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What a silly comment, complete with the mandatory "it's worse in the US" passage that mysteriously appears in half of the comments to China-related articles on
by idra 10y ago
What a silly comment, complete with the mandatory "it's worse in the US" passage that mysteriously appears in half of the comments to China-related articles on HN.
Yes, the governments owns telcos etc. Yes, they probably have files on people they consider a threat, such as human rights activists. But to think that all that data is accessible in some kind of coherent manner is ridiculous. This is China, where banks cannot even access information between physical branches of the same bank because of its bizarrely inefficient IT infrastructure. The telcos have been trying to enforce the "real-name" policy for SIM cards for months, yet you can still easily buy and use a SIM card on the street.
They definitely need help from an app, because private Chinese tech companies are somewhat competent compared to the government IT sector.
Do you really feel safer in a country where you can get jailed without trial, where you can jailed, deported and banned from re-entry based on a urine test at the whim of some provincial government official that you crossed paths with? In China, the biggest threat is the government.
- pyrale 10y ago> Do you really feel safer in a country where you can get jailed without trial, where you can jailed, deported and banned from re-entry based on a urine test at the whim of some provincial government official that you crossed paths with? In China, the biggest threat is the government. Being foreign to both countries, the difference is not obvious. Formally, this could happen to me in both countries. Even culturally, the "They only do it on strangers, so that's fine" argument before and during the Snowden files makes me doubt of the support I would get as a foreigner (and I'm on the good side of being a foreigner, not being a visible foreigner).
- CaptSpify 10y ago> Do you really feel safer in a country where you can get jailed without trial, where you can jailed, deported and banned from re-entry based on a urine test at the whim of some provincial government official that you crossed paths with? I've never been to China, but I legitimately can't tell which country you are talking about based on that sentence.