Hong Kong's Protesters Use AirDrop To Spread Information To Mainland Chinese Visitors (qz.com) 85
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: Hong Kong's protesters are using AirDrop, a file-sharing feature that allows Apple devices to send photos and videos over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, to breach China's Great Firewall in order to spread information to mainland Chinese visitors in the city. Leaving AirDrop settings open allows anyone in the vicinity to send files to your device. A protest held yesterday (July 7) in Tsim Sha Tsui, one of Hong Kong's most popular tourist districts, had a clear aim: to tell people from mainland China about the city's opposition to a hated extradition bill, which has mobilized millions of people over the past several weeks to multiple protests and presented the most critical challenge to the local government in decades.
But news of the protest has been heavily censored in mainland China, with any mention of the mass movement wiped off the Chinese internet. Even songs alluding to the city have been scrubbed. As such, many Chinese tourists were visibly confused by the large march, which organizers say drew an estimated 230,000 people. Hong Kong's protesters have therefore turned to Apple's AirDrop feature to get their message across to their mainland Chinese compatriots. That the messages are written in simplified Chinese -- Hong Kongers use traditional Chinese -- confirm that the intended audience is Chinese tourists.
But news of the protest has been heavily censored in mainland China, with any mention of the mass movement wiped off the Chinese internet. Even songs alluding to the city have been scrubbed. As such, many Chinese tourists were visibly confused by the large march, which organizers say drew an estimated 230,000 people. Hong Kong's protesters have therefore turned to Apple's AirDrop feature to get their message across to their mainland Chinese compatriots. That the messages are written in simplified Chinese -- Hong Kongers use traditional Chinese -- confirm that the intended audience is Chinese tourists.
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"Any citizen with these files on their devices will be "re-educated"."
No, AirDrop will disappear with the next update in China or perhaps everywhere.
or isp routers will just block airdrop even on wi (Score:2)
or isp routers will just block airdrop even on wifi.
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No, AirDrop will disappear with the next update in China or perhaps everywhere.
They just need a patch for "security reasons": Leaving AirDrop settings open allows anyone in the vicinity to send files to your device.
Either tagging uploaded files' with hidden metadata that identifies hardware IDs of devices that AirDrop-uploaded the file,
or retaining a history cache of AirDrop uploads to be sent back to a server as an encrypted telemetry blob.
Removing the ability to use AirDrop with default wide-open sett
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Whether one agrees with Trump's positions and actions is irrelevant - by any objective measure Trump is incredibly successful.
I don't know about you, but I usually prefer that sociopaths not be successful.
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It's okay. Clinton didn't win. I would hardly call her a success story.
But seriously, it's impossible to not have sociopaths or narcissists or power hungry egotists in power. The structure of government should be to align their self serving goals against each other and incentive the success of the nation regardless who is in power.
You will always have bad people in government. The trick is to get bad people to do good things.
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Yay anarchy!! [youtube.com]
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Uh no, Roger Stone did more to make Trump a success than Trump. He was handed silver spoons from Stone and from daddy Trump, just riding on those coattails trying to even live up to any of that and fucking it up
He's lucky he has his guardrails but even most of them are ending up in jail
His shit is falling apart quicker than a chinese bicycle and nobody who follows him will be able to pick up the pieces because he is not establishing a path forward. He's too busy cleaning up his messes, and he keeps making m
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> Never seen a concentration camp where people actively try to get into.
You dumbass they're trying to get into the US not the camp. There was the promise of getting in to the US before Barr denied due process to asylum seekers, somehow they thought this was "improved greatly since under Obama" lol
> By being tied up by the courts.
Exactly, imagine he made a definitive legal letter of the law way forward first. He would have avoided that. Now he's slow like molasses and is whining for 2 years back becaus
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> Never seen a concentration camp where people actively try to get into.
You dumbass they're trying to get into the US not the camp. There was the promise of getting in to the US before Barr denied due process to asylum seekers, somehow they thought this was "improved greatly since under Obama"
What a steaming crock full.. These people KNOW what they are headed for and they are FREE to agree to deportation once they get here if the situation isn't to their liking and DHS will happily provide transportation back and correct their mistake. 99% of those seeking asylum don't qualify and they know they won't, yet there they sit, by their own choice. In the REAL concentration camps during WWII, there was zero choice, you where rounded up and sent and once you got there you didn't leave alive. These f
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So basically you're fine with concentration camps because "they know what they're headed for".
No, I'm saying it's not a concentration camp because the people in them are free to leave and are not being mistreated as evidenced by their willingness to stay.
Perhaps you don't understand what a concentration camp actually is? You do realize that during WW2, Jews (and others) where legal residents who broke no laws and where rounded up, forced into these camps and not allowed to leave under any circumstances. During WW2 the residents of REAL concentration camps where starved, forced to work for the ga
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Ah yes, change the subject when you are losing... So are you willing to stipulate that the detention centers where these folks are ending up are NOT "concentration camps" then? Are you willing to admit you are using the term inappropriately?
If you will agree, then we can discuss WHY these folks choose to come her and how the USA can fix that issue, but until you are wiling to actually discuss and stop demagoging the issues here, there is no point trying to debate the solutions with you. Which is exactly
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Treated like what? Inmates?
Until the law gets changed, these folks were caught breaking the law and they are going to jail for that. A jail they can leave by agreeing to be deported any time they feel they are getting mistreated.
Are YOU willing to discuss some changes in the law and allocating some resources so we can avoid the detention centers and deal with the people who are here now and deter the ones who are considering coming?
If so, then I propose the following approach be undertaken by Congress so
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You want to talk about laws to fix the situation? That's fine. First we'll rescind Barr's recent decision keeping asylum seekers in detention centers.
I stopped right there... I'm not reading the rest of your post until we get this part worked out.
NO! Absolutely not. If you break the law by crossing the border illegally, to the detention center you go until your case can be heard OR we deport you right away. There can be NO exceptions. It makes NO SENSE to just release these folks into the USA pending a hearing. Most of these folks have no means of support and will thus be homeless and starving, pressing our already strapped social services and public
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Nothing I've suggested is contrary to existing law. If an illegal makes an asylum claim. their claim is adjudicated as required. I'm just saying that you stay in detention until your hearing can be scheduled and the process followed. Let's speed up that process and cut down on illegal entries which are clogging up the system with bogus claims in the hopes we will do what you want, drop them on a street corner with a hearing date they have no intention of keeping.
Now if you want to discuss how to FIX th
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What human right's abuses? If they choose to drop their asylum claim, they can accept deportation and if its that bad, they can go home at DHS's expense.
These people are not being abused, they are being held pending hearing on their asylum claim, being fed, housed, clothed, and provided medical care. All the ballyhooing about human rights abuses are not valid. Are there issues? Yes, nothing is perfect when it's government run, but these people are not systematically abused as a matter of policy so drop
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LOL.. You DO realize that this whole Russian Collusion narrative thing is dead and it's likely that those who foisted this on us for two plus years likely broke a whole slew of laws in doing so?
Trump kept his hands OUT of Mueller's investigation, cooperated even, in order to avoid obstructing it. Now it's over, the REAL investigation into the actual crimes has started. Barr and the IG are both doing in-depth investigations into how such a baseless Special Council investigation could come to be and how t
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Moving the goal posts? Again? The Russian collusion angle didn't work out so it's on to interference?
Look, the interference you are so hopped up over happened under OBAMA's and BIDEN's watch. Why are you complaining about Trump? He wasn't involved in nor could he do anything about the Russian's election interference before he took office which was more than two months after the election.
Plus, how do you know Trump isn't doing anything about this? I think you are assuming a whole bunch of things which
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You can debate all angles of this if you like, but Trump won the election and the investigation of this by Mueller is done. At this point, nothing is going to change and further debates on it are beating a dead horse. Personally, I think this horse is starting to stink and the more you whip away the more that smell permeates you. I'm walking away, I suggest you bury the corpse
Trump has walked away from these endless investigations now that Mueller is done. You cannot keep him from doing this and the m
Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully Apple will issue a patch that will close this loophole and also notify the Chinese government of this behavior. After all, China is a big market for Apple products. It is their duty to the shareholders!
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While I agree that Apple will quickly cave on this if asked to protect their Chinese income, I'm quite sure the ChiComs are already at work on repressive measures that don't require Apple's cooperation. If it came down to it, I could easily see Beijing ordering Hong Kong's cell service shut down as an emergency measure.
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AirDrop, a file-sharing feature that allows Apple devices to send photos and videos over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
Literally, the first sentence in TFA!
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In that case, china flooding the 2.4ghz spectrum (or what ever Wi-Fi and bluetooth uses there)
It's not like those devices are hard to make.
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Most definitely, Comrade. Want some vodka?
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I guess I forgot to add the sarcasm tag. I forgot some of you guys are really dumb.
Not as efficient (Score:2, Informative)
Actually iPhone users in China usually turn off AirDrop from people not in their contacts, because AirDrop spams are rampant in China. Some people just airdrop ads from real estates and ballet classes to Falun Gong to random iPhone users discovered nearby. IPhone will display the image to the receiver even though the receiver may just refuse the airdrop.
Would not work (Score:2)
Some people just airdrop ads from real estates and ballet classes to Falun Gong to random iPhone users
I am pretty dubious about that because even though a user would see an image (a small image), you'd still have to be somewhat close to send, and if the person was wandering around they'd never see anything... I'm going to Shanghai and Hong Kong next year, I'll leave Airdrop open and see what I get.
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Actually iPhone users in China usually turn off AirDrop from people not in their contacts, because AirDrop spams are rampant in China. Some people just airdrop ads from real estates and ballet classes to Falun Gong to random iPhone users discovered nearby. IPhone will display the image to the receiver even though the receiver may just refuse the airdrop.
Leave it to the Chinese to ruin a good thing. I only airdrop memes to strangers.
Honeypots (Score:4, Interesting)
Too bad it is still easy enough to catch people via honeypots in the crowd. Full anonymity would be an issue for Apple.
Doesn't make sense (Score:2)
If you're using a "smart phone... (Score:1)
Paper is an effective medium for spreading messages anonymously.
Paper has limits (Score:2)
Paper is an effective medium for spreading messages anonymously.
Not unless you have a (expensive) printing press and distribution network And if you have those things it's typically pretty easy to monitor who is doing the printing and distribution. Not saying paper can't be effective but it's not trivial to keep it anonymous at large scale.
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In totalitarian regimes, anybody caught using such an anonymous system (or even having it installed) is automatically assumed to be guilty.
If you were innocent then you would have nothing to hide and would not need such a system.
Only if the system was actually used by practically everyone would you have plausible deniability.