Some years ago, the Japanese government send out warnings and restriction on usage of Baidu's IME. It was one of the early ones to sync to the cloud for better predictions.
https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/asian-technology/japanese-...
68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal
41–50 of 77 posts
Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal
#42"many of them use Signal" - where is this conclusion come from? They have WeChat. I've never seen any of my Chinese friends using Signal.
That's kinda irrelevant to whether Signal should try to help Chinese users?
Totally irrelevant, but it's there, in the headline and it's not true.
They probably tried to say that most of signal users use third party keyboards.
Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal
#43I'm not sure the headline reflects the discussion issue...It is anecdotal on how many Chinese users are using Signal, but the concern is that so many use third-party keyboards it could be compromising the secure nature of Signal (and the discussion is advocating for users to be made aware of the risks of using third party keyboards with Signal)
I chose to highlight the Chinese aspect, but you're absolutely right: any keyboard with personalisation puts Signal users at risk.
The guidelines exhort us to:
> ... please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If you can still edit the title, you should change it to the original "Signal should warn users who are likely using insecure IME apps"
Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal
#44"many of them use Signal" - where is this conclusion come from? They have WeChat. I've never seen any of my Chinese friends using Signal.
This. Absolutely none of my family and friends in China use Signal. There are a few that uses slack though.
Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal
#45Earlier 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…
I'm not sure I'd know about this if the statement wasn't notable for its coarse language. Moreover it's not just a case of criticizing someone who didn't know about the issue, it's criticizing people who are telling people to do something without understanding the risks.
Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal
#46I 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...
Naomi analyzes the technical side very well, but somehow face plants on the conclusion.
Insecure IMEs exist everywhere and affect every app. Not just Signal, not just in China.
This is the operating system's job to tackle, not Signal's. And oh wonder: Android displays a scary reminder when you install an IME (of course they could and should disallow network access for IMEs as well).
Signal should show a reminder to help people be secure, but framing this as some kind of obligation towards the people of China is weird.
Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal
#47I'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…
> Doesn't the CCP already have its nose in all of the manufacturers' OSes already?
What specifically are you saying here? Are you suggesting that every Chinese person's phone is sending off their keyboard inputs to the Chinese government even if they don't use a compromised IME? Because if not, then yes it matters whether or not your IME is compromised. Otherwise your position is just "the phone might be compromised in ways I don't know, so I won't even bother fixing the ways I do know".
Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal
#48Earlier 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…
She has been ignored for over a year (she tried to get them to discuss the issue in 2019), and all the while people have been getting kidnapped by the Chinese government due to this misunderstanding. I can understand why she would feel upset. I think what set this off was signal responding to questions to some tiny Twitter account after ignoring her for so long.
Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal
#49I 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...
Naomi analyzes the technical side very well, but somehow face plants on the conclusion. Insecure IMEs exist everywhere and affect every app. Not just Signal, not just in China. This is the operating system's job to tackle, not Signal's. And oh wonder: Android displays a scary reminder when you install an IME (of course they could and should disallow network access for IMEs as well). Signal should show a reminder to h…
> This is the operating system's job to tackle, not Signal's. And oh wonder: Android displays a scary reminder when you install an IME (of course they could and should disallow network access for IMEs as well).
(ios makes the third-party keyboard ask the user for "full access" in order to hit the internet.)
Re: 68.3% of people in China use third-party keyboards – many of them use Signal
#50I'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…
> Doesn't the CCP already have its nose in all of the manufacturers' OSes already? What specifically are you saying here? Are you suggesting that every Chinese person's phone is sending off their keyboard inputs to the Chinese government even if they don't use a compromised IME? Because if not, then yes it matters whether or not your IME is compromised. Otherwise your position is just "the phone might be compromised…
I would assume that any phone purchased in China is compromised by the CCP.