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>As for Deepin, its Chinese origins tend to ignite controversy (and anxiety within privacy purists) in the Linux world, however the distribution is open source

>As for Deepin, its Chinese origins tend to ignite controversy (and anxiety within privacy purists) in the Linux world, however the distribution is open source and the code is available on GitHub. Isn't this just plain racist? Is there any actual reason to believe that there's any privacy issues with Deepin, other that that it was made by Chinese people? Not to mention that I've never heard this particular FUD before, so I'm doubtful that it "tends to ignite" anything.

sgt 7y ago
I think it has to do with that China has a terrible human right's reputation (yet we all use Chinese products, so there's that), but mainly that Huawei is pretty much obliged by law to build backdoors and share any kind of information with the Chinese government if they are asked to do so.
- Smithalicious 7y ago
  Deepin isn't developed by Huawei, but I guess your point stands. Still, Deepin is a distribution that has been around for 15 years now, and it's completely open source. I don't think there's a legitimate reason to believe that Deepin is compromised in some way, which is the statement that was being made. At the very least there's no argument for that being made other than a vague reference to "its Chinese origins".
  - xurias 7y ago
    Unless somebody is doing in-depth security audits of every change, I don't see how Deepin can be trusted. The whole trusting trust thing.
- aibrahem 7y ago
  So does the US, I've yet to hear a valid argument on why the US is a better citizen on the global stage than China. Domistically a very weak argument could be made that the US doesn't violate the rights of their own citizens as bad as China, but between FISA courts, the NSA and programs like PRISM (which is more than a decade old now), this argument barely makes sense.
  - klingonopera 7y ago
    Well, for one, whoever's running the US gets changed after two terms, sometimes it's a pity, sometimes it couldn't happen fast enough. But in my opinion, it's definitely better than having the same person running things for who-knows how long, regardless of the integrity of that person.
    - KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
      A couple dozen people change at the top but literally everyone else stays on, including all the criminals in military and intelligence. It's an absolute joke.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Does it suck that the US persecutes a few thousand people via abuse of sigint? Yes. Does it suck more that Chinese Communist Part terrorizes millions? Yes. Does the US persecute Black people worse than CCP persecutes anyone, for non-"privacy" reasons? Maybe.
  - sgt 7y ago
    There's still democratic oversight in the US to a much larger degree, and also many US companies are not playing ball in terms of encryption backdoors etc. Apple is one example.
ColanR 7y ago
Deepin has been around for a while now, and the questions about its origins have been around since the beginning. I'd say those questions have as much legitimacy as the similar questions surrounding Huawei. You really don't need to start throwing accusations like 'racism' around, just because you're ignorant of the context involved.
- Smithalicious 7y ago
  I'll again quote the point that is being made: >As for Deepin, its Chinese origins tend to ignite controversy (and anxiety within privacy purists) in the Linux world This is, at the very least, pure FUD. The implication is that Deepin is untrustworthy because of its Chinese origins. If that's true, then the implication is that everything of Chinese origin is untrustworthy. Deepin has indeed been around for a while. It is, as far as I can see, fully open source. Is there any indication that it's doing anything shady? Would a shady distribution last for 15 years in the privacy-conscious, code-scrutinizing Linux world? Even if there are genuine indications that Deepin is shady, I wish the article had just mentioned those, rather than vaguely gesturing at its Chinese origins as if it's obvious to anyone that anything Chinese is suspicious. That's what I think is racist.
  - klingonopera 7y ago
    I've no problem consuming Chinese consumables, but software is another issue. If some software from the US or EU was up to no good, I can use the law to bring them to court. In China, I'd first need to ask myself, if not maybe the lawmakers themselves requested the software to do no good. EDIT: The same could also be said for US/EU governments, yes, but it is more subtle here (i.e. they label you a criminal/terrorist to legitimate installing e.g. a trojan on your PC, whereas, if I'm not mistaken, in China they could just make it a law to have trojans installed on every PC), so I still feel like the law somewhat protects my rights.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      You seem obsessed with laws, as if they possess value and worth in and of themselves, when really they are a very high latency side channel of society and power.[a] > I can use the law to bring them to court. I wouldn't be so certain of that. There are two issues with this: 1. The no good would have to be illegal either in the civil sense for you to take them to court, or illegal in the criminal or regulatory sense for government to act. Obviously not all no good is codified in law. 2. Law is necessarily high latency - it requires the no good to have already taken place in order for action to be taken against the doers of no good > i.e. they label you a criminal/terrorist to legitimate installing e.g. a trojan on your PC This has its own issues: 1. the terrorist label will be applied unilaterally: no one is going to come and ask you if you're a terrorist before you get closer scrutiny. 2. It would be a mistake to think some form of constitution is going to help, in the long run. Laws can be changed. Even the US Constitution has amendments. We're all only ever a few unhinged politicians away from no good governance. a. This quote was taken from @revelation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6033481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6033481
oytis 7y ago
> Isn't this just plain racist? Nope. When people say "Chinese origins", they mean it is designed in People's Republic of China, which many people distrust for political reasons. If it was designed in Taiwan or Singapore, which are also populated by Chinese, it would be called "Taiwanese" or "Singaporean" origin, and would not make any controversy at all.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  This does not really dispel the whiff of racism that undoubtedly exists, does it?
  - eastendguy 7y ago
    So if a Taiwanese dislikes the Chinese (government policy) or does not trust software "Made in China" she or he is racist?
    - mytailorisrich 7y ago
      Chinese or Chinese government policy? That's not the same. Also there is no need to try to come up with contrived examples or straw man arguments. Claiming that "it's not against the Chinese but against their government" is also sometimes a convenient and not completely honest way to deflect claims of racism. The same happens with Israel and it can be quite insiduous. When people have to notice and discuss the Chinese origin of everything, all the time, "but just because of the Chinese government's policies" in my view they complain too much... And when it's not the government, it's pollution, or IP theft, or because they eat dogs (in some part of the country), or whatnot.
      - Angostura 7y ago
        If the people of Hong Kong don't want to be extradicted to China is that racist? > a convenient but not completely honest way to deflect claims of racism And sometimes claims of racism can be a convenient but not quite honest way to deflect criticism of policy.
atarian 7y ago
In the United States, the media has done a great job in portraying China as a thief of secrets. Over the years, there's been numerous stories of Chinese hackers stealing government info, spyware on Lenovo laptops, or Huawei employees attempting to steal samples and prototypes. I'm sure we do stuff just as bad, but I'm ashamed to admit that I'm hesitant to adopt a device that came from a Chinese company now.. which is what I think that statement is referring to.
- klingonopera 7y ago
  ...and in the US, you can openly say that the media has portrayed China as such. Try doing the reverse in China, I'm sure half of HN's userbase would have received an unwelcome visit from the local cops by now...
shscs911 7y ago
There actually were some concerns regarding an analytics service (CNZZ) used in Deepin's website and appstore, which were eventually debunked. https://www.deepin.org/en/2018/04/14/linux-deepin-is-not-spyware/ https://www.deepin.org/en/2018/04/14/linux-deepin-is-not-spy...
tbronchain 7y ago
The CCP requires by law that companies operating in China share their data with the police/government. Funny enough, I remember reading an article on Hackernews yesterday about how Firefox should not include DoH by default because one of the reasons being privacy concerns about data being sent to cloudflare, in the US. I don't think this has anything to do with racism and shouldn't be treated as such. Privacy should be a legitimate concern.
Grangar 7y ago
It's political. Would you run a OS that comes from a totalitarian surveillance state?
infamia 7y ago
I think we can put the "racist" card away since DeepIn secretly collected analytics about their users without telling anyone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepin#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepin#Reception

sgt 7y ago

I think it has to do with that China has a terrible human right's reputation (yet we all use Chinese products, so there's that), but mainly that Huawei is pretty much obliged by law to build backdoors and share any kind of information with the Chinese government if they are asked to do so.

Smithalicious 7y ago
Deepin isn't developed by Huawei, but I guess your point stands. Still, Deepin is a distribution that has been around for 15 years now, and it's completely open source. I don't think there's a legitimate reason to believe that Deepin is compromised in some way, which is the statement that was being made. At the very least there's no argument for that being made other than a vague reference to "its Chinese origins".
- xurias 7y ago
  Unless somebody is doing in-depth security audits of every change, I don't see how Deepin can be trusted. The whole trusting trust thing.
aibrahem 7y ago
So does the US, I've yet to hear a valid argument on why the US is a better citizen on the global stage than China. Domistically a very weak argument could be made that the US doesn't violate the rights of their own citizens as bad as China, but between FISA courts, the NSA and programs like PRISM (which is more than a decade old now), this argument barely makes sense.
- klingonopera 7y ago
  Well, for one, whoever's running the US gets changed after two terms, sometimes it's a pity, sometimes it couldn't happen fast enough. But in my opinion, it's definitely better than having the same person running things for who-knows how long, regardless of the integrity of that person.
  - KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
    A couple dozen people change at the top but literally everyone else stays on, including all the criminals in military and intelligence. It's an absolute joke.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Does it suck that the US persecutes a few thousand people via abuse of sigint? Yes. Does it suck more that Chinese Communist Part terrorizes millions? Yes. Does the US persecute Black people worse than CCP persecutes anyone, for non-"privacy" reasons? Maybe.
- sgt 7y ago
  There's still democratic oversight in the US to a much larger degree, and also many US companies are not playing ball in terms of encryption backdoors etc. Apple is one example.

ColanR 7y ago

Deepin has been around for a while now, and the questions about its origins have been around since the beginning. I'd say those questions have as much legitimacy as the similar questions surrounding Huawei. You really don't need to start throwing accusations like 'racism' around, just because you're ignorant of the context involved.

Smithalicious 7y ago
I'll again quote the point that is being made: >As for Deepin, its Chinese origins tend to ignite controversy (and anxiety within privacy purists) in the Linux world This is, at the very least, pure FUD. The implication is that Deepin is untrustworthy because of its Chinese origins. If that's true, then the implication is that everything of Chinese origin is untrustworthy. Deepin has indeed been around for a while. It is, as far as I can see, fully open source. Is there any indication that it's doing anything shady? Would a shady distribution last for 15 years in the privacy-conscious, code-scrutinizing Linux world? Even if there are genuine indications that Deepin is shady, I wish the article had just mentioned those, rather than vaguely gesturing at its Chinese origins as if it's obvious to anyone that anything Chinese is suspicious. That's what I think is racist.
- klingonopera 7y ago
  I've no problem consuming Chinese consumables, but software is another issue. If some software from the US or EU was up to no good, I can use the law to bring them to court. In China, I'd first need to ask myself, if not maybe the lawmakers themselves requested the software to do no good. EDIT: The same could also be said for US/EU governments, yes, but it is more subtle here (i.e. they label you a criminal/terrorist to legitimate installing e.g. a trojan on your PC, whereas, if I'm not mistaken, in China they could just make it a law to have trojans installed on every PC), so I still feel like the law somewhat protects my rights.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    You seem obsessed with laws, as if they possess value and worth in and of themselves, when really they are a very high latency side channel of society and power.[a] > I can use the law to bring them to court. I wouldn't be so certain of that. There are two issues with this: 1. The no good would have to be illegal either in the civil sense for you to take them to court, or illegal in the criminal or regulatory sense for government to act. Obviously not all no good is codified in law. 2. Law is necessarily high latency - it requires the no good to have already taken place in order for action to be taken against the doers of no good > i.e. they label you a criminal/terrorist to legitimate installing e.g. a trojan on your PC This has its own issues: 1. the terrorist label will be applied unilaterally: no one is going to come and ask you if you're a terrorist before you get closer scrutiny. 2. It would be a mistake to think some form of constitution is going to help, in the long run. Laws can be changed. Even the US Constitution has amendments. We're all only ever a few unhinged politicians away from no good governance. a. This quote was taken from @revelation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6033481 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6033481

oytis 7y ago

> Isn't this just plain racist? Nope. When people say "Chinese origins", they mean it is designed in People's Republic of China, which many people distrust for political reasons. If it was designed in Taiwan or Singapore, which are also populated by Chinese, it would be called "Taiwanese" or "Singaporean" origin, and would not make any controversy at all.

mytailorisrich 7y ago
This does not really dispel the whiff of racism that undoubtedly exists, does it?
- eastendguy 7y ago
  So if a Taiwanese dislikes the Chinese (government policy) or does not trust software "Made in China" she or he is racist?
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    Chinese or Chinese government policy? That's not the same. Also there is no need to try to come up with contrived examples or straw man arguments. Claiming that "it's not against the Chinese but against their government" is also sometimes a convenient and not completely honest way to deflect claims of racism. The same happens with Israel and it can be quite insiduous. When people have to notice and discuss the Chinese origin of everything, all the time, "but just because of the Chinese government's policies" in my view they complain too much... And when it's not the government, it's pollution, or IP theft, or because they eat dogs (in some part of the country), or whatnot.
    - Angostura 7y ago
      If the people of Hong Kong don't want to be extradicted to China is that racist? > a convenient but not completely honest way to deflect claims of racism And sometimes claims of racism can be a convenient but not quite honest way to deflect criticism of policy.

atarian 7y ago

In the United States, the media has done a great job in portraying China as a thief of secrets. Over the years, there's been numerous stories of Chinese hackers stealing government info, spyware on Lenovo laptops, or Huawei employees attempting to steal samples and prototypes. I'm sure we do stuff just as bad, but I'm ashamed to admit that I'm hesitant to adopt a device that came from a Chinese company now.. which is what I think that statement is referring to.

klingonopera 7y ago
...and in the US, you can openly say that the media has portrayed China as such. Try doing the reverse in China, I'm sure half of HN's userbase would have received an unwelcome visit from the local cops by now...

shscs911 7y ago

There actually were some concerns regarding an analytics service (CNZZ) used in Deepin's website and appstore, which were eventually debunked. https://www.deepin.org/en/2018/04/14/linux-deepin-is-not-spyware/ https://www.deepin.org/en/2018/04/14/linux-deepin-is-not-spy...

tbronchain 7y ago

The CCP requires by law that companies operating in China share their data with the police/government. Funny enough, I remember reading an article on Hackernews yesterday about how Firefox should not include DoH by default because one of the reasons being privacy concerns about data being sent to cloudflare, in the US. I don't think this has anything to do with racism and shouldn't be treated as such. Privacy should be a legitimate concern.

Grangar 7y ago

It's political. Would you run a OS that comes from a totalitarian surveillance state?

infamia 7y ago

I think we can put the "racist" card away since DeepIn secretly collected analytics about their users without telling anyone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepin#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepin#Reception