Mastodawn

Government Surveillance on Chinese vs US made phones

https://lemmy.world/post/42209814

Government Surveillance on Chinese vs US made phones - Lemmy.World

Question that I’ve been mulling over recently: My threat model dictates that I’m more likely to be surveilled by the US government than by the Chinese government. We can also assume that the Chinese government is not going to cooperate with the US government in any investigations of potential activist activity. Would it not be best, then, to use a Chinese-made phone that, even though we know that information is going to China, we can also assume that any backdoors in the system are unknown to the US Gov? I’m interested in everyone’s take on this.

Headofthebored Jan 26

That’s kind of my theory about how TikTok was. It wasn’t subjected to US censorship and interests, only Chinese, so there was sort of a window where Americans could actually organize on it. Obviously that couldn’t stand once authority figured that out. Hence, the sudden cows being had over TikTok being owned by China.

Hence, the sudden cows being had over TikTok being owned by China.

There was disinformation and spying being used gather Intel and push disinformation. That’s why Biden wanted it gone. Trump was the one who decided he could use it for the same reasons as the Chinese.

There was disinformation and spying being used gather Intel and push disinformation.

Of course. Of. Course.

What Biden actually wanted was to control the narrative about Gaza so that his support for Israel’s genocide wouldn’t cost him the election. Unlike US corporate media—including social media—TikTok wasn’t censoring the truth.

Romney and Blinken Admit TikTok Ban Sought to Censor Gaza News

Biden’s secretary of state said that content shared on the platform had “a very challenging effect on the narrative.”…

Truthout

I use Google Pixel 9a with GrapheneOS installed and as far as I know, this phone does not have any known hardware backdoors/exploits, though that might be just because I enabled every possible security option in the Privacy and Security tab of the GrapheneOS’ settings.

floofloof Jan 26

If they had hardware backdoors we wouldn’t know about them. In the end, with closed-source hardware, drivers and firmware, there’s a lot we just don’t know about what our devices are doing.

But as a Canadian I consider the USA to be a more immediate threat than China. I’m trying to extract myself from depending on US technology bit by bit, as far as possible.

Aren’t both pretty imminent in Canada? I seem to recall something about China operating a secret police in Canada to keep Chinese people in line. A Chinese backdoor wouldn’t affect you personally, but if you have a conversation with a Chinese person that’s critical of the CCP, a Chinese backdoor in your phone COULD affect them.

I guess something like GrapheneOS would work best. I hear they’re partnering with some manufacturer to get rid of the Pixel requirement. Very much intrigued personally. I’m still happy with my aging iPhone and don’t have a threat model to be super concerned about state level actors, but if push comes to shove, I’m getting either GrapheneOS, or a de-googled Android ROM on a Fairphone at the very least.

floofloof Jan 27

I agree. China’s tech is still a risk, and GrapheneOS is the best option right now though Google seem to be working hard to undermine it and other custom Androids. If Linux phones can get up to speed and do away with the need for the Android base, and especially if they can run on more open hardware, that could be even better.

No way: that’s how you get 5G Havana Syndrome.

US phones spy to sell your data to any advertising company AND gov, Chinese phones spy on you by the gov, because control, bad for Chinese people (most using VPN because the Great Firewall, forbidden but tolerated, mainly to access US services, like Google, YT and other big US corporation, blocked in China), relative irrelevant for other countries. Means that China isn’t worse than the US, less currently. Main issue by Chinese people is the control of the gov, but privacy (there isn’t a private company with access to your data without consent) and social rights is way better as those from the US.

FoundFootFootage78 Jan 27

China is a country that doesn’t care about the individual. If it’s in their interest to give your information to the Americans they will.

The best solution is really GrapheneOS.

Cowbee [he/they]Jan 27

What do you mean by China not caring about the individual? Are you referring to how they center the working classes over private interests?

FoundFootFootage78 Jan 27

In America the justice system leans strongly in favour of the defence (unless you’re poor, but we’ll put that aside for now). In China and east Asia more generally the justice system leans towards maintaining social harmony even if it means a higher risk of convicting the wrong person.

Cowbee [he/they]Jan 27

This seems more like orientalism than an actual thing. The US is set up that way because it values capitalists above all else as a capitalist country, and this system puts them above the law.

HiddenLayer555 Jan 27

In America the justice system leans strongly in favour of the defence (unless you’re poor, but we’ll put that aside for now)

Neat trick the tankies hate: the West is perfect if you just say that the biggest counterexample is irrelevant!

There’s definitely an algorithm that decides if any arbitrary algorithm will halt or not (unless you feed its own source code back into itself, but we’ll put that aside for now).

geneva_convenience Jan 27

Palo Alto firewall

You guessed it

Yes. US and the West are the cause of our need to defend our selves digitally. Besides, even Chinese Corps are better, as they can’t utilize much information about you.