3 ms·

Is there evidence of wechat spying on communication from the US? I understand “it makes sense”, but I’ve never heard anything provable.

by ivalm 6y ago

onelovetwo 6y ago
The idea is even if the data itself may not be in china, an AI model is trained using that data inside the U.S. (to predict opinion and behavior) and that is sent over. Which is essentially the same as having the data. No one actually wants the data to go though it one by one, its all to train a model that extracts meaningful things from it.
TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
Given the fact that all data in WeChat is sent to a company in China, how would we be able to get concrete evidence of it?
- Aperocky 6y ago
  For all we know Iraq is not allowing investigator in, how would we know if they don't have WMDs? Everyone is guilty until proven innocent.
cbhl 6y ago
Here are a couple of past submissions that talk about how WeChat implements moderation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13085915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13085915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20502727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20502727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20448103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20448103
natdempk 6y ago
WeChat is actively censored for both Chinese-registered and non-China-registered accounts, thus implying that communication through the platform is monitored, reviewed, etc. It isn't a far leap to say those capabilities are usable for spying and it seems unlikely that they wouldn't be if an opportunity arose. You can read some thorough investigations into the extent and mechanics of the censorship here: https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/ or here https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/
chrischen 6y ago
Chinese people know they are being spied on. Americans think they aren’t, and our government is still trying to maintain some pretense in that department by trying to “protect” us from mass surveillance when the trend domestically is clearly moving towards that. Given Facebook messenger isn’t encrypted and Instagram DMs are known to be filtered based on content, that means facebook effectively reads and acts on private messages. The US government is just one National Security Letter away from spying on private comms. The only real protection we have isn’t this Trump administration WeChat ban... it’s end to end encryption like in iMessage or Whatsapp.

Is there evidence of wechat spying on communication from the US? I understand “it makes sense”, but I’ve never heard anything provable.

by ivalm 6y ago

Is there evidence of wechat spying on communication from the US? I understand “it makes sense”, but I’ve never heard anything provable.

onelovetwo 6y ago

The idea is even if the data itself may not be in china, an AI model is trained using that data inside the U.S. (to predict opinion and behavior) and that is sent over. Which is essentially the same as having the data. No one actually wants the data to go though it one by one, its all to train a model that extracts meaningful things from it.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago

Given the fact that all data in WeChat is sent to a company in China, how would we be able to get concrete evidence of it?

Aperocky 6y ago
For all we know Iraq is not allowing investigator in, how would we know if they don't have WMDs? Everyone is guilty until proven innocent.

cbhl 6y ago

Here are a couple of past submissions that talk about how WeChat implements moderation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13085915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13085915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20502727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20502727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20448103 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20448103

natdempk 6y ago

WeChat is actively censored for both Chinese-registered and non-China-registered accounts, thus implying that communication through the platform is monitored, reviewed, etc. It isn't a far leap to say those capabilities are usable for spying and it seems unlikely that they wouldn't be if an opportunity arose. You can read some thorough investigations into the extent and mechanics of the censorship here: https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/ or here https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/

chrischen 6y ago

Chinese people know they are being spied on. Americans think they aren’t, and our government is still trying to maintain some pretense in that department by trying to “protect” us from mass surveillance when the trend domestically is clearly moving towards that. Given Facebook messenger isn’t encrypted and Instagram DMs are known to be filtered based on content, that means facebook effectively reads and acts on private messages. The US government is just one National Security Letter away from spying on private comms. The only real protection we have isn’t this Trump administration WeChat ban... it’s end to end encryption like in iMessage or Whatsapp.