Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28613703
Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
311–320 of 427 posts
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#312I wonder why is anybody still surprised. China has no qualms invading privacy of anybody. They will try any and every way to get whatever they need and they are pretty effective at it. Ever read about making business in China? What we call cheating or stealing is a standard business practice there. If you point it out they will back off and try somewhere else, ad nauseam. It is practically part of Chinese culture and…
> Chinese culture and upbringing You can't post slurs like this to HN. Nationalistic, racial, and/or ethnic flamewar is not welcome either. I'm sure you can make your substantive points without any of that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Hi dang.
I have nothing against Chinese people.
On the other hand what I described is day to day reality doing business in China and is easily backed by facts.
You may not like, you may not be aware of it, it but it is truth.
See accounts of other HN users in this thread.
"I lived in China for a year and vouch for this type of behaviour. It’s just considered normal in China. "
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
There were multiple articles about apple's csm with discussions.
I don’t see Lithuania writing a report or making a fuss about it. Weird.
No, someone a lot more powerful did:
"Member of the German parliament, Manuel Höferlin, who serves as the chairman of the Digital Agenda committee in Germany, has penned a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, pleading Apple to abandon its plan to scan iPhone users' photo libraries"
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/18/german-politician-lette...
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/08/17/germany-writes-to...
Along with
"Apple photo-scanning plan faces global backlash from 90 rights groups"
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/apple-photo-scan...
And 487 other articles, reports, fusses that went against Apple's plans.
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> This implies that Xiaomi, and most likely all Chinese phone vendors and by extension CCP, has backdoors in all these devices. They don't need backdoors. They are the "administrator" of your phone just like Apple is on iOS and MacOS or Microsoft on Windows boxes.You are just a guest. It just happens that the chinese admins(aka vendors) don't mind being nasty and clumsy at the same time. All the manufacturers/vendor…
I think you will have a hard time proving beyond speculation that Apple or Microsoft has backdoors to their OS. Would be curious to see any sources though. I actually think that is the difference here, Chinese phones and possibly other devices have backdoors, but Apple/Microsoft likely do not.
I think the parent is being more expansive in what they call a "backdoor", and I tend to agree. Does Apple have the ability to remove an app or some bit of content off your phone (ostensibly to remove malware)? I believe they do? That feels like a backdoor to me. And I assume Google (and/or the phone's manufacturer) has the same ability on Android. No idea about Microsoft on Windows.
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similar lists existed within Google for their ("on hold" last I heard) project Dragonfly [0]. I saw a bunch of banned terms like these in the Dragonfly repo before they hid it from regular employees. It was a very long list. On it were also the names of specific activists and human rights lawyers, including some who'd been disappeared [1] or forcibly confined to mental institutions [2]. My impression is that Sundar w…
> Word of warning for those who trust Google as a defender of digital privacy and human rights. Surely that is literally nobody? At this stage I would be seriously concerned for anyone who identifies with this description.
Surely nobody on HN trusts Google in this way (or any other for that matter), but the referenced comment is useful for educating our less-aware peers (usually those outside our industry), allowing them to come to more informed conclusions on Google. Forewarned is forearmed.
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> This implies that Xiaomi, and most likely all Chinese phone vendors and by extension CCP, has backdoors in all these devices. They don't need backdoors. They are the "administrator" of your phone just like Apple is on iOS and MacOS or Microsoft on Windows boxes.You are just a guest. It just happens that the chinese admins(aka vendors) don't mind being nasty and clumsy at the same time. All the manufacturers/vendor…
I think you will have a hard time proving beyond speculation that Apple or Microsoft has backdoors to their OS. Would be curious to see any sources though. I actually think that is the difference here, Chinese phones and possibly other devices have backdoors, but Apple/Microsoft likely do not.
> I think you will have a hard time proving beyond speculation that Apple or Microsoft has backdoors to their OS.
This statement is absurd -- they don't need to keep a backdoor around because they control the front door.
You do realize that controlling how/whether/when core system software updates are pushed to a device is equivalent to having a backdoor, don't you?
The operating system on my phone can be 100% backdoor-free today, but if Apple decides that their next update is going to include backdoor, then tomorrow my phone is going to have a backdoor.
Basically all consumer phones (save for a few cobbled together exceptions) implicitly accept arbitrary software updates from their upstream vendor.
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> This implies that Xiaomi, and most likely all Chinese phone vendors and by extension CCP, has backdoors in all these devices. They don't need backdoors. They are the "administrator" of your phone just like Apple is on iOS and MacOS or Microsoft on Windows boxes.You are just a guest. It just happens that the chinese admins(aka vendors) don't mind being nasty and clumsy at the same time. All the manufacturers/vendor…
I think you will have a hard time proving beyond speculation that Apple or Microsoft has backdoors to their OS. Would be curious to see any sources though. I actually think that is the difference here, Chinese phones and possibly other devices have backdoors, but Apple/Microsoft likely do not.
By the same definition, isn't Windows Update a backdoor: it can remotely enable/disable functionality?
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bank websites in some (developed, European) countries restrict you to 6-8 digit passwords (not alphanumeric), and don't have a 2FA option like Facebook or Google do. It's a massive joke.
Granted that is on a phone where you can usually just swipe left to their email application and run through some forgot your password steps - also the 2FA that most people use is just SMS which goes to the same place. Assume that if someone has your unlocked phone they own your life.
The concern with SMS is SIM cloning. An aspiring code thief doesn't need your phone once they can pretend to be your phone.
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#319Fun fact..
The first 4 smartphones I ever owned all came with preinstalled malware or malware was added after a “security update”
Re: Lithuania says throw away Chinese phones due to censorship concerns
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
"People's Daily newspaper" is a pretty big counterexample that everyone is conveniently ignoring.
It's not the mainland China paper if you search for the Chinese characters. Renminbao [人民报] is an independent Chinese online news website that criticizes the Chinese regime. https://china-chats.net/keywords/1705
Thanks, that makes more sense why the Lithuanian authorities included it in their (cherry-picked?) subset of the filtered ad phrases.