I only run software from Chinese companies inside a sandbox, either on my Android/iOS phone or inside a VM for desktop apps and only enable necessary permissions. Unfortunately Mainland tech giants have no sense of user privacy and would like to maximize their profit by collecting every single bit of your data because they don't profit on selling you the software, they profit on selling your data.
You really have to put everything in a box nowadays. Companies are indiscriminate. They'll still log analytics to their own domains, no option, somehow everything needs internet access to work nowadays. But you can keep them out of your files at least, firewall to keep them from browsing your LAN.
> Unfortunately Mainland tech giants have no sense of user privacy and would like to maximize their profit by collecting every single bit of your data because they don't profit on selling you the software, they profit on selling your data
Shits like this is what makes me wary about Chinese made video games proliferating in the west. You never know if your kid's genshing impact or black myth wukong is listening to you and siphoning all data on your local network to China.
A competent Western administration would have banned it all years ago. But instead of securing the future of Western civilization, they want detente and cheap plastic goods instead. Shrug.
I hear this theory being claimed so much, but I don't see any real evidence for it; we have routers that you can monitor traffic on, we have microphone use indicators on mobile, and I would imagine it would be pretty clear if an app was uploading audio with even very basic monitoring tools. Correct me if I'm wrong, however.
I'm not denying that a lot of data is likely surreptitiously collected, but I'm talking microphone/camera in particular.
I recall there were quite a few experiments where people use certain keywords heavily just to get closely related ads later on. I can totally relate my experience with it as well. Of course it is inconclusive - but if there is an incentive, management of big companies will venture into it. And chinese management is no different from western ones to that matter.
I would always refer to Hanlon's razor on things like this: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I'm not trying to finding excuses for them, just saying that most likely there's no deep conspiracy theory involving government level surveillance here, they are just stupid. On average, Chinese software engineers are less educated and have no sense about privacy or how to implement privacy related features properly.
While logging serial number and some of the basic analytics stats might be attributed to stupidity, I tend to think that using a pretty advanced set of system commands and logging output consistently to log files is very sketchy.
This is ugly and bad.
Meanwhile they do tell you they collect everything
https://www.mumuplayer.com/privacy-policy.html
Not to defend them, but just feel sad about the world.
I only run software from Chinese companies inside a sandbox, either on my Android/iOS phone or inside a VM for desktop apps and only enable necessary permissions. Unfortunately Mainland tech giants have no sense of user privacy and would like to maximize their profit by collecting every single bit of your data because they don't profit on selling you the software, they profit on selling your data.
How do you sandbox on mobile? I can't say I love having various apps like wechat on my phone...
Separate grapheneos accounts for everything does that I believe
Android (or at least, lineageos & grapheneos) has Settings > System > Users.
Not a full sandbox, but at least you can have a user/profile with different set of apps, no/limited contacts, lock out phone/sms access, etc..
Chinese mainland or mainland US?
China mainland. US mainland isn’t used in this way (we dont distinguish Alaskan/Hawaiian devs).
Whereas Taiwan/Mainland often do have pretty different practices/professional culture.
Yes
You really have to put everything in a box nowadays. Companies are indiscriminate. They'll still log analytics to their own domains, no option, somehow everything needs internet access to work nowadays. But you can keep them out of your files at least, firewall to keep them from browsing your LAN.
> Unfortunately Mainland tech giants have no sense of user privacy and would like to maximize their profit by collecting every single bit of your data because they don't profit on selling you the software, they profit on selling your data
/s/Mainland//
FTFY.
Shits like this is what makes me wary about Chinese made video games proliferating in the west. You never know if your kid's genshing impact or black myth wukong is listening to you and siphoning all data on your local network to China.
A competent Western administration would have banned it all years ago. But instead of securing the future of Western civilization, they want detente and cheap plastic goods instead. Shrug.
The new Delta Force is made in China nowadays and apparently scans your whole hdd (for anti cheat).
> is listening to you and siphoning all data on your local network to China.
How is it any different from western apps listening to you and siphoning all data on your local network to 3 letter agencies?
I hear this theory being claimed so much, but I don't see any real evidence for it; we have routers that you can monitor traffic on, we have microphone use indicators on mobile, and I would imagine it would be pretty clear if an app was uploading audio with even very basic monitoring tools. Correct me if I'm wrong, however.
I'm not denying that a lot of data is likely surreptitiously collected, but I'm talking microphone/camera in particular.
I recall there were quite a few experiments where people use certain keywords heavily just to get closely related ads later on. I can totally relate my experience with it as well. Of course it is inconclusive - but if there is an incentive, management of big companies will venture into it. And chinese management is no different from western ones to that matter.
[citation needed]
Please stop with the hyperbole. Shit is bad enough; more fake news from any direction doesn’t help.
I am not sure where hyperbole is - if your believe it is "fake news", it's your choice.
Does chinese apps make use of all data they can access? Absolutely. Does western app make use of all data they can access? Absolutely.
Both concepts are evil. Talking one is evil while dropping off the other is skew of discussion towards vilifying one side and omitting the subject.
the broken english and defense of chinese spyware really complement each other here
You have nothing to say on the substance I'll take it.
Appreciate if you can point where I "defended chinese spyware" otherwise I would have reasons to call a lie here.
This only reinforce the image, software/hardware from China and no ethics. They will do whatever they can to get hold of their user's info.
If was open source then could remove the reconnaisance
I would always refer to Hanlon's razor on things like this: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I'm not trying to finding excuses for them, just saying that most likely there's no deep conspiracy theory involving government level surveillance here, they are just stupid. On average, Chinese software engineers are less educated and have no sense about privacy or how to implement privacy related features properly.
Privacy is a totally different concept in China, this becomes very clear once you visit a public toilet in Beijing’s Hutongs.
While logging serial number and some of the basic analytics stats might be attributed to stupidity, I tend to think that using a pretty advanced set of system commands and logging output consistently to log files is very sketchy.