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68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal

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Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal

#21

Post by cutitout »

chickenpotpie wrote: post #17

I remember a few days ago there was a post on hackernews to stop being mean to the people that worked at signal. The Twitter user linked in that article is railing into signal devs and she calls them assholes that don’t care about what happens outside of western society. https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/119769537620088012...

> calls them assholes that don’t care about what happens outside of western society

That's hardly her main point:

> For Chinese who are used to a specific IME- like Sogou, trying to type on something else is a tiny bit like a QWERTY user suddenly faced with Dvorak- we can make it work, but it's slow enough day to day that 50/50 they just install Sogou because what's the big deal right?

> The Signal "fix" is "Incognito Mode" aka for the app to say "Pretty please don't read everything I type" to the virtual keyboard and count on Google/random app makers to listen to the flag, and not be under court order to do otherwise.

> Needless to say, Sogou/Baidu dos not respect the IME_FLAG_NO_PERSONALIZED_LEARNING flag. So basically all hardware here is self-compromised 5 minutes out of the box.

> so unless journalists tell them otherwise, which they have not been doing- users will install Sogou.

This is important.

Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal

#22

Post by kombucha111 »

u678u wrote: post #19
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #13

How does Signal work in the context of the Great Firewall? Can china shut down Signal by banning traffic that seems like Signal communication??

Agreed this was my surprise about the headline. I assumed it'd be blocked.

It works as is usually on Chinese ISPs though I noticed occasional interruptions. Using a VPN got rid of those disruptions.

Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal

#23

Post by durkie »

cutitout wrote: post #21
chickenpotpie wrote: post #17

I remember a few days ago there was a post on hackernews to stop being mean to the people that worked at signal. The Twitter user linked in that article is railing into signal devs and she calls them assholes that don’t care about what happens outside of western society. https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/119769537620088012...

> calls them assholes that don’t care about what happens outside of western society That's hardly her main point: > For Chinese who are used to a specific IME- like Sogou, trying to type on something else is a tiny bit like a QWERTY user suddenly faced with Dvorak- we can make it work, but it's slow enough day to day that 50/50 they just install Sogou because what's the big deal right? > The Signal "fix" is "Incognit…

I understand Naomi's point here, but I'm unclear how it relates to Signal. Isn't this an issue with 3rd party keyboards in any app?

Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal

#24

Post by spacehunt »

novok wrote: post #10
xster wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they did, creating a Chinese IME is a really difficult problem space. Since typing is generally done phonetically in mainland/HK/taiwan and the real words being typed are ideographic, there's a lot of inference to translate in between. Considering how quickly the language moves to keep up with internet culture and new newsworthy names, new parlances, new memes, an IME has to do the equivalent of staying up to…

The side effects of chinese not adopting a phonographic writing system when it could, or having both like japanese does so you don’t need to use such an informal ambiguous layer when actually writing.

Here's a popular, commercial Japanese IME: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATOK

Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal

#25

Post by matsemann »

cutitout wrote: post #21
chickenpotpie wrote: post #17

I remember a few days ago there was a post on hackernews to stop being mean to the people that worked at signal. The Twitter user linked in that article is railing into signal devs and she calls them assholes that don’t care about what happens outside of western society. https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/119769537620088012...

> calls them assholes that don’t care about what happens outside of western society That's hardly her main point: > For Chinese who are used to a specific IME- like Sogou, trying to type on something else is a tiny bit like a QWERTY user suddenly faced with Dvorak- we can make it work, but it's slow enough day to day that 50/50 they just install Sogou because what's the big deal right? > The Signal "fix" is "Incognit…

But if a person has something important to say, calling people that don't know about the issue assholes is not a great way to go about it. I know there is a western, and especially US/English, bias in tech. But it's not like everyone tries to annoy others, it's more an issue of ignorance.

Btw I agree that when Signal says your messages are secure, it should probably do something to warn about ways things still may leak.

Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal

#26

Post by upofadown »

u678u wrote: post #19
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #13

How does Signal work in the context of the Great Firewall? Can china shut down Signal by banning traffic that seems like Signal communication??

Agreed this was my surprise about the headline. I assumed it'd be blocked.

It isn't really suitable for political dissent. I think they would be more unhappy with things like Telegram that can have huge group chats.

Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal

#27

Post by cutitout »

matsemann wrote: post #25
cutitout wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> calls them assholes that don’t care about what happens outside of western society That's hardly her main point: > For Chinese who are used to a specific IME- like Sogou, trying to type on something else is a tiny bit like a QWERTY user suddenly faced with Dvorak- we can make it work, but it's slow enough day to day that 50/50 they just install Sogou because what's the big deal right? > The Signal "fix" is "Incognit…

But if a person has something important to say, calling people that don't know about the issue assholes is not a great way to go about it. I know there is a western, and especially US/English, bias in tech. But it's not like everyone tries to annoy others, it's more an issue of ignorance. Btw I agree that when Signal says your messages are secure, it should probably do something to warn about ways things still may le…

> But if a person has something important to say, calling people that don't know about the issue assholes is not a great way to go about it.

I don't mind it at all. If someone uses "being called asshole" as a reason to not even inform anyone, they would have found another excuse. Some people simply register it as strong language and otherwise focus on the content. At any rate, it's very easy to judge what someone says in frustration when you yourself don't even suffer from the situation and/or don't care about those who do.

> But it's not like everyone tries to annoy other, it's more an issue of ignorance.

So she shed light on that, and instead of talking about the important bit, people think it's super important to teach a random person to not be rude, ever? That's what we're focusing on?

Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal

#30

Post by solarkraft »

I'll file this under "security tips". Signal should probably give its users tips for communicating securely - but that's at least one degree separate from "warn users about insecure IMEs".

Additionally, if you're already using a chinese phone, why does it matter whether your IME is compromised? Doesn't the CCP already have its nose in all of the manufacturers' OSes already? Maybe Signal should warn about that as well.

I'm all for helping people communicate securely, something Signal should be very interested in, but the hyper focus on IMEs is confusing.

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