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Comment by HashThis | Hacker News Reader

I great worry that China's intelligence service has the zoom traffic of American's routed to the Chinese zoom servers, so they can intercept.

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The Chinese gov't spying problem isn't with schoolchildren per se but schoolchildren use their parents' computers. Chinese authorities openly demonstrate their intention to deploy the maximum level of surveillance they can over any adult within their reach. This just increases their reach.

Even if they don't use their parents' computers, if Zoom is not totally sandboxed, they can hack the child's OS, they can mess with computers on LAN, or the router/wifi.

Every native app made by a Chinese company could also provide a backdoor to the PLA. Same could be said about apps from other countries and the NSA, FSB, GCHQ, Mossad, ASD, whatever the Germans are calling the gentler, kinder, totally-not-spying-on-everyone-anymore-we-swear successor to the Stasi, etc.

There is no specific evidence for this, but it is a possibility. Balancing remote possibilities and accepting some that are beyond our control is what separates the sane from the tinfoil hat crowd. Personally, I would try to stick to apps by companies headquartered in your home country. This is difficult outside of the USA and probably impossible outside of the next 5 top software hub countries.

the gentler, kinder, totally-not-spying-on-everyone-anymore-we-swear successor to the Stasi, etc

I like it! I'd totally give that TV series a try!

That'd be the BND as an FYI

I think that's technically incorrect. The BND (and it's military sibling MAD) are mostly concerned with foreign intelligence, while the Stasi was mostly used for internal surveillance. The subdivision HVA inside the Stasi would be the equivalent to the BND, while the larger and infamous internal surveillance of the Stasi is now in the responsibility of the Verfassungsschutz.

> I think that's technically incorrect. The BND (and it's military sibling MAD) are mostly concerned with foreign intelligence, while the Stasi was mostly used for internal surveillance.

Of course they are. That's why they are happy to work with NSA which get everything that is routed through frankfurt.

>The subdivision HVA inside the Stasi would be the equivalent to the BND, while the larger and infamous internal surveillance of the Stasi is now in the responsibility of the Verfassungsschutz.

>Personally, I would try to stick to apps by companies headquartered in your home country.

Why is that? It seems like the opposite would be the best advice: make sure to use something from a company not headquartered in your country. Most people probably have more to worry about from their own government than anyone else.

I'm not sure why you worry about that. It's guaranteed they have it and use it. You should worry about "is it a problem for me that the Chinese government and Chinese companies have access to my video meeting streams"

If yes: do not use Zoom right now. If no: do what you want.

If China wants to waste its resources having people spy on me on Zoom while I play board games with friends on it, then this seems like a good thing to me.

But I wouldn't use it for work meetings.

China doesn't have any concerns about wasting resources. They have more than enough to spare. Vacuuming up any sort of mundane daily task people do is good data to feed into some AI that can easily distinguish fluff conversations from useful interactions worth investigating.

Why you said like you are sure that China is spying the Zoom streams? Where's ur evidence? or just "obviously"?

Not sure what your interest is in this, but I was responding to his not caring if China harvests his data. I didn't make claims about Zoom sending the data to China, but I've seen other people make comments around the internet that Zoom is sending the data to China, and they promptly get flooded with comments tearing them apart for having suspicions.

But you made me look into this. Apparently Zoom does "accidentally" (accidents like this don't really happen) send data to China. [1] It's very normal for companies to completely divide up their Chinese servers and non-Chinese servers, so the rerouting makes me suspicious.

[1]https://www.businessinsider.com/china-zoom-data-2020-4

Yes, but why does it matter if China intercepts your American school children? Why would they want to? That's not a reasonable threat model.

It still leaks information. How many kids you have, their name, some things about their personality, who they are friends with, etc. Think about how someone who wants to hurt or control you could could use that information.

> Think about how someone who wants to hurt or control you could could use that information.

"Someone", sure, but not the Chinese Government! That's a completely different threat model!

how so

I couldn't imagine it mattering to any random individual, but I could imagine some American diplomat or defense contractor being concerned.

I would say contributing or maintaining anything on Github would make you a possible target, you never know

You seriously think the Chinese government is going to stoop to K&R with random Americans?

The Chinese government is the last entity I'd be worried about with this kind of information (unless, of course, you live in China). Certain criminals in your own country are a much bigger concern.

Doubtful. But "the Chinese government" is comprised of individuals who might want to make a quick buck selling information on various markets. Perhaps to those certain criminals better positioned to take advantage of it.

This is similar to the concern some of us had over giving local government departments access to our full Opal card public transport travel histories here in Australia. Not all government employees are up to no good, but some are. Don't give them more than they need.

Are you serious? Manipulate the mental health, political engagement, and commerce activities of an entire generation, that's what.

What is being taught about the CCP and Xi to children all over the world is very relevant to the CCP.

See their push into universities.

> Yes, but why does it matter if China intercepts your American school children? Why would they want to? That's not a reasonable threat model.

Because China=bad, Google or Facebook or Microsoft (which all provide data to) or NSA =good

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