for them.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#103

Post by guug » Fri, May 01, 2020, 1:13 AM UTC

It was only a matter of time before forign companies followed Google and Microsoft's lead and started slurping user data. Expecting any other outcome would be nothing short of delusional.

Screw Xiaomi and screw Google and Microsoft.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#104

Post by mekster » Fri, May 01, 2020, 1:16 AM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #82

amoshi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Root and then get flagged by Google's SafetyNet, preventing you from Netflix, banking apps etc? That's a brave but big sacrifice

>Netflix Hah. If properly paying for films requires you to install quasi-rootkits that spy 24/7 on your personal life, and pirating gives you a high-quality .mkv you can play anywhere you want, I damn fucking well know which one I'll choose. "Brave but big sacrifice"? That's just devaluing those words.

You forgot to add that your choice is damaging the innocent content creators.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#105

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Fri, May 01, 2020, 1:18 AM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #91

101404 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it is illegal under GDPR to include spying apps on phones without telling the user.

The question of the GDPR is not whether it's illegal but whether anything is done to crack down on offenders. Facebook, Google and thousands of marketing/analytics/advertising companies are still around and are stalking users with total disregard of the GDPR, so that's a clear negative.

Would someone who is downvoting this be willing to explain why? Because I have the same impression (that many GDPR rules are simply being ignored because enforcement is lacking).

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#106

Post by mekster » Fri, May 01, 2020, 1:23 AM UTC

thelittleone wrote: post #89

baq wrote: post #32

i didn't know for sure that such things would happen but expected it. one of the reasons i'm on an iphone for 2+ years. i've got zero trust in chinese manufacturers, in my mind they're just extensions of the CCP.

Same. I found this wiki page with a list of smartphone manufacturers by Country. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_brands_... I’ve visited Taiwan for work quite a few times and met with some of the big tech manufacturers. Very professional teams of engineers and a beautiful country. It would be super interesting if a Taiwanese manufacturer developed a smartphone + ecosystem whose selling point was…

How much influence does China have over Taiwan? Can they completely decline any malicious orders?

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#107

Post by peterwwillis » Fri, May 01, 2020, 1:25 AM UTC

Google has been doing this for like a decade, and we've known 5-Eyes has been collecting this data from them for like a decade. So I guess the news is that China is late to the party.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#108

Post by est31 » Fri, May 01, 2020, 1:33 AM UTC

cantrevealname wrote: post #43

Just wait till they: - start encrypting all the data they collect (with real encryption, not base64 encoding) - saving up the data for hours or days at time and sending it in bursts (so there is no immediate connection to a remote server) - sending the data to plausible U.S.-registered domains (rather than to Singapore and Russia) - monitoring at the kernel or firmware level so that it doesn't matter what browser or…

You can still open the firmware update file in ghidra, cutter or ida pro.

But yeah the trend is troubling. I also believe that it's only a matter of time once the "smart" devices (fridges, TVs, etc) start shipping with 5G modules enabled that send data to the mothership whether you set up WiFi for them or not. Because while you can't buy non-smart TVs, many users don't enable smart features by not connecting them to the network. The 5G module will probably only exist for tracking purposes and maybe firmware updates, but not for the netflix/youtube app.

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#109

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 01, 2020, 1:35 AM UTC

rubber_duck wrote: post #95

fastball wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why, without fail, I buy iPhones.

And then you can't install anything Apple doesn't want you to install. I like being able to run gameboy emulators on my phone for games I already paid 20 years ago, change my launcher/dialer, browser, etc.

[deleted]

Re: Xiaomi Recording ‘Private’ Web and Phone Use

#110

Post by climb_stealth » Fri, May 01, 2020, 1:38 AM UTC

pingec wrote: post #86

amiga-workbench wrote: post #28

Stuff like this is why without fail, every phone I own gets LineageOS installed immediately. Xiaomi phones have a bootloader unlock timer to try and mitigate sites reselling their phones with modified software, so I had to leave my Mix 2s alone for a few days before I could make it safe to use.

Are there any resources describing what you lose and gain by installing LineageOS? I'd like to know what will stop working before I try it out...

It probably depends on the device, but in the best case you are not losing anything. Especially as you can install google services, so Google Play and everything around it works.

The only apps that stopped working on my Poco F1 are apps that check for modified Android. For example my Australian digital drivers license app doesn't work as it detects the Android environment as non-standard. I believe you can do some root magic to work around it, but I could never be bothered to do so. Interestingly enough the three different banking apps I use all work fine.

Have a look at the installation instructions to see how you feel about it [0]. They are usually really good. The devil is in the detail though and you probably have to plan in an afternoon to use google to find workaround for bits that don't work. For example when I was upgrading to the latest Android version I had to install a different bootloader as the previous one wasn't compatible. It took a bit of looking around, but going from the error messages usually brings up the right solutions in various forums.

[0] https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/beryllium/install