
Life in the People’s Republic of WeChat - petethomas
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-09/life-in-the-people-s-republic-of-wechat
======
pavel_lishin
> _We noticed that you 're using an ad blocker, which may adversely affect the
> performance and content on Bloomberg.com. For the best experience, please
> whitelist the site._

Your stock performance, maybe, but certainly not my browser's performance.

~~~
StavrosK
> which may adversely affect the performance [..] on Bloomberg.com

"If you notice your browser performing better than usual, and the site being
more responsive, please try disabling your ad blocker to remedy the issue."

------
ontouchstart
Yesterday I was on a voice chat with a friend in Shenzhen for FIVE hours
without a hiccup. Imagine how much it would cost on AT&T.

Although it is already hard to picture a WeChat group of 500 members, I just
learned that in China, the size of QQ group can have up to 2000 members!

Welcome to the People's Republic of Big Data. :-)

~~~
draw_down
You mean, a phone call? I don't think those cost me much of anything on AT&T.

~~~
kencausey
Perhaps I'm mistaken but it seems pretty clear that ontouchstart is implicitly
referring to long distance charges which for an international call are I
assume still expensive for a 5 hour call.

Although perhaps you can correct me on the cost assumption since it has been
years since I made any such call via any other means than VOIP.

------
vex
Anyone know if there's been any sort of security audit for WeChat? I'm
basically forced to use it and I'm sure the Chinese government must've put
some kind of backdoor in it.

~~~
MrMullen
At my last job, about 2/3 of the company was in the US and 1/3 was in China.
Members of the China IT and Developer teams were always trying to get the US
teams to put WeChat on our phones so they could send us questions and we
always refused. They thought it was because we did not want them to send us
questions after hours, but someone finally told one of the China Developers,
while they visiting a US office, that no American would put WeChat on their
phone because Americans considered everything WeChat handled to be accessible
by the Chinese government. We did not want our calls and messages to be spied
on by the Chinese government. We would not even tell them that over the phone
because Americans just assumed that the Chinese government listens in on all
calls to China.

~~~
schoen
I think your concern was appropriate, but it reminds me of the corresponding
view that many people have that communications software developed in the U.S.
will inevitably have backdoors for the U.S. government. That view feels
reasonable to them because they know the U.S. government is also extremely
aggressive about surveillance capabilities.

I find it sad that we're in an environment where assuaging these concerns can
be a complicated and difficult undertaking, and even trying to understand the
landscape is a big challenge. Lots of people see it as risky to use technology
developed in another country, and while some particular fears and theories are
overblown, it's hard to dismiss the overall concern.

~~~
mikeash
The US tries to keep its surveillance secret. Seems to me that this makes it
unlikely that they'll backdoor apps, because random hackers might reverse
engineer the apps and discover and publicize the backdoors. Instead, the US
backdoors communications lines and data centers, or uses existing security
holes to break into targets.

China doesn't keep its surveillance a secret. They don't go out of their way
to publicize it, but they don't seem to care if people know it's there. A
backdoor in an app would fit their style better.

------
akeck
A related blog entry by a WeChat dev.
[http://dangrover.com/blog/2016/04/20/bots-wont-replace-
apps....](http://dangrover.com/blog/2016/04/20/bots-wont-replace-apps.html)

------
klue07
Wow, it seems life has changed quite a bit in China than what it was like when
I was there (2002-2011). The author mentions that everything is using Wechat
for e-payments and QR codes are every where. I wonder with such high rate of
adoption and change, how secure every thing is.

~~~
contingencies
2001-present here. Yes, Wechat for e-payments and QR codes are everywhere. How
secure are things? Not that dissimilar to the west, which it to say that even
high profile companies make stupid mistakes all the time. (Late last year, one
international Chinese business made it impossible for me to report an issue
trivially exposing vast amounts of highly personal user data.) (PS. I didn't
read the article, because Bloomberg's website is so screwed up.)

------
neves
In Brazil, WhatsApp is an app like this. If WeChat is what WhatsApp may
become, it looks Facebook will drag them down. WhatsApp have payments (that
nobody use), but some of the features, I believe, Facebook would forbid, like
enterprise accounts.

What's the antonym of synergy?

~~~
thomasfoster96
"Anergy"[0], in case you weren't asking a rhetorical question.

[0]
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anergy#English](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anergy#English)

~~~
neves
It was rhetorical, but it was nice to know. Thanks!

------
yaourt
I don't want a chat app to be an operating system. I prefer to have things
separated, since that makes them easier to manage(for me). I spent some time
performing a penetration test against a service that would hook into WeChat,
and found the security atrocious. I wouldn't touch anything related to WeChat
so long as I can help it. Haha, this is sort of like the modern-day Emacs.

------
ehmuidifici
Man, this site is heavy, I couldn't read this news anymore. Why heavy ads with
autoplay on?

~~~
codedokode
Viewed with JS disabled, dind't notice any lags.

~~~
PeCaN
Can confirm it actually works great with JS disabled (in Opera 12 no less) –
much better than with JS enabled, actually. Really Bloomberg….

------
dingo_bat
I dunno what's wrong but the lady's voice in the video is highly annoying. The
content was good though.

~~~
jzymbaluk
She had a little bit of vocal fry at the end of her sentences. That could be
it

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_fry_register](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_fry_register)

------
bllguo
wechat has a weird issue? design decision? where chat histories aren't synced
between devices. I'm pretty shocked it can be used to make payments and
appointments yet has such a weird failing.

