Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

palant.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 505 posts

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

#291

Post by yc12340 »

Darmody wrote: post #3

I'm using a firewall to block tens of IP addresses and several apps. Why would Xiaomi tell me to download a 26MB update from their store if the one from Google Play, where I downloaded the app it's less than 15MB? I'll be getting rid of this phone by the end of the month.

> Why would Xiaomi tell me to download a 26MB update from their store if the one from Google Play, where I downloaded the app it's less than 15MB?

Because, unlike Google, they don't use app bundles and partial updates?

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

#292

Post by bassman9000 »

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…

Ignorance and cost. Chinese phones are popular in Europe, where Apple/Google/Samsung flagship phones are prohibitive, and similarly spec'ed Chinese ones are a fraction of the cost.

And we can't forget many Euro citizens simply don't care.

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

#293

Post by bassman9000 »

lucideer wrote: post #37
walrus01 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that a Chinese citizen would see the NSA as an equal or greater threat. The difference from my perspective is that as a citizen of a NATO country with a functioning democracy, I'm highly unlikely to be rounded up by my government and put in a prison or concentration camp for expressing my political opinions or religion. You only need to look at the past several years of news from Hong Kong and the Uyghur/Xin…

I'm not 100% sure from your comment whether you're making out that: (a). China is bad (yes, known) (b). The US is not quite as bad (debatable but for the sake of argument lets agree that this is true) (c). The US is benign My comment was only refuting the 3rd supposition. I'm not sure if you actually believe this is true. Though terms such as "country with a functioning democracy" make me think you might...

Black and white sophism. No country is going to meet c), no country is benign. What matters is how much better the country in aspects like this. And the US still much better, NSA included.

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

#294

Post by goodells »

Related to Xiaomi, the company is also doing some sketchy things in the smart home space under their brand "Aqara". I use HomeKit in my apartment and opted for Aqara branded wireless buttons and temp/humidity sensors because of the attractive hardware and good reviews. The devices require a wi-fi connected hub, not too strange for things that use Zigbee, so I gave that a go.

Well, on cursory examination, the Aqara/Xiaomi hub was talking to a bunch of Chinese servers constantly. I didn't dive too deep into what all they were actually for. When I blocked the device from phoning home with my router, all the connected devices stopped working! None of the buttons or sensors would work, the RGB light on the hub couldn't even be changed. As soon as it lost the ability to ping its servers in China, the thing actually started strobe light flashing blue. Re-enable the outside network access on it, starts working again. This was totally antithetical to why I use HomeKit in the first place, so I removed the hub and paired all the Aqara accessories with a generic open source Zigbee hub (ConBee II) and added it to HomeKit with HomeBridge.

In the future I plan to give brands more scrutiny before investing time/money in them and granting them unfettered access to my LAN...

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

#295

Post by sudosysgen »

kelnos wrote: post #207
Daho0n wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About your second edit: If you live anywhere on earth that isn't in the geographical area of China it would likely be better to have data going to China than the big US corps. For most it is unlikely the data could be used against you in anything from ads to a police raid, unlike with something like Google collecting it where it will almost for sure be used and useful.

I hear this a lot, but it strikes me as being short sighted. That only works if the status quo remains so forever. Maybe 5 or 10 years from now, relations between the Chinese and US governments gets cozier, and part of their deal includes sharing of this kind of data. Or maybe the US government knows it can't legally collect certain information on its own citizens, but can rely on China to collect it, and then purcha…

The US and Chinese government will absolutely never have a rapprochement. Geopolitics states they will be at odd.

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

#296

Post by learnstats2 »

soared wrote: post #254
dreamcompiler wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This should have been caught at a security review stage during design, it should have been caught at the code review stage, it should have been caught by automated tests, it should have been caught by QA, it should have been caught once live by data tests, it should have been seen once live by analysts, it should have been fixed at so many different points. Seems more likely this was done on purpose so if they got…

Hanlon's razor is a principle or rule of thumb that states "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

I find it a bad principle which absolves responsibility. Stupidity is the same as malice, if the outcome is the same.

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

#297

Post by yibg »

yumraj wrote: post #165
AlexandrB wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American company will collect data to show you ads and profit. 7 years later and it's like Snowden never even existed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)

Fair enough, if we want argue along those lines - if you're in country X, would you like to be spied on by your country's gov AND China? I, for one, would prefer, if I have a choice, it to be just my Gov and not a foreign Gov that I consider to be hostile..

I would go the other way. What can China do to me unless I go there? Vs what can the US do to me since I live there, and even if I don’t live there, the US government reach is a lot wider.

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

#298

Post by SilverRed »

judge2020 wrote: post #179
grishka wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh. An API that provides currency exchange rates is a textbook case of a read-only API. Unless that privacy policy is the nonsensical "we receive and process your IP address" (or course you do, that's how the internet works, duh), it has no reason to have one because no data flows in that direction.

Trying to get legal to sign-off on allowing no-privacy-policy access to anything is going to be hard every time, especially if you do keep personal information like IP addresses for any amount of time (hello gdpr).

IP addresses are not identifying info under the GDPR. They are only potentially identifying. The address in your nginx logs does not count, if you are storing other data and can use the IP to identify an individual, now its identifying data.

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

#299

Post by SilverRed »

lovelyviking wrote: post #275

Why don't we address the root of the problem? Who controls computer? If user of computer (with phone features) doesn't have a full control over it then this situation can and will be abused by some one who does. It seems a logical consequence of not having full control over your own computer. Why we discuss mostly the degree of such abuse and not the core of the problem ? Another core of the problem is dealing with c…

Because it hardly makes a difference to power users, let alone average people. The Pixel phones come loaded with Google spyware, but you can flash your own rom on it to do whatever you want. But unless someone is out there developing an alternative rom without spyware that does everything you need, it may as well be locked down.

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

#300

Post by onethought »

strangeattractr wrote: post #265
onethought wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I was pointing out the "Don't by Xiaomi because you can't trust them" is logically flawed... because you can't trust any of the countries involved with the manufacture of phones. This isn't excusing the behaviour, it's pointing out that "privacy" is not a justification for not using Chinese goods, because American goods have evidence of exactly the same compromise.

All mobile phone manufacturers are spying on you does not automatically follow from the fact that Xiaomi browsers are spyware.

Pretty sure I didn't state that. But I agree with what you're stating.
Post reply on HN