WeChat confirms that it makes all private user data available to the Chinese government

[patrick3027]

Quote

WeChat has confirmed what has been rumoured all along i.e. it gives all user information to the Chinese government. The popular app in a privacy statement is now informing the users that virtually all the private user information will be disclosed to the authorities.

WeChat, owned by the Chinese firm Tencent, is a messaging app similar to the WhatsApp. With over 662 million users, the app, besides being the dominant messaging app in China, it is one of the largest in the world.

[...]

The information that nearly all the private data in the app is accessible to the Chinese regime became evident when the users tried to avail the latest update.

Users are required to accept the privacy policy to get the update. The reading of this new privacy policy brings to the light that the app will share a large volume of data it has with the Chinese regime in order to comply with the ‘applicable laws or regulations.’

Source: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/companies/wechat-confirms-that-it-makes-all-private-user-data-available-to-the-chinese-government-2391847.html/news/business/companies/wechat-confirms-that-it-makes-all-private-user-data-available-to-the-chinese-government-2391847.html

 

TL,DR: Don't trust China, throw away your Chinese phones

[Bouzoo]

5 minutes ago, patrick3027 said:

TL,DR: Don't trust China

As opposed to US/UK and other countries which are the pinnacle of security and highly value user privacy, right?

[James7176]

The people should just start a country-wide troll where before they send any message they start it with stop spying on me so when they try to look whats been said it'll just say that over and over

 

[just_dave]

Big brother is watching you

[Ryujin2003]

Just now, patrick3027 said:

Source: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/companies/wechat-confirms-that-it-makes-all-private-user-data-available-to-the-chinese-government-2391847.html/news/business/companies/wechat-confirms-that-it-makes-all-private-user-data-available-to-the-chinese-government-2391847.html

 

TL,DR: Don't trust China, throw away your Chinese phones

Ha. That's great. Not surprising either. Again kids, know your app developers.

 

Reminds me about nothing being free in the electronic era. The only thing that is free, is your willingness to give up your personal information.

[DocSwag]

12 minutes ago, patrick3027 said:

throw away your Chinese phones

Yes, because if it's a Chinese phone the Chinese authorities will automatically have access to all your data

[TheReal1980]

OT: Still can't understand how people buy chinese branded Android phones, I refer to them as having HIV or AIDS in your pocket.

[Stefan1024]

At least you know what you are giving away. When it comes to other countiers and organsations (looking at you CIA and UK) they predend to give you privacy and only look into your phone / PC when they look for terrorists, drug dealers, child porn or just crime in general. And then finde some legal tricks to see anything anyway.

 

It's still a shame it's almost impossible to have privacy.

[Zodiark1593]

4 hours ago, TheReal1980 said:

OT: Still can't understand how people buy chinese branded Android phones, I refer to them as having HIV or AIDS in your pocket.

Custom ROM ftw?

[tsk]

The same is likely to happen with the Opera browser. 

[Okjoek]

I just assume everybody already knows everything about me anyways.

[Chaos_Sorcerer]

13 hours ago, Bouzoo said:

As opposed to US/UK and other countries which are the pinnacle of security and highly value user privacy, right?

mk ultra ftw

[themctipers]

i only use wechat to talk to my mom who doesn't know how to text

 

and my dad, who doesn't know how to text

[NvidiaIntelAMDLoveTriangle]

Always remember that when a company tells you that they don't watch/read/spy or keep logs on whatever you do when you're using their service, know that is a complete lie.

They only say such things to convince suckers to use their platform.

 

If in the terms of service it says "We do not read your messages" or "We can't read/see what you do due to how our system work" know that means "We see and read everything. Whoever believes otherwise is a fool."

 

 

[rawrdaysgoby]

Ehhhhh I don't even care anymore Everybody and their dog has info on everyone on the net....

[RGProductions]

Honestly stopped giving a fuck a while ago. Why would the government care about me? even if they did watch everything i did, oh well.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

16 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Custom ROM ftw?

Doesn't help if there's something else hardcoded into the hardware.  Think of an equivalent of Intel's ME, which also goes below the OS level.

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Name Taken said:

Almost every phone is made in China.

True, but there's a difference between a phone made in China and a Chinese phone.

A Samsung phone made in China is made to the exact specifications and with the exact parts that Samsung ordered it to be made with.  Samsung, having the original plans, can always verify that everything is correct.

A phone by a Chinese brand may very well have government mandated surveillance hardware or low-level firmware built in.  Unless security experts completely reverse engineer every part of the phone, there's no way of telling. 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, RGProductions said:

Honestly stopped giving a fuck a while ago. Why would the government care about me? even if they did watch everything i did, oh well.

Doesn't matter how unimportant you think that info is, at some point it can be used against you.  Maybe you have no need to worry now, but what if later on you decide to protest against a new and oppressive government?  They'll have all the data needed to blackmail you into silence or put you behind bars for years.

Hell, you don't even need to do anything wrong.  A century ago nobody cared that there was a huge database that contained everyone's details and religion either.  Ask the Jews in Germany how that worked out for them once the Nazis came to power. 

 

[RGProductions]

4 hours ago, Captain Chaos said:

Doesn't help if there's something else hardcoded into the hardware.  Think of an equivalent of Intel's ME, which also goes below the OS level.

 

 

 

True, but there's a difference between a phone made in China and a Chinese phone.

A Samsung phone made in China is made to the exact specifications and with the exact parts that Samsung ordered it to be made with.  Samsung, having the original plans, can always verify that everything is correct.

A phone by a Chinese brand may very well have government mandated surveillance hardware or low-level firmware built in.  Unless security experts completely reverse engineer every part of the phone, there's no way of telling. 

 

 

 

Doesn't matter how unimportant you think that info is, at some point it can be used against you.  Maybe you have no need to worry now, but what if later on you decide to protest against a new and oppressive government?  They'll have all the data needed to blackmail you into silence or put you behind bars for years.

Hell, you don't even need to do anything wrong.  A century ago nobody cared that there was a huge database that contained everyone's details and religion either.  Ask the Jews in Germany how that worked out for them once the Nazis came to power. 

 

There's no way to prevent it, and frankly I have more important things to me.

[suicidalfranco]

How is this an issue? Microsoft does it all the time 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

4 hours ago, Captain Chaos said:

True, but there's a difference between a phone made in China and a Chinese phone.

A Samsung phone made in China is made to the exact specifications and with the exact parts that Samsung ordered it to be made with.  Samsung, having the original plans, can always verify that everything is correct.

Will, it though? Firms have shown time and again to be willing to comply with Chinese demands if that's needed to keep doing business in China.

 

 

4 hours ago, Captain Chaos said:

Doesn't matter how unimportant you think that info is, at some point it can be used against you.  Maybe you have no need to worry now, but what if later on you decide to protest against a new and oppressive government?  They'll have all the data needed to blackmail you into silence or put you behind bars for years.

Hell, you don't even need to do anything wrong.  A century ago nobody cared that there was a huge database that contained everyone's details and religion either.  Ask the Jews in Germany how that worked out for them once the Nazis came to power. 

 

 

That is true. However, from that perspective, it is better for American/European users to have China-phones phones, and for Chinese to use NSA-phones, than the other way around.

 

That's without considering the cost: if I have to choose between €80 and be spied on by China, or €800 and be spied by the CIA... I mean, I'm more likely to travel to the US than to China  

[vorticalbox]

On ‎23‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 2:20 PM, James7176 said:

The people should just start a country-wide troll where before they send any message they start it with stop spying on me so when they try to look whats been said it'll just say that over and over

 

I remember 4chan did something like this where they sat a date/time and everyone sent the same message over text, email etc to get the "mass surveillance the test it deserves"

 

Not sure how many people did it though. 

[Zodiark1593]

4 hours ago, Captain Chaos said:

Doesn't help if there's something else hardcoded into the hardware.  Think of an equivalent of Intel's ME, which also goes below the OS level.

 

 

 

True, but there's a difference between a phone made in China and a Chinese phone.

A Samsung phone made in China is made to the exact specifications and with the exact parts that Samsung ordered it to be made with.  Samsung, having the original plans, can always verify that everything is correct.

A phone by a Chinese brand may very well have government mandated surveillance hardware or low-level firmware built in.  Unless security experts completely reverse engineer every part of the phone, there's no way of telling. 

 

 

 

Doesn't matter how unimportant you think that info is, at some point it can be used against you.  Maybe you have no need to worry now, but what if later on you decide to protest against a new and oppressive government?  They'll have all the data needed to blackmail you into silence or put you behind bars for years.

Hell, you don't even need to do anything wrong.  A century ago nobody cared that there was a huge database that contained everyone's details and religion either.  Ask the Jews in Germany how that worked out for them once the Nazis came to power. 

 

Hmm...

 

If it's genocide to all Otakus (anime fans), then I might be in trouble.

4 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

I remember 4chan did something like this where they sat a date/time and everyone sent the same message over text, email etc to get the "mass surveillance the test it deserves"

 

Not sure how many people did it though. 

What would be great is if texts are sent in that dragon language from Skyrim. Or better yet, whatever language Minions use.

[vorticalbox]

1 minute ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Hmm...

 

If it's genocide to all Otakus (anime fans), then I might be in trouble.

What would be great is if texts are sent in that dragon language from Skyrim. Or better yet, whatever language Minions use.

Dovahzul and minion? 

[Zodiark1593]

1 minute ago, vorticalbox said:

Dovahzul and minion? 

Yes, Minion.

[captain_to_fire]

Meanwhile in Redmond, WA, a company doesn't give the option to disable telemetry to the millions of their users under the pretense of "improving the system".

 

Also, who uses WeChat anyway? I'm more into Hangouts and iMessage.