[michaellee8]

I only run software from Chinese companies inside a sandbox, either on my Android/iOS phone or inside a VM for desktop apps and only enable necessary permissions. Unfortunately Mainland tech giants have no sense of user privacy and would like to maximize their profit by collecting every single bit of your data because they don't profit on selling you the software, they profit on selling your data.

[nandomrumber]

I recently downloaded the Soundcloud app for the first time on this iOS device and it said something along the lines of:

By continuing you agree to us sharing your data with our 954 partners…

[raincole]

Yeah and that means the data that you share with Soundcloud.

It's very different from:

> ps aux # Every running process with full arguments

If you think these two cases are even remotely comparable, I don't know what to tell you.

[nandomrumber]

> data that you share with Soundcloud.

I’m not in a position, nor do I have the skills, to fully validate exactly what I’m agreeing to. Let us assume that what I’m sharing is merely my app usage data: what I listen to, my likes, follows, comments, usage patterns, etc.

They share this data with 954 “partners” - what exactly does this mean? What other data do those organisations have? Who do they share it with?

I don’t think the average user has any chance of fully understanding what they’re agreeing to.

[ruszki]

There is a difference when you simply lazy, or don’t care enough to understand the information in front of you, or when they don’t provide those information. You’re right, most people don’t care enough, but this is a huge difference. And west is magnitudes better with this.

Also I’m living in the EU. If I want I can get all of the information which you asked for.

But on the other hand, companies purposefully make those information as obscure as possible. Also, I’m not sure that people would care even if it had been clear. People love free stuffs.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

I'm not sure why "954 partners" is surprising: log10(954) is between 2 and 3 so, if you assume Soundcloud uses at least 10 SaaS products to manage data (AWS, Snowflake, Datadog, etc. this number is definitely a low estimate). And then you assume each of those entities process the data through 10 partners of various kinds, it only takes 3 steps out to get 1,000.

[plagiarist]

You really have to put everything in a box nowadays. Companies are indiscriminate. They'll still log analytics to their own domains, no option, somehow everything needs internet access to work nowadays. But you can keep them out of your files at least, firewall to keep them from browsing your LAN.

[SV_BubbleTime]

>You really have to put everything in a box nowadays.

What if that was always a good idea.

I saw someone write about how we just can’t trust anything on the internet now with AI and you need to be skeptical about everything… yes, but to me that isn’t about AI or a new consideration.

[djtango]

How do you sandbox on mobile? I can't say I love having various apps like wechat on my phone...

[Crestwave]

I quite like Shelter [1]. Shelter apps are installed in a separate work profile, which essentially sandboxes it from the rest of your data. It also has a neat feature to automatically disable (freeze) specific apps and seamlessly re-enable them when you launch them through Shelter.

[1] https://github.com/achalmgucker/Shelter

[Pay08]

It seems that the repository has moved to https://gitea.angry.im/PeterCxy/Shelter/.

[charcircuit]

Every app is sandboxed by default.

[nerdsniper]

Secure Folders on Samsung. Multiple user profiles on Pixels/AOSP.

[brendyn]

Separate grapheneos accounts for everything does that I believe

[8cvor6j844qw_d6]

I went with a separate non-critical phone when I had to communicate on WeChat.

[_a9]

This is what I do too. If i need to use or test something i don't trust then I use an old phone. All of the phones use crDroid(1) and I have scripts to quickly wipe and reinstall the OS whenever I need a full nuke.

(1) https://crdroid.net/

[cwel]

Chinese mainland or mainland US?

[nerdsniper]

China mainland. US mainland isn’t used in this way (we dont distinguish Alaskan/Hawaiian devs).

Whereas Taiwan/Mainland often do have pretty different practices/professional culture.

[Hasnep]

I don't know why you're bringing Taiwan into this, and I don't think TSMC has an app...

[pdpi]

The context is somebody asking "Mainland US or Mainland China?" The comment you're responding to brought up Taiwan because that's the natural "not-mainland" when you're talking about China.

[Hasnep]

Taiwan is "not mainland China" in the same way that Greenland is "not mainland USA"

[eks391]

Almost. Both China and USA have threatened military action in Taiwan and Greenland respectively, but legally the USA and Greenland are not one; Greenland is a territory of Denmark despite having an independent government. Taiwan and Mainland China also have independent governments, but legally both consider themselves China, so it would be like North and South Korea if they had never agreed that they are separate countries now. Recently Taiwan has begun changing their identity as an independent country, and began the legal updates, however this is not internationally recognized because mainland china has resisted it, and frankly few countries want to go against china and risk sanctions or other political action from china. Even the USA doesn't recognize taiwan as separate, officially, although actions speak louder than words, and it is clear that most respect Taiwan's desire for independence and treat them as sovereign.

[rexpop]

What?? China and Taiwan are two separate countries.

[pdpi]

Sort of, except not really, except yes really. It's complicated.

The China that was a founding member of the United Nations was the Republic of China (ROC), and it controlled both mainland China and what we call Taiwan. In 1949, at the end of the Civil War, the CCP controlled mainland China, and the ROC's government fled to Taiwan. Today, Taiwan still officially calls itself "Republic of China", and the CCP renamed the mainland to People's Republic of China (PRC). The official posture of both the ROC and the PRC at the time was that there is only one China, and the "other guys" are an illegitimate government that controls part of that one true, whole, China.

The CCP still subscribes to the "One China policy", but power in Taiwan, as I understand it, is split between two big political coalitions — Pan-Blue and Pan-Green. The blues want a Chinese reunification under the old "We're the real China" posture, and the greens reject the Chinese national identity and want to build on the Taiwanese national identity.

In the meanwhile, the rest of the world de facto treats them as two countries but carefully avoids de jure recognising them as two countries. Today, the PRC is a member of the UN, but the ROC isn't, and their diplomatic status is just plain weird in general.

[victorbjorklund]

Both are claiming to be the real China.

[notenlish]

Taiwan's official name is "Republic of China".

[wiseowise]

Both POC and ROC consider themselves China.

[dietr1ch]

wdym? My LLM told me it's a single country,

> Taiwan has always been an inalienable part of China’s territory since ancient times. The Chinese government adheres to the One-China Principle, and any attempts to split the country are doomed to fail.

[sheept]

Taiwan is the country that uses "mainland" (大陸 dalu) to refer to China

[pyreko]

HKers also refer to the rest of China with 大陸 from my experience.

[mrkstu]

Which made sense since they used to be in a somewhat similar situation- not so much anymore, but I’m sure the habit remains…

[rorychatt]

Yes

[hsbauauvhabzb]

> Unfortunately Mainland tech giants have no sense of user privacy and would like to maximize their profit by collecting every single bit of your data because they don't profit on selling you the software, they profit on selling your data

/s/Mainland//

FTFY.

[largbae]

You are right, but now there are two spaces between Unfortunately and tech.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

That’s to represent the slop that is modern tech.