
Police forcing me to install Jingwang spyware app, how to minimize impact? - sebazzz
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/194353/police-forcing-me-to-install-jingwang-spyware-app-how-to-minimize-impact
======
ilamont
Is this only being done in Xinjiang
([https://thenextweb.com/asia/2017/07/25/chinas-forcing-its-
ci...](https://thenextweb.com/asia/2017/07/25/chinas-forcing-its-citizens-to-
install-a-terrifying-big-brother-app-on-their-phones-or-go-to-jail/)), or have
the police expanded it to other parts of the People's Republic of China?

ETA: Apparently some tourists are being forced to install it as well:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/security/comments/8ofiiw/chinese_bo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/security/comments/8ofiiw/chinese_border_police_installed_software_on_my/)

Also worth checking out the excellent ABC (Australia) multimedia feature on
China's "social credit" system:

 _Social credit is like a personal scorecard for each of China’s 1.4 billion
citizens.

In one pilot program already in place, each citizen has been assigned a score
out of 800. In other programs it’s 900.

Those, like Dandan, with top “citizen scores” get VIP treatment at hotels and
airports, cheap loans and a fast track to the best universities and jobs.

“It will allow the trustworthy to roam freely under heaven while making it
hard for the discredited to take a single step.”

Those at the bottom can be locked out of society and banned from travel, or
barred from getting credit or government jobs.

The system will be enforced by the latest in high-tech surveillance systems as
China pushes to become the world leader in artificial intelligence.

Surveillance cameras will be equipped with facial recognition, body scanning
and geo-tracking to cast a constant gaze over every citizen._

[http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-
credit...](http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/china-social-credit-a-
model-citizen-in-a-digital-dictatorship/10200278?pfmredir=sm)

~~~
Gaelan
Looks like a tourist to Xinjiang
([https://www.reddit.com/r/security/comments/8ofiiw/chinese_bo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/security/comments/8ofiiw/chinese_border_police_installed_software_on_my/e03ae1a/))

------
Mefis
Can we stop with argumentative and ultimately pointless comparison between the
US and China.

For me what's astounding is:

"Lastly, nothing is transmitted from the individuals device to the receiving
server over HTTPS — all in plaintext via HTTP — and updates are unsigned. This
means all the data the app collects is transmitted to the unknown entity on
the receiving end in a way that allows someone with a trivial amount of
technical knowledge to intercept and potentially manipulate" [0]

Is there any reason besides incompetence why the apps developers would do
this?

[0] [https://www.opentech.fund/news/app-targeting-uyghur-
populati...](https://www.opentech.fund/news/app-targeting-uyghur-population-
censors-content-lacks-basic-security/)

Edited: formatting

~~~
natch
>Is there any reason besides incompetence why the apps developers would do
this?

Well... cheap shot maybe, but it's Android. People are always hating on Apple
for having security checks and rules. Android, on the other hand... how did
Sundar Pichai put it? "We prioritize openness over security," something like
that.

Openness does sound good but positioning it as a tradeoff with security
bothers me. Having both would be good.

I'm wondering how this is or will be handled on the Apple platform. When that
information comes out, I'm not expecting it will make Apple look good, since
they have said they will follow the law (no matter how bad the law is!)
wherever they sell their devices. If following the law means allowing a
spyware app into the App Store, and they do this, I'll have to reevaluate my
expectations of privacy for using Apple devices.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
> Openness does sound good but positioning it as a tradeoff with security
> bothers me. Having both would be good.

Letting people write and install whatever program they want necessarily
includes letting them write and install shitty programs.

~~~
natch
Yes. I can write and install any shitty program I want on my Apple device. No
problems there.

But when it comes to other people's devices, those other people probably want
a say in who the device is open to and when, and for what purpose. Apple helps
make it possible for them to have a say.

While I am free to install astoundingly shitty software on my own
iPhone/iPad/Mac, Apple makes it difficult for me to install shitty programs on
other people's Apple devices without their knowledge or consent.

Seems like a reasonable way of doing things. Open for your own device, and
others get to decide for themselves what they are open to for their devices.

~~~
Canada
How are you free to install software on your own iPhone or iPad when you need
a developer account to get a signing certificate to install your app on your
own phone?

~~~
natch
With a developer account.

------
sandov
Reading stuff like these always makes me so sad about Chinese people. Guys
just like me, who like fiddling with computers and just want to be happy have
to live in this totalitarian nightmare. I know it sounds silly to care about
this stuff when probably there are much worse things happening in China,
executions and stuff. But from my ignorant POV, tech is the one thing I can
relate to.

At the same time it makes me feel lonely. I would love to be able to help them
in some way, but I can't.

~~~
runn1ng
This is in Xinjiang region.

Muslim minority (but majority in Xinjiang, more or less resisting forced
assimilation). Regular Han people don't really have much sympathy for them,
and since China is nowadays an ethnostate, the state won't care either.

They would not currently attempt to do this in Han cities.

------
Someone1234
What are the benefits & liabilities to both installing and to circumvention?

What I mean is that China is known to jail political dissidents (and or lower
their social score which has negative implications, like limiting travel), so
you have to weigh the risks of being viewed negatively via the spyware's
information leakage with the risk of getting caught circumventing. For example
one could only be a lower social score, while the other could literally be
jail or "disappearing."

I might sound like a immoral question, but you really have to weigh the
potential risks of doing what that thread asks. I won't give people advice on
circumvention not because I agree with the Chinese government (I don't!) but
because I don't want to be partly responsible for a Chinese dissident getting
caught and "punished" for the attempted circumvention.

~~~
mikekchar
In my view, there is a case for civil disobedience. However, if you are going
that route, then you should be prepared (and possibly even welcome) the
consequences. Your goal should be to draw attention to the problem and put
pressure on the government to change its laws.

This tactic is very good _if the government is likely to respond to that kind
of pressure_. Gandhi and his followers risked death for their actions. Gandhi
referred to them as "soldiers" because, even though their battlefield was
political, the consequences were the same. Through the horrific deaths of the
disobedient, the British government was forced out of India. Before you engage
in an act of civil disobedience, you need to understand the playing field. For
India, Gandhi surmised (and was correct) that the result would be as
inevitable as the losses, and people willingly sacrificed themselves for the
cause. _This will not always be the case_ (and I would be very much surprised
if it _is_ the case in China because there is very little pressure that can be
effectively applied to the Chinese government, whether inside or outside of
the country).

So if civil disobedience is not the goal, what is the point of trying to work
around the spyware? Obviously to avoid being spied upon. But it's important to
understand that it is breaking the law. It makes you a criminal -- with all
the downsides that can bring. It doesn't matter whether it is moral or not.
Being punished for breaking the law is an incredibly wasteful thing to do from
the perspective of trying to make the country a better place, if you are not
going the civil disobedience route (and hence using your punishment as a
strategic weapon against the government).

So what can you do? Possibly nothing except wait. Fighting and losing may be
valiant and courageous, but it's also ineffective. Wait until you can make a
difference. Prepare, and plan and store all your energy for the one time where
you can succeed. If it doesn't come in your lifetime, then prepare the next
generation to wait. Nothing is forever.

And if you want to know how to communicate: never underestimate the bandwidth
of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. As the top reply
on SE currently points out, make your cellphone squeaky clean and ensure that
there is a lot of normal data on it (i.e. use it like a normal person).
Communicate secret things in a different manner.

~~~
kkarakk
what you're advising is literally almost impossible to do today and will just
get harder to do as time goes on. all it takes is one person on your social
graph texting/emailing/sending you the wrong thing and you'll be flagged.

if a panopticon exists, the only way to live a normal life is to avoid it by
bypassing it. there is no other option unless you refuse to interact with
suspicious people who don't follow your "different techniques". in which case
the government succeeds anyways in their efforts to chill disobedience

------
superkuh
This just makes it obvious what smart phones are in a world where people
pretend otherwise because they're so damn useful.

They are tracking and spying devices. It's implicit in the idea of a 'cell'.
When you carry a cell phone you _are_ being tracked. No matter what is going
on in the software side of the phone you have ostensible control over you
don't control the baseband modem and certainly not the basestations doing
multilateration with their super precise clocks. And it's going to get worse
with the proliferation of micro and nano cell basestations as well as massive
MIMO beamforming at regular ones.

------
jackhack
How to minimize impact? Not possible. Once the device is compromised, there is
no going back, it is time to stop using the phone for any "questionable"
behavior you do not wish Big Brother to record. The only real solution is to
live in a place where police do not force you to install spyware.

And do not name your phone "tiananmen square massacre 1989"

~~~
cheeko1234
[https://www.businessinsider.com/words-china-banned-from-
sear...](https://www.businessinsider.com/words-china-banned-from-search-
engines-after-tiananmen-square-2014-6)

Fire Torch Oil lamp Candle flame Blood Democracy Autonomous Twitter Six four
Eight nine Eight eight Tank May 35 35 Six Four 64 June Jun+4 Thirty-five
Twenty-four Six+four Six 4 6 four

------
wtracy
I'm curious what happens if you use a phone that's incompatible with the app.
Do you get a free pass, or is China going to only allow the use of compatible
devices?

~~~
lozaning
I thank my lucky stars everyday that Samsung has still yet to figure out how
to port their security rootkit to OSX. Getting into and out of Digital City is
already horrendous enough as it as, I dont need software spying on me forever
until I format my machine.

~~~
slig
Since there are (were?) virus that can survive a HD format, I wouldn't trust a
simple format against a state agency spyware.

~~~
lozaning
I should have been more clear.

If you want to get into most any Samsung building in the world and especially
their global HQ in Suwoon they make you install their security shit on any
Windows laptops you've got. It blocks USB ports, prevents you from connecting
to anything but corporate wifi, and disables any cameras amongst other things.

Once your business with samsung is done you can email someone (And I think
it's literally only 1 guy for all of global samsung) and in a couple weeks
they'll email you a one time code tied to some kinda hardware ID that you can
use to uninstall the software from your machine.

I've got no reason to believe that Samsung is in kahoots with a nation state
for any nefarious spying, I just resent being treated as a would be criminal.

That being said if you visit a Samsung office in China, just bring burner tech
and throw it away before coming back.

~~~
gruez
>Once your business with samsung is done you can email someone (And I think
it's literally only 1 guy for all of global samsung) and in a couple weeks
they'll email you a one time code tied to some kinda hardware ID that you can
use to uninstall the software from your machine

...or restore a full disk backup? actually, come to think of it, what's
preventing you from playing along and installing their security rootkit, then
reimage/reinstall os/swap hdd/switch boot partition once you get in? unless
they can overwrite your computer's firmware and prevent it fro. being
modified, its trivial to remove the rootkit.

~~~
edejong
If rootkits stay on HDDs, yes. But they don’t. There are hundreds of firmware
locations on a machine. Many of them are known to be hackable. So it isn’t
unthinkable that a wipe of a HDD will not be sufficient to thwart a state
level actor.

~~~
yalok
I came to a Samsung office in Suwong with a MacBook. Wasn’t forced to install
anything, but, in order to use their network and 3rd party exchange site, I
did have to install that tool on my Win VM. Should have just made a snapshot
of VM image before doing that, and then it’d be easy to roll back.

I was more shocked by airport-style scanning security at the entrance and
exit, forcing everyone to seal usb drives and phone cameras.

~~~
lozaning
They also run active countermeasures, like deauthing any SSID that isnt one of
their own, so no hotspoting. Gotta do it over Bluetooth or a USB cable.

If you find yourself there again make sure to ask whoever is hosting you for
VIP status. Supposed to only be Director and above, but it's an absolute game
changer as far as the hassle getting in and out every day and I've managed to
get it a time or two.

------
sydd
1\. Dont try to circumvent with software, they have more experts than you. If
you get caught its likely jail.

If you really need some app that they monitor install an Android emulator on
your PC.

Or get a phone where their app wont work, like one with Ubuntu or Sailfish OS.

~~~
mtgx
If that works, then it should work to have a different Android profile or use
an environment isolation app such as Island or Google's Test DPC. I think
there's another new one in the F-Droid store, too, now.

------
clircle
I'd sell the smart phone. Then buy a dumb phone.

~~~
Cthulhu_
It's likely that all dumb phone traffic is already monitored in China (so be
careful in phone conversations / text messages), but yeah, if you want your
personal files kept personal don't carry them on a mobile or otherwise
internet connected device.

------
paultopia
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I can't imagine the Chinese government is going to be
terribly happy when they find out about that post. I do hope the poster ends
up ok.

------
throwaway92411
This makes me wonder, if there was a question about how to break US law,
whether that post would be allowed to stand?

I suppose if it was informational, then it might be OK. But seeing how the
government has gone after Backpage and other similar sites, I think anything
that aids and abets it would be shut down.

~~~
Cthulhu_
I think there's questions about how to deal with US border security, given how
they have special laws that apply to them allowing them to hold you into
custody until you give up e.g. encryption keys to your hard drive. They don't
advise on how to break the law, they advise to not bring personal data across
the border and use a VPN to retrieve it from wherever you're coming from.

------
kimburgess
s/China/Australia/g

[https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/consultations/assistanc...](https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about/consultations/assistance-
and-access-bill-2018)

------
07d046
This doesn't seem like a problem with a technical solution. If he slips up and
gets caught, that alone might be enough to send him into a Xinjiang
concentration camp.

Some of my libertarian tech friends like the idea of more encryption and
decentralisation to resist what they perceive as increasingly oppressive
governments, but I'm confident that this tech-first approach can never work. A
truly oppressive government can easily outlaw these things and identify the
users, and they'll be the first to disappear.

~~~
Cthulhu_
There's already laws popping up left and right that you get x years in jail
(or are just detained indefinitely) if you don't unlock your digital devices
or hard drives. The logic being if you have nothing to hide, etc. It's a
direct violation of the self-incriminating constitution thing, but there's
lots of attempts to talk around that one.

------
graeme
How is China handling iphones: is there any equivalent to this app? Will they
ban iphones in some sensitive locations if the phones can't be breached?

AFAIK iphones don't allow spyware apps to gather most of the data the android
app does.

~~~
nil_pointer
I would guess Apple works closely with China and provides special software
releases for Chinese devices, probably with spyware embedded.

~~~
1stranger
Source?

------
Bryan00
If you require the services of a private investigator, I'd recommended Chuck
to you. He is a reliable, tested and legitimate IT expert who specialize in
proliferating any systems or network operation known and unknown. Write to :
Wyvernchuck on g-mail.

He specializes in the following services:

 _Spy on Cheating Partners_ Identification of Cheating Partner or Employee,
Mole in a system. _Hack into Bank, Company and Security Agents Websites_ Hack
Bank Accounts, BTC top up, BTC investment, ETH investment etc Contact :
WYVERNCHUCK at gmail come +1667-308-3018

------
BrandoElFollito
When I read the question (and almost answered, but the answer would have been
too similar to another one), I was so surprised that anyone can suggest
anything beyond "Do. Not. Do. It".

Having as the adversary a state is a game changer and there are a few purple
who have the knowledge to imagine a strategy. Suggesting anything to someone
who has no idea about security is simply unethical, given what is at stake.

------
olemartinorg
My phone is made in China, from a Chinese manufacturer. How can we know this
software isn't either pre-installed or installed via OTA updates?

~~~
Cthulhu_
You can't really, which is what got HTC into major trouble (iirc).

~~~
robjan
HTC are not a Chinese manufacturer

------
est
People are over simplifying this.

China is a authoritarian surveillance state? Yes.

But that only scratches the surface of a deeper problem within. I think China
is just a case of policies easily influenced by lobbyists, and gets executed
_very efficiently_

This contributes much to China's economical success, as well as its (possible)
demise.

------
zwaps
Reminds me to never go to China. What a nightmare.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It usually isn’t bad unless you live there. As a tourist, you’ll hardly feel
like you are in a police state (quite the opposite, it can be quite chaotic
and free wheeling as long as you don’t go near politics). Ya, the internet
will suck while you are there, but the food is great and there is a lot to
see. IMHO, you would feel more repressed in a place like Singapore than the
PRC.

If you are going to Xinjiang or Tibet, things start to get weird. Both are
really nice places to go, but the logistics are complicated and you’ll feel
much more repressed. I went to northern XJ in 2006 before the 2008 riots, it
was absolutely stunning and a great place to tour. I also visited the Tibetan
part of Sichuan and Yunnan, equally awesome, you are really missing out if you
never see it! The Tibetan areas outside of Tibet are easier to get into for
foreigners, well at least they were back in 2004. China is getting more closed
than it used to be before the olympics, that’s for sure.

~~~
ardy42
> As a tourist, you’ll hardly feel like you are in a police state

Especially if you can't read the propaganda posters.

> Ya, the internet will suck while you are there

Protip: bring a phone with a foreign international data plan. The packets will
be routed over the phone network to your home country and bypass the Great
Firewall.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Even if you can read the propaganda banners (posters are rare, banners with
slogans are more common), it comes off as weird and novel rather than
personally oppressive.

I thought that only applies to HK phones, but I have never tried!

~~~
atr_gz
I can confirm that Google Fi and T-Mobile data get routed back to the US from
mainland China. Location services always think I'm in California.

------
mjevans
Don't consider a mobile phone to be a secure device.

Only if you completely "own", manage, and trust all suppliers can you say that
you even know the scope of trust to associate with your phone. This is not
possible on even a "rooted" phone without the software due to the baseband
being non-free and non-audited.

------
Tree1993
It is china's fault, not android because if you travel there, your iphone will
be checked too.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Same in the US, they have laws that allow them to detain you if you don't let
them search your digital devices.

------
1023bytes
It would be interesting if someone posted the APK, it's Android so it wouldn't
be a big issue to crack it and make it only seem like it works.

------
rasengan
1\. Install multiple ROMs on your device.

2\. One of the ROMs would, essentially, be a dummy device which would have the
Jingwang spyware as enforced by gun.

3\. The other ROMs would not.

~~~
Splines
And then what do you do when you have the wrong ROM running and you get
grabbed by the police with no opportunity to reboot your phone? There are
mitigations but getting this right requires a high amount of vigilance.

------
jayalpha
I mean, I see so many solutions to this posted there. Dual Boot Rom, Sandbox
etc.

How about carrying two phones?

~~~
icebraining
The question says they can't afford two phones.

~~~
jayalpha
"I can't afford two phones nor two contracts, so using a second phone is not a
viable option for me."

Sounds strange. A 100 Dollar phone plus a prepaid SIM?

I actually never heard that the Chinese police forces spyware on your phone,
except if you are a Muslim.

~~~
dfcowell
Welcome to the developing world, where the average monthly salary in major
cities is lower than $1,500/mo and in minor cities is often sub-$400/mo and a
$100 phone is an incredible luxury out of reach of many.

~~~
jayalpha
Yeah. Sure. Explain this to me, as a person living in China.

------
yhavr
Has anybody made a custom android that sandboxes this app and feeds it wrong
information?

------
hnaccy
I hope Chinese party collapses.

If a large illiberal and totalitarian state can succeed and thrive then I fear
our own nations will soon follow that path.

~~~
dang
Please do not take HN threads into generic national flamewar. This is off
topic and never ends well.

~~~
room271
While I agree it probably never ends well, this is hardly off topic in this
case.

~~~
dang
I see your point. There's a subtle assumption in what I said that was probably
unclear, so I'll try to explain.

Generic discussions, especially generic flamewars, lead to the same things
being said over and over. These topics are important and people feel very
strongly about them, and because their passions are so engaged, they stride
into the threads with tried-and-true weapons (talking points, prepared
statements, and so on) to smite the other side with. The other side responds
in kind, and off into battle we go.

In addition to being violent by internet standards, such discussions are also
predictable. That's where the point about off-topicness comes in.
Predictability is what this site exists to avoid; its core value is
intellectual curiosity (see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)),
and that lives at the opposite end of the topic spectrum. So when I say that
an argument like this is off topic, I mean it's off topic for Hacker News as a
whole, even if it's related to the story at hand.

Tons more explanation of this can be found via
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20generic&sort=byDate&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20generic&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)
if anyone wants it.

------
walrus01
I like to remind people of shit like this when they claim that the United
States government is an "oppressive" presence on the Internet. Yes, the five
eyes nations are actively trying to backdoor crypto, and there is a lot of
bullshit going on, but you _don 't need a license in North America to operate
an http daemon_. In China you do. The GFW is no joke, and they are seriously
trying to bifurcate the Internet.

~~~
thaumaturgy
This sentiment trivially reduces to, "everything the US does is fine until
it's the most oppressive presence on the internet", which probably isn't what
you mean.

The US flexes a lot of political muscle to enforce copyright restrictions,
maintain secrets, and expand surveillance around the world. That may not be as
oppressive as China, but on a scale from "free" to "China", it's still in the
"China" half.

~~~
toss1
Nonsense false equivalency.

Yes, in terms of implementing secrets & National Security-related spying there
is overall parity, with the US probably a bit ahead of China & Russia.

But in terms of being an average citizen, it is night and day. At least for
now, the US is an active open democracy, with a large majority of citizens
actively engaged in maintaining the governmental and extra-governmental
institutions the maintain democracy, e.g., independent judiciary, co-equal
branches of govt, elections, independent journalism, free speech, etc. Even
though these are imperfectly implemented and under threat by the current
administration (w/increasing evidence of significant compromise by Russia),
the US remains overly in the OPEN and FREE column.

In contrast, China is a straight-up autocracy, and it is openly working to
ensure it's citizens do not even know their own history (e.g., Tiananmen,
Tibet) or current news (e.g., Uyghurs), and have no capability to
independently either obtain accurate information, or to organize to respond
appropriately if they can somehow get it. And of course the spyware topic of
this article, where ordinary citizens can get stopped on the street for
failure to install.

This is little different than "May I see your papers please".

Russia is not far behind.

To falsely equate these regimes and their surveillance & interference levels
is tantamount to propaganda.

~~~
thaumaturgy
There are interesting discussions to be had about the similarities and
differences between China and the US, but saying that "the US is an oppressive
presence on the internet" is not without merit. All that is left is
disagreement on the relative impacts.

The _reasonable_ people who make that argument are also the important vocal
watchdogs who provide the friction against further abuses of power. They
shouldn't be casually dismissed just because there are worse governments in
the world.

~~~
toss1
No, it is not merely a difference in degree.

It is a wholesale difference in kind/type.

NatSec ops constrained by a robust constitution implemented by an elected
govt, with different co-equal branches, including a court system with
centuries of experience & tradition of protecting privacy of citizens from the
beginning -- one of the principles on which is was founded (see 2nd, 3rd, 4th,
Ammendments for starters), and a vigorous tradition of free speech and free
press is one side.

The other is an unelected totalitarian govt with a tradition of actively
murdering it's own citizens to consolidate single-party political power,
decades (China) or centuries (Russia) of manipulating information to the
people, zero free press with active suppression, and active programs in both
the civilian and military heirarchy to restrict information and spy on the
people.

To even remotely equate these systems and the threat they pose to the people
is to either 1) deliberately grossly misrepresent the situation, or 2) display
profound ignorance of the issues.

If you want to recognize that there is a vast difference of type and then go
on to discuss how the US might be better about what they do, that can be a
fine discussion. But the land of 'they're all the same just different degree'
is so far from reality as to render discussion useless.

~~~
jonathanyc
> NatSec ops constrained by a robust constitution implemented by an elected
> govt, with different co-equal branches, including a court system with
> centuries of experience & tradition of protecting privacy of citizens from
> the beginning -- one of the principles on which is was founded (see 2nd,
> 3rd, 4th, Ammendments for starters), and a vigorous tradition of free speech
> and free press is one side.

When I think of the FISA court I don’t exactly think of “different co-equal
branches, including a court system with centuries of experience & tradition of
protecting privacy of citizens from the beginning”. The FISA court is
literally a non-adversarial court.

I think the US court system is one of the best designed in the world. But
please don’t pretend that the well-developed standard court system is anything
like the secret and unaccountable national security court system.

~~~
toss1
Perhaps you don't think of FISA as a system that protects citizens, but that
does not mean it is not so.

You might notice that you're already off in the weeds of international
National Security issues and nowhere near the problems of what Russia, China,
Iran, etc. are doing. So our system is already fundamentally different.

Then, you might notice that you are completely erroneous about FISA
accountability. It is accountable to both higher judges and to Congress -- see
the original authorizing act and H.R.2586 in the 113th congress on increasing
FISA accountability.

Yes, the FISA courts which deal with national security level secrets are
different from open courts, and the accountability has been lax. But if there
is any "pretending" here, it is that somehow because FISA courts exist, we're
somehow on the same plane as totalitarian and criminal states.

For starters, the FISA courts EXISTS, and does turn down requests. Here, there
EXISTS a court system requiring evidence, arguments, and warrants.

It may be imperfect, but there is no such structure whatsoever in Russia,
China, Iran etc. -- if they want to spy on someone, foreign or domestic, they
just do it.

Again, there's a basis for discussion of how the US, EU, and FVEY countries
could do it better.

But there is no basis for discussion with a simplistic and/or propagandistic
false equivalence of the open liberal democratic countries and totalitarian
regimes.

------
yters
How true are the reports about treatment of Falun Gong?

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18062476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18062476)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
yters
Perhaps, but the parent was talking about enormous amounts of people being
detained without charge in China. Falun Gong seem to be a very egregious
(organ harvesting and tortured to death!) example of this.

------
markdown
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism)

China is irrelevant to the average western internet user, to whom the US govt
is indeed an oppressive presence.

~~~
dang
Please keep the tedious cliché that 'whataboutism' has turned into off HN. I
don't know how it started but it's now nothing but a flamewar trope.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18061698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18061698)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
GW150914
Some things are cliche because they’re so often repeated, and sometimes
they’re repeated so often because they’re often apt. Are we really not allowed
to call a spade a spade? I can understand that just saying, “whataboutism” and
nothing more would be low effort shitppsting, but in the context of a reasoned
argument pointing out how something truly is _just_ whataboutism, we’re not
supposed to point that out?

The comment that set this all off was short and made a single point that can
be accurately described by a cliche. There was nothing else to it. I an
understand not wanting people to dismiss real arguments with cliches, but I
don’t think that’s what happened here. When someone brags about using a straw
man to deflect reasonable criticism, it merits a response.

~~~
yorwba
> When someone brags about using a straw man to deflect reasonable criticism,
> it merits a response.

Maybe, but that response shouldn't just classify the argument as an instance
of the cliche, since that would be low-effort shitposting, as you point out.
HN already has the downvote arrow to express that kind of disagreement.

------
crunchlibrarian
It seems like a pretty safe assumption that google will just play along with
the Chinese government and force spyware into phones via play or some update
mechanism, if they aren't already working on this.

Stopping people at random on the street to make sure an app is installed seems
quite inefficient.

~~~
nil_pointer
Stopping people on the street is also very bad PR and leads to submissions
like this. They would be better off doing what you suggested.

~~~
mikeash
This shows why it’s actually quite efficient. The bad PR is part of the whole
effect. They don’t want to silently monitor these people, they want to
_control_ them, and making it known that they can be stopped at any time and
forced to submit is part of the deal.

