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“Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

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Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#21

Post by jeswin »

dannyw wrote: post #5

If China wants to use protectionism to wage digital economy warfare, let's respond in kind. No more Wechat, TikTok, Alipay, or League of Legends or Valorant, until China gives equal treatment to foreign internet firms. Note: Valorant installs a kernel driver as part of the "anti-cheat" system; described by many as a rootkit: https://www.osnews.com/story/131665/riot-games-maker-of-leag... Valorant's parent company is…

China exported $125B worth of mobile phones. Cutting Google Play Store off would seriously harm their ability to sell outside - I wonder why Google doesn't play hard ball.

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#22

Post by LockAndLol »

alexmingoia wrote: post #11

This is the type of behavior Apple intends to prevent with their signed app distribution, loathed by so many here.

Doesn't Google Chrome do that already (log everything) and still many people use it? And wasn't there a recent article about how programs couldn't be run on Big Sur because some server somewhere could verify the hash before it was ran? It was discovered because the OS slowed down to an unbearable speed except when running Apple programs.

Signed app distribution won't solve this problem.

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#23

Post by oefrha »

systemvoltage wrote: post #9
dannyw wrote: post #5

If China wants to use protectionism to wage digital economy warfare, let's respond in kind. No more Wechat, TikTok, Alipay, or League of Legends or Valorant, until China gives equal treatment to foreign internet firms. Note: Valorant installs a kernel driver as part of the "anti-cheat" system; described by many as a rootkit: https://www.osnews.com/story/131665/riot-games-maker-of-leag... Valorant's parent company is…

To clone Chinese OSS, you need WeChat account or OTP+Phone in China. This feels totally against the principles of good faith in OSS dev. They can clone and take advantage of the rest of the world’s efforts while returning nothing back. Asshole, is the term for such entities. To be fair, some cool Chinese developers do have repos on GitHub. They’re not the majority though. Edit: Hold on folks, I need to find source of…

Wait what? Last time youtube-dl got taken down on GitHub, someone advertised a Chinese mirror https://gitee.com/mirrors/youtube-downloader, and I was able to clone it just fine. Not sure where you got the idea that you need a WeChat account to clone. Are you talking about some other site?

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#24

Post by blackrock »

dannyw wrote: post #5

If China wants to use protectionism to wage digital economy warfare, let's respond in kind. No more Wechat, TikTok, Alipay, or League of Legends or Valorant, until China gives equal treatment to foreign internet firms. Note: Valorant installs a kernel driver as part of the "anti-cheat" system; described by many as a rootkit: https://www.osnews.com/story/131665/riot-games-maker-of-leag... Valorant's parent company is…

Relax dude. Tencent QQ does not represent China. It’s just one company.

Facebook does some shady shit too. Like stealing all your phone contacts list, without your permission. This is also a terrible invasion of your privacy.

By your logic, since Facebook is an American company, then by extension, this shitty behavior is reflective of all of America.

Besides, who uses QQ on their computers anymore?

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#25

Post by veeti »

alexmingoia wrote: post #11

This is the type of behavior Apple intends to prevent with their signed app distribution, loathed by so many here.

There is no technical reason or requirement for Apple to be the ultimate gatekeeper of their walled garden just to sandbox file access. But I'm sure they are more than happy to conflate these things in the name of "security".

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#26

Post by crentist_the_d »

meibo wrote: post #3

I wonder how much you get away with posting/publicizing RE of these things on Chinese blogs as a PRC citizen. I would be very careful.

The article says "no, QQ is not stealing your history, you just need to disable the rule and it stops". I guess that's how they cover for themselves.

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#28

Post by joshuaissac »

systemvoltage wrote: post #9
dannyw wrote: post #5

If China wants to use protectionism to wage digital economy warfare, let's respond in kind. No more Wechat, TikTok, Alipay, or League of Legends or Valorant, until China gives equal treatment to foreign internet firms. Note: Valorant installs a kernel driver as part of the "anti-cheat" system; described by many as a rootkit: https://www.osnews.com/story/131665/riot-games-maker-of-leag... Valorant's parent company is…

To clone Chinese OSS, you need WeChat account or OTP+Phone in China. This feels totally against the principles of good faith in OSS dev. They can clone and take advantage of the rest of the world’s efforts while returning nothing back. Asshole, is the term for such entities. To be fair, some cool Chinese developers do have repos on GitHub. They’re not the majority though. Edit: Hold on folks, I need to find source of…

> To clone Chinese OSS, you need WeChat account or OTP+Phone in China

Do you have a source for this? I tried signing up on Gitee (Chinese GitHub alternative), and it did not ask me to prove that I had WeChat or a phone number.

> some cool Chinese developers do have repos on GitHub

Mirroring their projects on GitHub might be fine, but given the current relationship between China and the US (where GitHub is hosted), Chinese developers would be better off hosting their main repo elsewhere.

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#29

Post by oefrha »

crentist_the_d wrote: post #26
meibo wrote: post #3

I wonder how much you get away with posting/publicizing RE of these things on Chinese blogs as a PRC citizen. I would be very careful.

The article says "no, QQ is not stealing your history, you just need to disable the rule and it stops". I guess that's how they cover for themselves.

Nowhere does the article say that. Please don't spread made-up bullshit like this.

Re: “Tencent QQ caught scraping all browser history on Windows”

#30

Post by nomay »

It was trying to read certain types of URLs encoded in MD5, found to be these.

https://i.imgur.com/rSOyTt7.jpg

It wants to know what you searched on e-commerce sites.

This is somewhat unsursprising, Tencent failed on e-commerce, it desperately needs these data to help with user profiling.

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