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Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

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Re: Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

#131

Post by La1n »

systemvoltage wrote: post #125

I am truly appalled at the level of discussion from intellectuals as I consider on HN. Comments here are repeatedly evaluating whether the same thing would apply to US. I expect more from HN. Can we please discuss the problem in isolation and especially the interesting technical bits? Ask yourself, this kind of exploitation is bad regardless of whether any country does something similar. It's anti-user in every possi…

> Can we please discuss the problem in isolation and especially the interesting technical bits?

Sure, but you also see this problem doesn't exists in a vacuum. Noted by you bringing up concentration camp numbers in this exact comment section. Maybe you should listen to your own advice?

Re: Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

#132

Post by pedrosorio »

totalZero wrote: post #94
stevewodil wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>1.) Xiaomi worth billions of dollars, not 1.4 trillion, but way more than most companies. They're referring to Alphabet's (Google) market cap, not Xiaomi's.

Pretty clear that GP understands this, since his next point specifically addresses Google. I think he's saying that Xiaomi is also a big company, albeit less big. Seems like a fair point.

This is a very interesting chain on how people interpret comments. To me (and you) it is obvious that GP only had one reason to mention Google (the 1.4 trillion valuation), but both the OP and the person you are responding to were convinced the GP "didn't get it". Fascinating.

Re: Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

#133

Post by oblio »

tpmx wrote: post #93
cwhiz wrote: post #29

Chinese browser collects your data? Spyware. American company collects your data? $1,400,000,000,000 valuation. This reminds me of how we call Russian billionaires "oligarchs" but we just call American billionaires...billionaires.

> This reminds me of how we call Russian billionaires "oligarchs" but we just call American billionaires...billionaires. Seriously, this is what you're going with? Russigan oligarchs are people who just straight out stole national assets from the Soviet Union/Russia, with the help of the current ruler. There's a relatively clear definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oligarch

I don't know why you're being downvoted, the word has a very precise meaning. As much as we can whine about Google and such, all of them solved a valid problem many people were facing, and they did it brilliantly. For a really long time Google Search really was the only game in town.

The problem we have is with their externalities. For oligarchs, the main line of business > the problem.

Re: Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

#134

Post by names_are_hard »

grishka wrote: post #116
walrus01 wrote: post #7

I truly don't understand, from a security and privacy perspective, why would anyone outside of China would voluntarily choose to run closed-source software from a company that's subject to domestic laws and regulations in China. The MSS is no joke. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=china+mss... This is the same reason that Zoom is banned at my workplace and many other partner companies. You've actual…

Xiaomi phones are frighteningly popular here in Russia because they're very cheap. Like, a-phone-could-not-cost-this-little cheap. A 7000₽ (around $100) phone? Why not, seems legit! And not many people really understand what Xiaomi is actually doing to offset that cost. Heck, when you open the built-in calculator app in MIUI, it has a freakin privacy policy and refuses to operate if you don't accept that. Same for th…

Not defending Xiaomi in general, but it's worth mentioning that the stock calculator in MIUI (at least when I last used it) was much more than just a traditional calculator. It had all kinds of sophisticated functionality that goes beyond our arithmetic, such as currency conversion, which obviously requires network and an api that might very well be third party and require a privacy policy.

So while I assume they're tracking users, I don't think the calculator having a privacy policy is as shocking as it initially sounds.

Re: Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

#135

Post by chomp »

cwhiz wrote: post #76
chomp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.) Xiaomi worth billions of dollars, not 1.4 trillion, but way more than most companies. 2.) People call out Google all. the. time. There's an article here weekly about dumping Google, finding alternatives, praying for antitrust regulation, etc. 3.) We don't commonly call billionaires who live in the middle east, china, and other non-western countries "oligarchs", do you know why? Why are you so upset about Xiaomi g…

>Xiaomi worth billions of dollars, not 1.4 trillion, but way more than most companies. I'm referring to Google with that valuation. >We don't commonly call billionaires who live in the middle east, china, and other non-western countries "oligarchs", do you know why? Propaganda? An oligarch is a rich person with a lot of political influence. Sounds like an average billionaire to me. >People call out Google all. the. t…

I know you were referring to Google, that is why I made the point about Google. Xiaomi is a tech company with a personal data spying program and is worth maybe 50 billion, and supposedly the "4th most valuable startup in the world," if you trust Wikipedia. My point is that the valuation is based on the profit potential that investors see, not how ethical either company actually is. And both derive a non-zero amount of that value from spying on humans.

The Russian oligarchs are a group of people that grabbed large amounts of wealth by reaping the downfall of the Soviet Union. They are a very specific, well connected group of people outside of normal Russian billionaires. The reason specifically that they are oligarchs instead of just normal billionaires is that they are very plugged into the government and sway its operation. And I know there's some cynics out there that will be like "well that's just billionaires in general" but I encourage you to learn about the leverage this group of people have on normal government operations.

With regards to the observation that no one refers to Google as spyware, I don't think I see this either. But I do see tons of mainstream articles raising the point that Google spies on users. The problem is that (it feels like, at least) only us tech-inclined seem to care:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2020/10/27/heres-...

>The report found that 80% of Americans think at least one tech giant is listening in on their conversations: Facebook at 68%; TikTok at 53%; and Google at 45%. But only 18% said they had deleted Facebook because of privacy concerns.

I fully agree Google is just an advertising company dressed up, and also further propose that its open source contributions and tech projects are its robing. I think there's still room to criticize other companies however, especially since privacy issues from companies like Xiaomi don't often get featured on HN.

Re: Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

#136

Post by firebaze »

I use a Huawei matebook D14 as my personal device. Its primary use is in a WiFi-network (as in 99% of the time). Since I also use MS devices in the same network I log all IPs being accessed from my network (https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wire...)

I'll leave the log results of accessed IPs as an exercise to the reader. Hint: no chinese/russian IP addresses are being accessed.

I'd guess a lot more people use Huawei devices (before they were outlawed) than explicitly using a Xiaomi browser.

And a lot of people didn't forget Snowden.

Addendum: I use a MacBook pro (32gig, I7) and a Win10 pro work device (32gig, I7) as well. Neither contacts China or russia. Both of them submit ~10x of unknown traffic than the Huawei device.

I don't want to paint the chinese dictatorship as "good", not at all. But I do want to remind that the US is - as experienced by an EU consumer - worse. Not now, but maybe in the future, at least according to collected data.

Re: Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

#137

Post by rchaud »

missedthecue wrote: post #82
cwhiz wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Xiaomi worth billions of dollars, not 1.4 trillion, but way more than most companies. I'm referring to Google with that valuation. >We don't commonly call billionaires who live in the middle east, china, and other non-western countries "oligarchs", do you know why? Propaganda? An oligarch is a rich person with a lot of political influence. Sounds like an average billionaire to me. >People call out Google all. the. t…

How much political influence do you think someone like Bezos really has? Everyone in washington hates him. No one wants to do favors for him. They drag him in front of congress do get a bunch of soundbites to play next election cycle. They win elections on shutting down his headquarter plans. They want to break up his company, raise his taxes on unrealized capital gains, they want to force him to divest his personal…

> Everyone in washington hates him.

In public, sure. Behind the scenes, they're taking meetings with his lobbyists, and somehow the tax raise never happens despite politicians talking about ad nauseam.

Part of modern politics is running a kabuki theatre of performative populism on the campaign trail. Not much happens once they are in office, because you need quick wins ahead of the next election.

Re: Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

#138

Post by eznzt »

systemvoltage wrote: post #114
lucideer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be the same reason anyone outside of the US would voluntarily choose to run close-source software from a company that's subject to domestic laws and regulations in the US? The ECPA is no joke.

Responses like this are so predictable and shed no further light or provide no new insight. They're unproductive and flame-war prone. I downvoted your comment.

There is nothing new about the question "why would someone buy cheap phones when they come with spyware". So someone asks a shit question and gets a shit answer.

Re: Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

#139

Post by grishka »

walrus01 wrote: post #128
grishka wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xiaomi phones are frighteningly popular here in Russia because they're very cheap. Like, a-phone-could-not-cost-this-little cheap. A 7000₽ (around $100) phone? Why not, seems legit! And not many people really understand what Xiaomi is actually doing to offset that cost. Heck, when you open the built-in calculator app in MIUI, it has a freakin privacy policy and refuses to operate if you don't accept that. Same for th…

In large software companies that have whole GUI/human interface design departments, they do lots of R&D and testing of interfaces. Traditional things like putting people with new software interfaces in rooms with video cameras and one-way mirrors of staff watching. It would be very interesting to see a random sampling of 20 'non technical' users presented with such a phone, and given instructions simply "here is your…

Now, I'm not a UX specialist, I'm merely a developer and these are just my own observations, but...

Generally, if you interrupt the user's flow of thought (if that's a thing) with something unrelated, they'll do the easiest thing possible to rid themselves of that annoyance, like a modal alert you threw at them, to get back on track doing whatever they intended to do. That's what all those consent popups are about. And that's why dark patterns work more often than not.

I roughly categorize UI/UX patterns into those that respect the user and those that don't. Showing a modal and making them decide something right now and right there is very disrespectful and off-putting. iOS of all things does this for system updates, low battery, and some urgent as hell alerts about your Apple ID. What you should be doing instead is use something non-blocking that can be ignored, like a notification, an icon badge, or a clickable bar at the top of the screen. Anyway, I digress.

And then, if you need a calculator, but the one that came with your phone quits unless accept the terms of use, what are you gonna do, as a non-technical person? Go to Google Play and look for a better one? Probably not.

Re: Are Xiaomi browsers spyware? Yes, they are (2020)

#140

Post by rglullis »

HNfriend234 wrote: post #113
walrus01 wrote: post #7

I truly don't understand, from a security and privacy perspective, why would anyone outside of China would voluntarily choose to run closed-source software from a company that's subject to domestic laws and regulations in China. The MSS is no joke. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=china+mss... This is the same reason that Zoom is banned at my workplace and many other partner companies. You've actual…

I use a xiaomi phone and the reason I use it is because it is significantly cheaper compared to a samsung or apple phone. Example: A $200 xiaomi phone is equivalent in specs to a $600 Samsung. Also it is likely the Chinese are spying on me indirectly (data collection where the chinses military can access the data if they want to) but I really have nothing significant on me that the Chinese would want to be concerned…

> significantly cheaper compared to a samsung or apple phone.

Shouldn't that be a huge red flag? Any time someone offers something too good to be true, it never is.

> Also it is likely the Chinese are spying on me indirectly

Why?

> I really have nothing significant on me that the Chinese would want to be concerned with me.

It's not just about you, dammit. [0]

By accepting their offer, you validate their actions. You give them bigger reach and make it easier for them to get people that might be of interest.

    [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument
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