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Comment by berdario | Hacker News Reader

Those claims seem unsubstantiated

https://twitter.com/dangoodin001/status/1486976676965715968

ok, it's importing iFlytek. But without demonstrating what it's doing and when, even if it's listening (which is not clear if it's happening) it could just be listening for a wake word (just like Cortana, Google Assistant, etc. work)

Moreover, this guy seems to have willfully mistranslated the EULA to pretend that it's doing something it isn't doing.

https://twitter.com/rpotter_9/status/1486982536232587264

Whoever implemented the app though, should've kept it simple. Adding more needless functionality is just going to drive sinophobes and conspiracy theorists in a frenzy

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I certainly wouldn't trust an app like this, the Android permission list is ludicrous, and the privacy statements in the EULA are equally so, but...

Jonathan Scott has yet to publish anything that concretely backs up this statement at the top of his Twitter:

  "I can definitively say all Olympian audio is being collected, analyzed and saved on Chinese servers using tech from USA blacklisted AI firm "

I'm not an expert reverse engineer, but he needs to show more than just some extracted symbol names, string resources and unidentified network traffic before making "definitive" claims.

Yea. Especially saying the Android permission list is ludicrous, that sums about a majority of apps in existence, even from 'good ole American' companies.

Entanglement with iFlytek alone is potentially problematic for Apple and Google, who are distributing this on their respective platforms, because iFlytek is on the BIS Entity List. US persons and businesses are prohibited from business relations with these entities without prior approval and license from the US federal government, and this process is quite onerous and expensive in terms of the specialized legal talent required.

As a casual observer on the fringes of trade and sanctions law, my gut tells me this case alone will probably not result in administrative action (and certainly not criminal) against Google or Apple by the US gov, but may contribute to opening a new can of worms with regard to app review, either self-imposed by the platforms or under pressure by the US government.

A Twitter thread is not the way to reveal research like this, it’s terrible for discussion and the character limit prevents your going into proper depth.

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