8 ms·

This narrative of false equivalency is dangerous, IMO. WeChat has been proven to be a heavily monitored and censored network. Whatever security failings iMessa

This narrative of false equivalency is dangerous, IMO. WeChat has been proven to be a heavily monitored and censored network. Whatever security failings iMessage and WhatsApp have, they pale in comparison to what's in place for WeChat.

pengaru 6y ago
> This narrative of false equivalency is dangerous, IMO. What's dangerous is convincing yourself that proprietary systems won't betray your trust.
- adminprof 6y ago
  That's not what the parent post said, or inferred. Don't put words in others' mouths please.
  - pengaru 6y ago
    > That's not what the parent post said, or inferred. Don't put words in others' mouths please. I thought it was clear those words came from my mouth.
namelosw 6y ago
For me, this narrative seems to remind people don't over trust iMessage and WhatsApp, instead of "why don't you use Wechat they are not different anyway". All the westerners I know in China don't send sensitive information through Wechat. It's just good to have a low trust stance by default.
ColanR 6y ago
I think the assumption behind your claim of false equivalency is exactly what the parent comment wanted to discuss. You say the security failings of iMessage and WhatsApp pale in comparison to WeChat; I agree with parent comment and ask - in light of PRISM etc. - on what grounds can you say we should not be just as suspicious?
- ivalm 6y ago
  Whether or not compromised, I am sure my messages on iMessage are not used to train censorship applications by the NSA. Messages on WeChat are used for censorship. I also, separately, think that in aggregate Apple has incentives to make iMessage secure. While Tencent has incentives to share WeChat data with CCP. These are among many reasons why the comparison was false equivalence. The world is not just black and white “secure vs not secure.”
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    > I am sure my messages on iMessage are not used to train censorship applications by the NSA What basis do you have for this certainty?
    - elefanten 6y ago
      To your question: Relative transparency and relative accountability of the governments in question. But your question is by nature setting up a false comparison. There is no observed censorship apparatus in place in the US. You can always pose "what if" scenarios about super classified efforts, but functionally there is no active system in place. Compare this to the vastly-resourced, all-encompassing one operated openly and enthusiastically by the CCP.
      - boomlinde 6y ago
        Short of absolute transparency and absolute accountability, you can only be relatively certain, i.e. not certain.
        ivalm 6y ago
        But not all “not certain” are created equal. After all, if you apply a sufficiently strong threshold nothing is certain.
    - ivalm 6y ago
      On the basis that there is no automatic censorship of user content shown to me via iMessage. I am highly certain that my friends can send me arbitrary (within technical reason) text and images and not get censored. This is not the case with WeChat in China right now. Given societal norms I think there is a strong expectation that my iMessages will not be censored in the near future either. This means there is little incentive for NSA to train and develop an actionable automatic censorship application. Again, this is true even if they intercept, decode, analyze, commit physical action on the basis of the analysis, and store every one of my messages.
forgot_again 6y ago
The false equivalency also begs a deeper moral analysis. Let's assume the US government has as complete access to iMessage and WhatsApp as the CCP does to WeChat. The story doesn't end there, since you have to examine the nature of the entities that have access to your information. Would I prefer that access be held by the US Government, which for all its faults is extremely engaged with and integrated into the global system, beholden to Law and a robust court system which enforces a strict set of checks and balances on its behavior, and is philosophically rooted in individual liberty? Or would I prefer the CCP, which does not even recognize the concept of individual liberty, is beholden to no one but itself and its own desires, and ruthlessly upholds its iron and unquestioned (unquestionable, at least in China) will upon the entire nation with absolutely 0 oversight? Yeah, gonna go with the US here.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- turnipla 6y ago
  > extremely engaged with and integrated into the global system, beholden to Law and a robust court system Uhm yeah but countries do nothing when Russia annexes Crimea, what do you think they’d do if the US simply spies on them? Absolutely nothing. It’s literally happening right now and it’s public knowledge and “it’s just a matter of national security.” Case closed.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  This depends on your point of view, of course. If you're a US citizen with US legal protections and representatives in US government and access to US lawyers, you might find that reassuring. From the outside, the picture of the modern US is not nearly as pretty.
- cyphar 6y ago
  I disagree with several aspects of your depiction of the US's "robust court system" (especially in the case of mass surveillance). There have been several attempts by citizens to sue the US Government for their illegal and indiscriminate surveillance programs, but have been stonewalled for years by government lawyers arguing that such cases should not happen in public courts (where they could be held accountable) due to "national security risks". Not to mention that the NSA has their own interpretation of the US Constitution which completely twists the meaning of "collection" to allow indiscriminate mass surveillance to not be seen as "unreasonable search and seizure". Then there's the whole FISA court system, which rejects so few requests that it is in every sense of the word a rubber stamp court. And even if the court system is "robust" -- let's not forget that the PATRIOT Act exists (though it turns out that the NSA actually violated even the minimal restrictions present in the PATRIOT Act). Now, is China any better? Of course not, and the CCP has countless policies which are far worse to their own people than the US. But the key question is -- do you live in or have any connection to China? If not, then I would go with the CCP surveillance because there is no obvious mechanism for such surveillance to harm you directly. On the other hand, if you live in a 5-EYES country (as I do), any data obtained from US surveillance can be used in parallel construction (or other not-entirely-legal methods). Hell, here in Australia our mass surveillance systems have been used to punish minor infringements such as littering. Obviously I'd prefer not to be surveilled at all, but between the two I'd choose the one that has the smallest threat of direct impact on my life.
SiVal 6y ago
I totally agree. When you employ lossy compression to reduce a multidimensional assessment of degree and kind of risk to a single bit ("Do any potential risks exist, yes or no?") you are deleting almost all information that can be used for risk assessment. Presumably you would do so either because you genuinely think there is only one bit worth considering or you prefer others not think about the other bits.
IncRnd 6y ago
You misread your parent post. Bgorrman didn't say that WeChat being insecure means that iMessage and Whatsapp are insecure. Bgorrman questioned if we have reason to believe that iMessge and Whatsapp are more secure than WeChat. A implies B & C is not the same as asking whether B & C share the same qualities as A. You actually created a strawman in order to say that your parent had a false equivalence.
tjpnz 6y ago
Just having it on your device is a security risk in itself.

pengaru 6y ago

> This narrative of false equivalency is dangerous, IMO. What's dangerous is convincing yourself that proprietary systems won't betray your trust.

adminprof 6y ago
That's not what the parent post said, or inferred. Don't put words in others' mouths please.
- pengaru 6y ago
  > That's not what the parent post said, or inferred. Don't put words in others' mouths please. I thought it was clear those words came from my mouth.

namelosw 6y ago

For me, this narrative seems to remind people don't over trust iMessage and WhatsApp, instead of "why don't you use Wechat they are not different anyway". All the westerners I know in China don't send sensitive information through Wechat. It's just good to have a low trust stance by default.

ColanR 6y ago

I think the assumption behind your claim of false equivalency is exactly what the parent comment wanted to discuss. You say the security failings of iMessage and WhatsApp pale in comparison to WeChat; I agree with parent comment and ask - in light of PRISM etc. - on what grounds can you say we should not be just as suspicious?

ivalm 6y ago
Whether or not compromised, I am sure my messages on iMessage are not used to train censorship applications by the NSA. Messages on WeChat are used for censorship. I also, separately, think that in aggregate Apple has incentives to make iMessage secure. While Tencent has incentives to share WeChat data with CCP. These are among many reasons why the comparison was false equivalence. The world is not just black and white “secure vs not secure.”
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  > I am sure my messages on iMessage are not used to train censorship applications by the NSA What basis do you have for this certainty?
  - elefanten 6y ago
    To your question: Relative transparency and relative accountability of the governments in question. But your question is by nature setting up a false comparison. There is no observed censorship apparatus in place in the US. You can always pose "what if" scenarios about super classified efforts, but functionally there is no active system in place. Compare this to the vastly-resourced, all-encompassing one operated openly and enthusiastically by the CCP.
    - boomlinde 6y ago
      Short of absolute transparency and absolute accountability, you can only be relatively certain, i.e. not certain.
      - ivalm 6y ago
        But not all “not certain” are created equal. After all, if you apply a sufficiently strong threshold nothing is certain.
  - ivalm 6y ago
    On the basis that there is no automatic censorship of user content shown to me via iMessage. I am highly certain that my friends can send me arbitrary (within technical reason) text and images and not get censored. This is not the case with WeChat in China right now. Given societal norms I think there is a strong expectation that my iMessages will not be censored in the near future either. This means there is little incentive for NSA to train and develop an actionable automatic censorship application. Again, this is true even if they intercept, decode, analyze, commit physical action on the basis of the analysis, and store every one of my messages.

forgot_again 6y ago

The false equivalency also begs a deeper moral analysis. Let's assume the US government has as complete access to iMessage and WhatsApp as the CCP does to WeChat. The story doesn't end there, since you have to examine the nature of the entities that have access to your information. Would I prefer that access be held by the US Government, which for all its faults is extremely engaged with and integrated into the global system, beholden to Law and a robust court system which enforces a strict set of checks and balances on its behavior, and is philosophically rooted in individual liberty? Or would I prefer the CCP, which does not even recognize the concept of individual liberty, is beholden to no one but itself and its own desires, and ruthlessly upholds its iron and unquestioned (unquestionable, at least in China) will upon the entire nation with absolutely 0 oversight? Yeah, gonna go with the US here.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
turnipla 6y ago
> extremely engaged with and integrated into the global system, beholden to Law and a robust court system Uhm yeah but countries do nothing when Russia annexes Crimea, what do you think they’d do if the US simply spies on them? Absolutely nothing. It’s literally happening right now and it’s public knowledge and “it’s just a matter of national security.” Case closed.
Silhouette 6y ago
This depends on your point of view, of course. If you're a US citizen with US legal protections and representatives in US government and access to US lawyers, you might find that reassuring. From the outside, the picture of the modern US is not nearly as pretty.
cyphar 6y ago
I disagree with several aspects of your depiction of the US's "robust court system" (especially in the case of mass surveillance). There have been several attempts by citizens to sue the US Government for their illegal and indiscriminate surveillance programs, but have been stonewalled for years by government lawyers arguing that such cases should not happen in public courts (where they could be held accountable) due to "national security risks". Not to mention that the NSA has their own interpretation of the US Constitution which completely twists the meaning of "collection" to allow indiscriminate mass surveillance to not be seen as "unreasonable search and seizure". Then there's the whole FISA court system, which rejects so few requests that it is in every sense of the word a rubber stamp court. And even if the court system is "robust" -- let's not forget that the PATRIOT Act exists (though it turns out that the NSA actually violated even the minimal restrictions present in the PATRIOT Act). Now, is China any better? Of course not, and the CCP has countless policies which are far worse to their own people than the US. But the key question is -- do you live in or have any connection to China? If not, then I would go with the CCP surveillance because there is no obvious mechanism for such surveillance to harm you directly. On the other hand, if you live in a 5-EYES country (as I do), any data obtained from US surveillance can be used in parallel construction (or other not-entirely-legal methods). Hell, here in Australia our mass surveillance systems have been used to punish minor infringements such as littering. Obviously I'd prefer not to be surveilled at all, but between the two I'd choose the one that has the smallest threat of direct impact on my life.

SiVal 6y ago

I totally agree. When you employ lossy compression to reduce a multidimensional assessment of degree and kind of risk to a single bit ("Do any potential risks exist, yes or no?") you are deleting almost all information that can be used for risk assessment. Presumably you would do so either because you genuinely think there is only one bit worth considering or you prefer others not think about the other bits.

IncRnd 6y ago

You misread your parent post. Bgorrman didn't say that WeChat being insecure means that iMessage and Whatsapp are insecure. Bgorrman questioned if we have reason to believe that iMessge and Whatsapp are more secure than WeChat. A implies B & C is not the same as asking whether B & C share the same qualities as A. You actually created a strawman in order to say that your parent had a false equivalence.

tjpnz 6y ago

Just having it on your device is a security risk in itself.