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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”

#81

Post by baybal2 »

jeswin wrote: post #21
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.

> China exported $125B worth of mobile phones. Cutting Google Play Store off would seriously harm their ability to sell outside

Twist it like that: China exported $125B worth of mobile phones. Cutting Google Play Store off would seriously harm Google's ability to sell anywhere

Remember, the world does not end with US, and Western Europe

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

#82

Post by yorwba »

oefrha wrote: post #65
kiaraa_hk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could consider that I didn't just make that up. I have a Chinese person with me, albeit non tech person, that read it for me. I could have added that "apprently it says this", but your phrasing is uncalled for.

I happen to know the language so don’t need a Chinese person with me. And I can tell you it doesn’t say that, or anything close to that, apparently or not; it’s not a long post so it’s not like I would miss anything. If you disagree, point to the specific sentence and we can have a discussion.

I guess it might be a misunderstanding based on 幸好之前用火绒的自定义拦截功能，设置了一些重要或敏感数据目录的保护。 "Luckily I had previously used Huorong's user-defined interception functionality to set up protection for a few important or sensitive data folders." (Which is how they noticed that QQ was trying to access them.)

So yes, if your antivirus allows you to deny QQ access to your browser history, it won't read your browser history. But most QQ users probably didn't do that, considering that it went undetected for so long.

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

#83

Post by superkuh »

alexmingoia wrote: post #11

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

This is a smart phone practice. It's not acceptable or done anywhere else. Smart phones are terrible computers that say they have to restrict their users to protect them from themselves but they consistently fail to do so.

Something like this doesn't happen, and would not be acceptable, on a desktop computer.

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

#84

Post by tsbinz »

bserge wrote: post #51
Iolaum wrote: post #27

Apart from a lot of other issues mentioned here, this looks to me for a good argument of app sandboxing. It is a thing on mobile but not much on the desktop.

I tried Tencent's app on Android a long time ago when they were offering 1TB of free cloud storage. It started uploading all my photos (and who knows what else) as soon as I allowed file access. I immediately deleted it, who the hell does that? Even Google Drive asks for permission first. I guess that's what you trade for 1TB haha.

Apple tries sneaking in iCloud syncing regularly, Adobe did it to me with their cloud storage as well. Sadly, behavior like that seems ok with product managers.

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

#85

Post by bassman9000 »

blackrock wrote: post #24
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?

It’s just one company.

There's no private Chinese companies, only CCP subsidiaries. Comparisons with e.g. Facebook are moot.

At this point, comments like this are plain disingenuous, or purposefully misleading.

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

#86

Post by Sebb767 »

temeritatis wrote: post #47
Sebb767 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the Chinese market is extremely large. Cutting them of will hurt them in the short term, yes, but it will also force the development and popularization of local alternatives, which will hurt Google very much in the long term - see their recent examples with CPU development and Huawei's own Playstore.

This is not aimed personally at you; i've always had a problem understanding why big companies need to dominate all the market? If i have a successful local business, it's not hurting me that others do as well. I don't need to expand all over the globe to be successful. What's wrong with google not operating in china? Why can't google flourish as it is without dominating the market? I think you get my point here so i…

> i've always had a problem understanding why big companies need to dominate all the market? If i have a successful local business, it's not hurting me that others do as well.

Well, in this case, Google would leave billions of dollars in revenue and hundreds of millions of users on the table. Not only would it hurt their bottomline, it would also hurt their products as they train on user data, which has quite strong network effects.

This is really a different scale than a local business. If you have that with a single owner, she/he might be content with what she has and choose not to expand further. Google, on the other hand, has multiple of layers of management which need to report to thousands of owners, quite a few of which expect constant growth. This is really not one person who can be content with the size; it's multiple people who get their salaries based on growth and report to thousands of investors, which, for the most part, care about increasing their shares value. Leaving so much money on the table just for the sake of it is a hard sell in this structure.

> This is not aimed personally at you

No offence taken :)

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

#87

Post by Trill-I-Am »

zepto wrote: post #79
oblio wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic vs Apple is a matter of principle, even if the complaint is from a untrustworthy source. Walled gardens should be dismantled. They shouldn't have been allowed to begin with, for Nintendo 64 or whatever it was.

There is no principle involved. ‘Wall garden’ isn’t a real category’. People should be able to choose to enter a walled garden if it suits them. When a corporation like Epic uses the law to take away people’s rights is rarely about principle. Epic vs Apple is about nothing except Epic profiting from Apple’s work, and removing a relatively safe place to buy software. At the very least if Epic and Tencent are in fact b…

Would iPhone users be worse off if they gained the ability to use multiple different app stores?

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

#88

Post by darksaints »

zepto wrote: post #74

Note that Tencent owns 40% of Epic, who a lot of people think is a hero for trying to take away Apple’s power to prevent bad actors on their store.

This article is about Tencent, not your beef with critics of your favorite company in the world.

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

#90

Post by oblio »

leppr wrote: post #80
oblio wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic vs Apple is a matter of principle, even if the complaint is from a untrustworthy source. Walled gardens should be dismantled. They shouldn't have been allowed to begin with, for Nintendo 64 or whatever it was.

That's right, but Epic is also in actively working against supporting Linux. Walled gardens are bad, but Epic is definitely not a company that will fight that fight. They just want the iOS userbase. There's no sense in supporting them.

Isn't US law based on precedent?

If Epics wins the lawsuit against Apple, doesn't that set a precedent that all walled garden vendors need to allow an alternative way to install applications?

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