Vulnerabilities in Sogou Keyboard encryption expose keypresses to network eavesdropping.
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.
It’s time to switch to Linux!
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.
On the plus side maybe then it’ll finally be the year of the Linux desktop.
monkeys paw curls
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Don’t worry, there is also a Linux version.
Oof
Then they’ll install the Linux version. People here are so indoctrinated, they like it.
Be careful jumping the firewall.
Sure. Foreigners aren’t really sanctioned though, that’s more of a risk for the locals. But even then usually only if they want to get someone disappeared and don’t have anything substantial against them.
Do people generally try to circumvent it? Are they too scared to uninstall it? Or do they just not care?
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.
What are the best FOSS options for Android keyboard apps? I’ve been struggling with this lately.
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.
OpenBoard - every other keyboard app is ducking shirt
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I only dislike it for German. My other languages are Spanish and English, which have the same layout minus one extra key not even used in English. But in German Z and Y change places, so that always trips me up.
Having to remember to switch to the different language when writing a bilingual email is also annoying and does happen somewhat more often than you’d imagine.
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FlorishBoard
Thanks for the recommendation. This comment is typed using a freshly installed florisboard keyboard :)
F-Droid says the app hasn’t been updated in the last 14 months. Is the project still worked on? It says beta on the website.
Yes.. The pitfalls of FOSS is that some dude is working on it when they have free time. I’ve been using it for 2 years and can’t say I mind… would like to have the word suggestions, though.
I’m partial to thumbkey. It even has a Lemmy community: !thumbkey@lemmy.ml
Thanks for the heads up. It’s really similar to the keyboard I use.
OpenBoard with Gesture
Using FlorisBoard right now, no auto correct but you’ll adapt
Seconded. I use Gboard because it has the same functionality but I have to sandbox it and restrict all internet access via firewall. I still don’t trust it and would prefer a FOSS alternative with the same functionality.
How do you do that?
Think you mean SwiftKey which Microsoft just introduced bing AI into that you can’t turn off. I 100 percent assume they now use all your typing data to train their ai too. They won’t even let you use themes without logging in to an account so I again assume they also tie data to accounts.
Yes that’s why I’ve disabled Internet access for my keyboard since I haven’t found a FOSS one with all the features I want. Not that I need them but they’re nice and blocking network access is built in GrapheneOS anyway.
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It’s stories like this that don’t surprise me as much as make me ask: How the fuck do you store and process this much data to get anything useful out of it.
You just save the first 50 digits typed after some email is typed, and you have all the passwords you need!
This only applies if a username is a email
And if it is then what happens when people actually email someone? Autocorrect during login?
I don’t think they’re saying that method would yield 100% clean data but it would give you all the “necessary” data with the absolute bare minimum storage requirement. At some point people will log into their email and for most people if you have their email password you have the password they use for everything
Yep, I only reacted to a “new requirement”: save space :)
They weren’t describing a use case for every single type of situation.
I could be wrong, and this is a generalization of any country you can name, but my impression is data is stored on everyone so when they decide someday to look you up they already have all the data collected. It’s not really processed until needed.
And in hopes of it being useful later, when processing power is better.
Hey GovGPT8, please rank the 10 citizens most likely to organize protests if we institute curfews.
Exaaaactly
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And how can autosuggest / autocorrect be so bad with so much training data
Did you ever see how an average person types? It’s not the amount of data that is the problem. We have too much dumb data!
The real answer is compute power. At the moment it’s very expensive to run the computations necessary for big LLMs, I’ve heard some companies are even developing specialized chips to run them more efficiently. On the other hand, you probably don’t want your phone’s keyboard app burning out the tiny CPU in it and draining your battery. It’s not worth throwing anything other than a simple model at the problem.
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China being China, no surprise here.
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Wait til you hear about whataboutism lawl
what’s your purpose?
I mean in life…
The Xzibit begins to compound itself. Soon there is so much whataboutism compressed into other instances of whataboutism that the singularity has formed. Faintly, all you can make out above the constantly repeating “Yo dawg, we heard…” is the whoosh of the empty air spinning around inside OP’s head. And suddenly, with a cacophonous roar there is nothing but silence. And then, triumphantly, a yellow sickle and hammer emblazon themselves against a red background as the Soviet National anthem plays. OP is at peace.
US, you mean, your own instance/community?
Changed “US” to the pronoun “us”
Oh wow, who would have ever thought they’d do that? What a fucking surprise.
What a shocker!
As if other keyboard apps are any different, I don’t think Microsoft bought SwiftKey just for fun?!
Really? Isn’t this kind of thing scandalous enough to tank companies?
It’s in their EULA read their terms of services
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I don’t get it? Why are they talking in the article about not using the right type of encryption. The problem isn’t the encryption, but the fact that it is sending your keystrokes to the mothership, right?
I feel like there should be a Lemmy version of everything now
I recommend free and open source software for everyone. Everything on this list is curated to feature the best alternatives to common proprietary software (according to Linux Cafe):
https://gitlab.com/linuxcafefederation/awesome-alternatives/-/blob/master/README.md
This list is good free, open source (FOSS) Android keyboards:
https://github.com/offa/android-foss#-keyboard
I think the best two are Simple Keyboard and AnySoftKeyboard. Simple Keyboard is pleasant to use, but is missing a several advanced features. ASK would be perfect if the swipe typing worked (it’s currently listed as beta, and is mostly actuate, but unfortunately when it does make a mistake fixing it is almost painful).
Finally, try to get comfortable going to alternativeto.net when you get frustrated with software. Worst case scenario you get frustrated with different software for a bit and switch back. Of course it notes the price and license model for each alternative.
ASK would be perfect if the swipe typing worked (it’s currently listed as beta, and is mostly actuate, but unfortunately when it does make a mistake fixing it is almost painful).
It crashes for me so often that I finally gave up using it.
Also there was a weird bug of where if you were working on a long document, towards the bottom of the document all of a sudden it will drag you all the way up to the top of the document, so then you had to scroll all the way back to where you were before, at the bottom of the document.
Even lemmy has privacy problems if you don’t know.
Explain please :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/144clka/warning_lemmy_federated_reddit_clone_doesnt_care/ Though it says misleading title, there is some truth to that (read the article)
That seems less of an article and more of a hit job. I’d be more comfortable believing what was said in that blog if it was substantiated by other more well-known media sources.
Also it seems like it would go against the EU laws for deleting account data, which they would have to implement.
Lets see, I hope they do.
In a surprise to absolutely nobody, China spies on their people.
And everyone’s people
TIL this only happens in China
As opposed to which country?
The people here acting like their Gboard doesn’t do the same is so funny.
Edit : never used nor installed tiktok.
If you have any evidence that it does, it would be big news. Please share.
I mean he’s not wrong, but also not really the same thing. Gboard does send a substantial amount of data about the things you typed to google. It is supposedly anonymous, but they do this to get anylitics, and they use this data to improve the suggestions given to you.
There has been at least one article where someone intercepted the data leaving from Gboard and found it’s either unencrypted or just hashed into something like base64. This was a while back so things hopefully changed.
While google does try not to phone home users passwords, how can you tell what is and isent private?
Even if i had it, do you honestly think i would waste my life to be completely forgotten and left to rot for disclosing it like Snowden. Yep, no one will ever reveal anything after that shit show.
ok.gif
No one is acting. It doesn’t do the same. There you have it.
Did you read it ? Can you share the part with relevant info. I tried to read it but it kept going abouts how Gboard and the Microsoft keyboard both gather huge amount of data and yet that both are opaque and you can’t know what data is sent to the server backend.
Also, ever heard of 5,9 and 14 eyes ?
Oh shit, Google is sending my stuff to China?
It depends. Ever heard of databrokers ?
Google doesn’t sell to data brokers. Not yet at least. They have a competitive advantage they will lose if they sold their data (our data) to third parties, especially third party resellers. If/when they begin circling the drain, that may change.
The big issue is Google isn’t owned by the state.
I mean… Does It change anything? They are owned by a board of directors that want profits over anything else
Of course it change, at least the authorities have to buy from companies with public money instead of getting for free.
Yes, not being owned by the world’s most terrifying government turns out to be different than being owned by the world’s most terrifying government. Funny how that works
Man, Snowden wasted his entire life to tell you USA literally spy on everything you do and when caught their answer was : yeah, so what you gonna do about it, maybe you should do the same.
Instead they are about to be their own state.
Btw, companies are absolutistic by default.
They are the state at this point. So same thing.
no they are just compelled by the state and secret courts which is totally different obviously
I love how people overlook this part. You get all the knuckledraggers who want to claim the US is somehow just as bad as China is.
The anti-American sentiment in here is obnoxious.I’ve never thought that the knuckledraggers were anti-american. I think they are anti-intellectual. Using tiktok is more important to them than the future of humanity.
Total false take, don’t just say your suspicions like they are facts.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
And gboard or SwiftKey don’t?
Every single time something sketchy is happening in Chinese tech a Lemmy user will slide the conversation and accusations to American tech. It’s a rule.
Is not about American/Chinese government, is about privacy. ANY company or government storing your data can be extremely problematic in the future.
Yeah the Sogou Keyboard send data to Tencent, the same thing happens or could happens with others proprietary keyboards in the future. How about trying a FOSS one?
It’s absolutely about the American/Chinese government, I don’t see comments forum sliding into Chinese tech on every post about Google.
But no, swift and gboard don’t send your data to the American government.
There’s also a dangerous misconception around here that FOSS == privacy safe. It doesn’t.
There is also a differece between invading your privacy and compromising your security. Both are bad, but one is much worse at least in my view. Keylogging and then sending those keystrokes back to base with a dodgey custom rolled encryption framework is not just a breach of privacy.
Well, we have actual evidence here of dodgy shit happening, but what about this other thing I assume is also happening based on absolutely nothing? See, both just as bad!
Gboard doesn’t at least. It does send some stuff but not keystrokes
It sends whole words instead!
Any data you submit to Google is stored and analysed. That’s different from sending keystrokes as they happen though.
I’m all for criticising invasive data use and collection which Google is definitely guilty of. It’s not the same as keylogging though which is not just a privacy concern but a pretty serious security one as well. Also we have actual evidence here of Tencent doing this which makes a difference to me at least.
I’m not sure if that’s true. You know, it’s Google. Every keystroke in your gmail email is analysed, so can’t imagine gboard is any different to them.
We can’t know for sure if they’re not open source
I prefer OpenBoard, it doesn’t send keystrokes to any server
The fork even has support for swipe, autocorrect, word prediction, clipboard management, etc, and is way more lightweight than Gboard and the rest. Zero reason to use anything else at the moment.
Not if you block internet connection at system level. I think it can be done if GBoard in installed as an user app, not as a system one.
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While GBoard is closed source, they have documented that they use federated learning. Meaning their model is generated on-device and only the inferences are sent to Google.
That being said, I use OpenBoard.
These findings underscore the importance for software developers in China to use well-supported encryption implementations such as TLS instead of attempting to custom design their own.
lol.
The writer out here acting like this wasn’t an intended feature lol
And this is the only point of the article. Idk what all these other comments are on about, but this article is outlining lack of standardized protocols that made the software vulnerable to network eavesdropping.
This doesn’t point to a big CCP conspiracy, it’s just bad design.
Never use a closed source keyboard app. It can read what you send for messages, websites you go to, search engine queries.
