3 ms·

Can you give some examples or links to governments outside of China doing this? What sort of products are they trying to infiltrate?

mzd348 4y ago
"Smart TVs" come to mind, though this is corporate rather than government. For example there's talk of them having an embedded 5G modem so that they're able to phone home even if you've blocked them from your network, or never connected them to your network in the first place.
- wcfields 4y ago
  Hey, have you ever thought of why even the $149 Black Friday loss-leader no-name-brand TVs all have Amazon Fire, Roku, or are now "Smart" in some way? Certainly isn't because they need to incentivise you to connect it to the internet so it acts as a Nielsen-esq measurement device of all media you view on the screen via digital fingerprints that exist in all commercial media and advertisements. [1][2] [1] https://www.ispot.tv/ https://www.ispot.tv/ [2] https://www.samba.tv/ https://www.samba.tv/
nonrandomstring 4y ago
I don't think one needs to point to specific governments or their actions, and it would indeed be wrong to. The very fact that Pegasus and similar malwares are openly allowed operate as businesses, that smartphone cyber-security is essentially a lost cause, that companies like Huawei were able to ship devices with such deeply embedded flaws, and that harms are visited upon even serving political leaders shows that there's an epic power struggle which is out of control at every level. Without blaming this or that regime, fascist, communist or whatever, we need to recognise a new dimension in power, call it "techno-fascism" or whatever you like... that means it would be foolish to invest much trust in digital systems at this point in history. And that itself is a huge economic loss and bonfire of opportunity for us all.
horsawlarway 4y ago
In both cases - I think the problem is that a device continues to listen to the manufacturer over the owner. In China, we see this play out as government control. In the US, we see it play out as corporate profits under the guise of laissez faire governance (which then feeds back into political donations & lobbying, to allow more corporate profits). A simple example right now: I can't use hardware I own if I want a static IP from Comcast. I literally have to rent a device from them. Is my hardware compatible? Sure is. Do they allow it? Nope. Same problem is happening with "Rental features" that are built into devices. Bought that car but want to use the seat heater that's literally built in? Better have an account with BMW and pay 18/month. Why? Because BMW shoved their fucking little green man into the car, and it only respects them. Using a phone? Even a phone that's working really hard to be open (like Librem)? You're loading a proprietary binary blob for the radio firmware. There's just no alternative at the moment. Who has control over that? No good way to know. Librem tries really hard to isolate that from the rest of your phone system, but that doesn't stop it from reporting your location any time the modem is on (even if you're not using it, or have asked it to be disconnected). At least librem provides a kill switch for it so you can ensure it's off, but it's annoying. Using an Apple device? Apple owns that fucker through and through. They control the updates to the software, they report every app you use (for malware reasons, of course!!! /s), they capture all sorts of information about you - using their little green man. And that's a company that actively works to market itself as privacy friendly - don't even get me started with Google and MS. They give you a little more control to wipe away their crap, but the defaults are pretty damn bad. Basically - Control over the "owner/user" is still the desired state for these devices. In regressive regimes, that control is used to increase government power. In less regressive countries that control is used for rent-seeking behavior, which ends up increasing profit, which is used for lobbying, which creates incentives to allow continued rent-seeking behavior.

mzd348 4y ago

"Smart TVs" come to mind, though this is corporate rather than government. For example there's talk of them having an embedded 5G modem so that they're able to phone home even if you've blocked them from your network, or never connected them to your network in the first place.

wcfields 4y ago
Hey, have you ever thought of why even the $149 Black Friday loss-leader no-name-brand TVs all have Amazon Fire, Roku, or are now "Smart" in some way? Certainly isn't because they need to incentivise you to connect it to the internet so it acts as a Nielsen-esq measurement device of all media you view on the screen via digital fingerprints that exist in all commercial media and advertisements. [1][2] [1] https://www.ispot.tv/ https://www.ispot.tv/ [2] https://www.samba.tv/ https://www.samba.tv/

nonrandomstring 4y ago

I don't think one needs to point to specific governments or their actions, and it would indeed be wrong to. The very fact that Pegasus and similar malwares are openly allowed operate as businesses, that smartphone cyber-security is essentially a lost cause, that companies like Huawei were able to ship devices with such deeply embedded flaws, and that harms are visited upon even serving political leaders shows that there's an epic power struggle which is out of control at every level. Without blaming this or that regime, fascist, communist or whatever, we need to recognise a new dimension in power, call it "techno-fascism" or whatever you like... that means it would be foolish to invest much trust in digital systems at this point in history. And that itself is a huge economic loss and bonfire of opportunity for us all.

horsawlarway 4y ago

In both cases - I think the problem is that a device continues to listen to the manufacturer over the owner. In China, we see this play out as government control. In the US, we see it play out as corporate profits under the guise of laissez faire governance (which then feeds back into political donations & lobbying, to allow more corporate profits). A simple example right now: I can't use hardware I own if I want a static IP from Comcast. I literally have to rent a device from them. Is my hardware compatible? Sure is. Do they allow it? Nope. Same problem is happening with "Rental features" that are built into devices. Bought that car but want to use the seat heater that's literally built in? Better have an account with BMW and pay 18/month. Why? Because BMW shoved their fucking little green man into the car, and it only respects them. Using a phone? Even a phone that's working really hard to be open (like Librem)? You're loading a proprietary binary blob for the radio firmware. There's just no alternative at the moment. Who has control over that? No good way to know. Librem tries really hard to isolate that from the rest of your phone system, but that doesn't stop it from reporting your location any time the modem is on (even if you're not using it, or have asked it to be disconnected). At least librem provides a kill switch for it so you can ensure it's off, but it's annoying. Using an Apple device? Apple owns that fucker through and through. They control the updates to the software, they report every app you use (for malware reasons, of course!!! /s), they capture all sorts of information about you - using their little green man. And that's a company that actively works to market itself as privacy friendly - don't even get me started with Google and MS. They give you a little more control to wipe away their crap, but the defaults are pretty damn bad. Basically - Control over the "owner/user" is still the desired state for these devices. In regressive regimes, that control is used to increase government power. In less regressive countries that control is used for rent-seeking behavior, which ends up increasing profit, which is used for lobbying, which creates incentives to allow continued rent-seeking behavior.