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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)

#211

Post by ajsnigrutin »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #102
danpalmer wrote: post #16

This paragraph stood out to me: > The intention here seems to be that aigt is the timestamp when the ID was generated. So if that timestamp deviates from current time by more than 7776000000 milliseconds (90 days) a new ID is going to be generated. However, this implementation is buggy, it will update aigt on every call rather than only when a new ID is generated. So the only scenario where a new ID will be generated…

> If we assume that Xiaomi aren't literally trying to spy for a government Is that even allowed by Chinese law?

Better question is, why are those devices allowed to be sold in EU/US/...

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

#212

Post by Daho0n »

ywei3410 wrote: post #183
ev1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been told that the reasoning behind this is shady resellers loading unremovable system malware to the system partition (which runs as device admin++) before reselling this to you. Apparently this is a huge problem in China, where there seems to be quite literally no trust at all on online shopping. This actually does seem to be the case if you try buying devices from any NON-xiaomi-official store Aliexpress shop…

Jesus, do you have any sources (Chinese is fine) for this? This is horribly anti-consumer and I'm surprised there's not more of a push back if it's so common.

Anti-consumer? By the capitalist businesses? Of course. It's just like buying crap from Amazon. If you use it you support it.

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

#213

Post by chomp »

ckozlowski wrote: post #161
chomp wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

There's a big difference between Google exploiting private data to sell you more things, and a different company exploiting private data to hand over to a police agency that arrests individuals for having the wrong political views. I'm not suggesting the former is without fault, and fault by one does not absolve another. But you're right in that these are two very, very different things.

Oh, yeah definitely. I just dislike getting into those weeds specifically because it gets people weighing wrong on scales instead of actually calling out both wrongs individually.

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

#214

Post by tehjoker »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #129
buildbot wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the implication would be they are spying for China in this case, and therefore as legal as they want it to be.

Right, I meant is it allowed by Chinese law to NOT spy for the government. As I understand it, to be allowed to operate in China as a Chinese company, you are under the obligation to provide any information you collect to the gov't upon request. Is that not the case?

You guys are familiar with the Snowden disclosures and how all telecom companies and very likely all major tech companies are spying for the US government right?

At this point, this is table stakes for big tech and it's completely anti-democratic. China may have a very good domestic dragnet but clearly it's playing catch up compared to the foreign intelligence assets the USG (and five eyes) has.

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

#215

Post by wonnage »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #102
danpalmer wrote: post #16

This paragraph stood out to me: > The intention here seems to be that aigt is the timestamp when the ID was generated. So if that timestamp deviates from current time by more than 7776000000 milliseconds (90 days) a new ID is going to be generated. However, this implementation is buggy, it will update aigt on every call rather than only when a new ID is generated. So the only scenario where a new ID will be generated…

> If we assume that Xiaomi aren't literally trying to spy for a government Is that even allowed by Chinese law?

if you mean this in the sense that "all chinese companies are automatically spy agencies", then no, that's certainly not true. But would they have to comply with a government request - yeah, probably, just like any other company.

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

#216

Post by Karunamon »

systemvoltage wrote: post #143
La1n wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I think this is a general trend in China based discussions. Problem does exist in a vaccuum. Xiaomi phones have nothing to do with Google or any US based tech. I am highlighting the absurdity of evaluating US ad-tech to 2 million people in concentration camps.

The only difference there is what the exfiltrated data is being used for. The real problem is one level higher, that the data is being exfiltrated in the first place.

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

#217

Post by Daho0n »

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…

>the populists that have ruled the capitol for the last 10 years or so.

So the instant someone is elected they start calling Random Joe for funding their next campaign? Of course not. Politicians talk to people who help fund them, that or they are out. Having a politician's ear is power that Random Joe doesn't have. Using Bezos is disingenious. How about Musk or Bill Gates or one of the many rich oligarch families who have the same name as former presidents? Don't pretend money has less power in US politics than in Russian politics. If anything it is worse.

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

#218

Post by robotbikes »

africanboy wrote: post #204
sammorrowdrums wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely, I really want to see Purism succeed and increasing numbers of competitors in that space, because we need tools that don't require so much blind trust. Whether caused by inept software devs, scope for malicious code / backdoors in firmware, analytics spyware, and whether this stuff is well intentioned or not, if it can be abused, it will be. Open source and verifiable down to the firmware is the only chance…

as much as I am eager to see open source mobile OS succeed, tracking happens at the app level. What happens when I install the FB app on a Purism enabled device? My way to go until now has been installing as many OSS apps on my smartphone as possible, to the point that even the keyboard and the launcher on my smartphone are installed through f-droid. That's the main reason why I prefer Android phones over Apple ones.

I don't think Facebook is likely to release a Linux based app. If they did it would likely be electron style. There also lots of Facebook apps that wrap the mobile website inside of a stand-alone "app" available on F-Droid. I also wonder what type of permissions API even exist that would allow you to view contacts as an app inside of Purism. Maybe Gnome has something kind of API already for apps to access built-in contents but this far there hasnt been a lot of proprietary software released for Linux that embeds spyware because of the low # of users and increased difficulty and general lack of distribution platform. But Purism is also really far away from being a viable platform for non-techies at this point.

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

#219

Post by dj_mc_merlin »

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…

It's a choice between being spied on by the West or the East.

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

#220

Post by ethbr0 »

tehjoker wrote: post #214
michaelcampbell wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I meant is it allowed by Chinese law to NOT spy for the government. As I understand it, to be allowed to operate in China as a Chinese company, you are under the obligation to provide any information you collect to the gov't upon request. Is that not the case?

You guys are familiar with the Snowden disclosures and how all telecom companies and very likely all major tech companies are spying for the US government right? At this point, this is table stakes for big tech and it's completely anti-democratic. China may have a very good domestic dragnet but clearly it's playing catch up compared to the foreign intelligence assets the USG (and five eyes) has.

If you're going to cite Snowden, please be accurate.

Remember that one of the leaks was that the NSA tapped unencrypted Google backhaul in transit without Google's knowledge.

There's a difference between panopticon fearmongering and citing specific information we should be wary of. The former leads to apathy. The latter leads to action.

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