Vulnerabilities in Sogou Keyboard encryption expose keypresses to network eavesdropping.

  • godless@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I live in China and this software is cancerous not just in the encryption failure, it also nestles into a computer like a trojan. Creates 2 fallback installations and will reinstall itself after removal if you reboot in between, unless you get rid of all 3 installations at once, where they are deliberately trying to obfuscate the uninstall button (triple confirmation, swapping the confirm/cancel buttons and button background colors, etc.).

    It’s a nasty piece of crap that come preloaded on any phone (android, at least) and Windows-PC here.

      • Dojan@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I mean the CCP is aiming to have people use Kylin? If the government and the entire populace starts using Linux instead we’ll just see the same BS on Linux instead. It’s not an OS/platform issue, but an issue of bad actors.

  • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org
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    1 year ago

    Alright China shills, you can stop changing the subject to how Google and the US are the “same”.

    The troops advanced into central parts of Beijing on the city’s major thoroughfares in the early morning hours of 4 June and engaged in bloody clashes with demonstrators attempting to block them, in which many people – demonstrators, bystanders, and soldiers – were killed. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded.[15][16][17][18][19][20]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre

    If you lived in China you’d likely not know about this, since people who talk about it go to prison.

    Yeah the US is exactly like this so let’s not talk about the Chinese government being awful to their citizens /s

    • dingleberry@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      Simple solution is to block lemmygrad and hexbear in your app. That cuts down quite a few tankies and mainlaind Taiwan shills.

      • Notorious_handholder@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Imagine being in Taiwan and having full access to information about China and the west and still shilling for China. Those types of people should be looking for a dominatrix, not a political philosophy…

        • evilgiraffe666@ttrpg.network
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          1 year ago

          I think they might be using “mainland Taiwan” as a way of saying China - Taiwan is an island which China thinks is “theirs” for some reason.

      • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        mainland Taiwan

        You must mean West Taiwan. Sadly they refuse to acknowledge the authority of Taiwans government.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      No one is saying Google massacred protestors, but if you’re gonna be against keyboard apps spying on you it should be irrelevant who they’re spying for. Criticizing shitty things American companies do doesn’t make you a China shill and calling everyone who does it a China shill is intellectually dishonest.

      • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org
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        1 year ago

        claiming that the dozen people in this thread falsely equating what China is doing to the things that happen in the US – ignoring that they are very different, and ONLY considering that they are moving attention away from the posted article – is not so much “intellectually dishonest” as it is an intentional lie with a goal. Good bye.

    • purahna@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      If you can’t see the fundamental intertwining of Google (or any other fortune 500 company) and the US State, then you should really start looking harder. Lobbyists, revolving door membership, corruption, tax writeoffs, corporate power being used to influence day-to-day life, really, US companies’ control over the US state is pretty similar to the Chinese State’s control over Chinese Companies. I just don’t think corporations should be in charge like y’all seem to.

        • purahna@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          yeah I really do, because the average annual US foreign conflict is worse than the wildest liberal exaggeration of the worst thing China has ever done

    • Shaggy0291@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      The troops advanced into central parts of Beijing on the city’s major thoroughfares in the early morning hours of 4 June and engaged in bloody clashes with demonstrators attempting to block them, in which many people – demonstrators, bystanders, and soldiers – were killed.

      Here’s a video of an interview with Chai Ling recorded on May 28, 1989 with reporter Philip Cunningham. Chai Ling was arguably the most influential leader of the student protesters at Tiananmen Square. In the interview she openly wishes for the soldiers to massacre the students after her instrumental role in blocking attempts by other activists to move the protest back to campuses, all while refusing to sacrifice herself.

      Notable quotes from this interview include:-

      “You, the Chinese are not worth my struggle. You are not worth my sacrifice”

      “The students keep asking what shall we do next? What can we accomplish? I feel so sad, because how can I tell them what we’re actually hoping for is bloodshed - for the moment when the government has no choice but to brazenly butcher the people?”

      “Only when the square is awash with blood will the people of China open their eyes. Only then will they really be united”

      “If we allow the [protesters] movement to collapse on its own, then the government will be able to wipe out all the leaders of the movement”

      Upon being asked if she will stay in the square herself after urging the students to stay she simply responded, “No, I won’t”.

      When the Tiananmen Square incident erupted in violence on June 3rd, Chai Ling escaped from Beijing by train. She was eventually smuggled to Hong Kong via Operation Yellowbird, an MI6/CIA led initiative to extract dissidents who they hoped would form the nucleus of a “Chinese democracy movement in exile”. To my knowledge, no details exist about how and when she made contact with them. She was subsequently invited to study at Princeton on a full scholarship due to her pivotal role in the Tiananmen protests. She studied Politics and International Relations there, eventually picking up an MBA from Harvard. Today, she runs an internet company called Jenzabar that she founded with her husband, the lawyer Robert Maginn, a long time associate of the Republican party, having even served as the chairman of the Massachusetts Republican party between 2011 and 2013. Their company serves more than 1300 higher education institutions worldwide, whom they provide with ERP software.

      • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org
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        1 year ago

        Straight up disgusting attempt to dismiss what happened at Tienanmen square. Gee I wonder what your opinion on the chinese govt is.

        • Shaggy0291@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          I haven’t stated an opinion either way. I’ve simply provided additional context to a historical event you chose to bring up. Why do you feel the need to respond to it in such a kneejerk manner and ascribe my motives? Does the context I’ve provided make you feel uncomfortable in some way?

          I have neither dismissed nor denied that a terrible incident happened at Tiananman square on the late hours of June 3rd 1989. I wish for those responsible for plotting and catalysing the incident to face justice for their crimes.

            • Shaggy0291@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              If you’re asking for my personal opinion then I’d say the US is a great deal worse than anything China has done since they took their country back, actually. It’s not even remotely close.

              What’s “telling” is the way people such as yourself latch onto anything the western media has to say about America’s geopolitical rivals, in spite of any and all the evidence to the contrary; regardless of the credibility of any of the sources. I mean, are you honestly just going to lap up whatever western media outlets tell you? The guys that told you Iraq undeniably had WMDs? The cynical scum bags who banged the drum about Gaddafi and have subsequently shrugged their shoulders while Libya now wallows with open air slave markets? Those are your respectable sources? You’re going to hang off of every word from weirdo crooks like Adrian Zenz, born-again Christian “China experts” who publicly declare they’re on a mission from God to defeat communism in China? That’s the sort of “impartial” source you’re prepared to die on a hill for? Or maybe its teenagers speculating over satellite photography they pulled up from Google maps?

              Here’s something I find telling; that you won’t engage whatsoever with the point I raised in response to you trying to grandstand over the Tiananmen incident; that you swivelled on a dime from gleefully using a massacre as a political football to clutching your pearls that someone dared to bring information to the table that contextualises that event into something more than the simplistic good vs evil narrative you were going for. Do yourself a favour and actually listen to what Chai Ling has to say; it’s been independently verified and held up in a libel case she brought against the journalists when it came to light, so you can rest assured its legitimate. Stop and think about what it really means for the student leader of those killed at Tiananmen to outright admit they were trying to get their supporters massacred after actively blocking attempts to disperse peacefully. Consider the potential significance that she was literally extracted out of her country by the intelligence services of China’s biggest geopolitical rivals. If you’re genuinely appalled with all the death from this event, don’t you think she and her benefactors have something to answer for? Or do you suppose its the place of the United States or Great Britain to stir up trouble in other countries, to dictate who should be in charge there and how their countries should be run?

              • SnowdenHeroOfOurTime@unilem.org
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                1 year ago

                yeah I don’t have time to debate people who are only interested in downplaying something really fucked up. Sorry – I won’t read this.

        • blueberries@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          You’re just salty that the Western backed color revolution failed in China. You would have loved to cheer the West on in sucking the country dry the same that it did with Russia after they fell for the Western lies. Just compare the life expectency graphs between Russia and China after 1989:

          • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You’re just salty that the Western backed color revolution failed in China. You would have loved to cheer the West on in sucking the country dry the same that it did with Russia after they fell for the Western lies.

            Then how come discussion of Tienanman Square is discouraged, if not banned, instead of being widely extolled as successful defiance of the West? Clearly, unless Xi is actually a US plant, the government does not want discussion of it.

            • blueberries@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              Because this issue is used as a battering ram to weaken the Chinese government. The West keeps talking about there being a ‘Tiananmen Massacre’ where unarmed students were killed even though behind closed doors US diplomats admit there was no bloodshed on TIananmen. It is really hard to defend yourself against those accusations which are false when the other side doesn’t need to produce any evidence whatsoever. What is provable are the deaths of the soldiers and maoists fighting in street battles outside the square but that was not a massacre and funnily enough the West also doesn’t like to talk about those deaths

          • Syrc@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            “China’s life expectancy is great and didn’t suffer at all even from the pandemic!”

            Source: China

            • Trudge [Comrade]@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              I know right? It’s amazing what proper governmental response and civic mindedness of the populace can do.

              See also: Vietnam, Korea, New Zealand

                • Zaktor@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  The consequences were way better than the let 'er rip nations. If China had a death toll equivalent to the United States, they’d have 5 million dead. Even the “China is lying” people are talking about hundreds of thousands, or possibly a million, not 5 million.

                  Staying COVID-zero until better treatments and vaccines are available actually does save lives.

    • gmtom@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I mean, ill always say that China is worse than the US. But you can find plenty of examples of the US doing awful things to its people too.

      Like the MOVE bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing

      or The Tusla Massacre that involved law enforcement bombing black neighbourhoods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre

      Or any of the countless of times cops perpetrated mass violence against black people during the civil war era and cracked down harshly on protests.

      Or when the did the same to anti-war protestors during the vietnam war.

      Or the numerous times they experimented on their own citezens such as MK ultra, The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, or any of the dozens upon dozens of radiation experimentation, like when almost 1000 pregnant mothers were injected with radioactive iron, causing many miscarriages and cancers(and thats not the only time they injected pregnant mothers with radioctive material to see if it fucked up the baby), or when inserting radium rods up the nostrils of school children and then observing how their health declined, or when they dosed hundreds of inuit with radioactive iodine to see its affects on the thyroid.

      Like I dont think this makes China’s atrocities any more excusable, but the reverse is true to. The US really isnt much better than China.

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Don’t forget operation sea spray! Next time you laugh at someone talking about chemtrails remember the us government actually did chemtrails!

  • punseye@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    As if other keyboard apps are any different, I don’t think Microsoft bought SwiftKey just for fun?!

  • Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    The people here acting like their Gboard doesn’t do the same is so funny.

    Edit : never used nor installed tiktok.

  • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Can you point to where it says that in the report? It actually says:

    an IME will commonly reach out over the network to a cloud-based service for suggestions if suitable suggestions are not available in the input method’s local database.

    So it doesn’t send “every key typed”.

    • Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Literally says in bold even:

      the keystrokes of Sogou Input Method users can be decrypted by a network eavesdropper, informing the eavesdropper of what users are typing as they type.

      AKA every keystroke

    • Jesus@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Tencent owns sizeable pieces (and outright owns) of more companies than you can imagine.

      • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They invest in basically any tech company that is open to investment and willing to accept Chinese investors. To the ccp the data of the west is worth any price.

  • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    What’s the deal with Android “keyboards”? Why is it just an app that you can install? And why can it have more functionality/permissions from the OS beyond just being a local keyboard? As an iOS user this is very bizarre and foreign to me.

    I feel like every time the topic of Android keyboards (again, why is this a thing?) comes up it’s some kind of big spyware thing. Seems like most every app on Android and iOS is spyware anyway, of course.

    • anonion@lemmy.anonion.social
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      1 year ago

      There are some legitimate reasons to have a separate keyboard. I use Keepass2Android’s keyboard to enter passwords from Keepass. This way, there’s direct access to the password database instead of copying passwords/usernames/other fields to the system clipboard.

  • nomadjoanne@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Didn’t swiftpad or whatever its called send every key pressed to Microsoft?

    Not a China shill. China is horrible. Microsoft less so as they don’t commit genocide in slow motion. But still, I think this sort of thing is more common than we think.

    Use FOSS.

    • dx1@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What are the best FOSS options for Android keyboard apps? I’ve been struggling with this lately.

      • nomadjoanne@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I use OpenBoard (it’s available on fDroid. Maybe the play store too).

        I don’t know if it’s the best but I like it. If you type in multiple languages you do need to hit a “language switcher” key on the keyboard to switch to the autocorrect for that language. A very minor complaint. Otherwise it’s great.

        And it will learn swear words. No more ducking ducks.