Hi all,
I don’t really know how to ask this question. On one of my devices, I downloaded a web browser (Opera) and one of my friends made fun of me, saying that “you better like China knowing all the stuff you do online”.
I read the Opera website and it says it’s a Norwegian company, but on Wikipedia it does say it was bought by a Chinese company.
My question is: what does “China” do with my personal browsing data? Why is it useful for them? (and who are we referring to here, is that the Chinese government, a private company, who?)
I’m looking forward to learn more about digital privacy, but I don’t currently understand the “obviousness” of how it is wrong to use Opera.
I’m a tech enthusiast (hence why I’m here), but I’m cognizant that I have large knowledge gaps in some of these topics.
Thank you in advance.
China has state-coordinated schemes to both suppress its own internal population (which may not concern you if you aren’t Chinese and never go to China) and to manipulate people globally (which everyone should be concerned about).
While it’s true that all countries collect data for the purposes of propaganda, China does so at a scale and with a level of precision and control that pretty much no other country can reach.
You should be trying to limit the amount of data that ANY group gets about you, but some groups will do more nefarious things with it than others. Google for example just wants to advertise to you. Which is bad, I’m not trying to downplay that, just contextualize it. China wants to control every aspect of everything you do. China’s capacity to control people outside its own borders is limited, but growing. The more data China gets, the more leverage it has to manipulate, coerce, and control.
We are all too easy to manipulate.
The more data they have on us, the easier it is.
Like, I go to a website and research clown outfits or biscuit preparation, what the hell is China going to do with this information? Banking info I would be concerned. Any more specific examples of foul play come hitherdom? The question really isn’t being answered.
If they control the browser they can potentially intercept everything you see and do. Banking info, whether you looked up Tianmen square, who you talk to, who you trust… They can also infer personality from your browsing history. Looked at clown outfits just before watching porn? Maybe you’ll get a letter blackmailing you or else they’ll divulge your fetish to your family and loved ones. This is not fiction - China has been caught doing this to political personalities, and those are only the ones that failed.
The browser can also serve as a gateway for them to install persistent monitoring software on your OS, or turning your machine into part of a botnet.
They can correlate that information with your other browsing habits and start to form a picture about the sort of person who shares your interests, regardless of how bizarre those might be.
It’s not an exact science because everyone is different, but once they have that picture they can start pushing the buttons of one person like and derive some conclusions about how the rest of that cohort, including you, will react.
They don’t even have to be successful all of the time. Just more than would be expected from random chance.
A stone in the right place can divert the mightiest of rivers.
I think concerns about China in specific are overblown.
That being said, what we’ve learned about the topic from US tracking programs (slight chuckle at China having scope or abilities beyond anyone else in that regard) is that all information can be fed into what is essentially a statistical model of interests, behaviors, expressed opinions, and contacts.
From that, you can determine a few things that are specifically “useful”.The first useful thing is the ability to tell if someone’s behavior has changed in an unexpected way. If someone starts talking to someone new via text message and they “shouldn’t” know each other (no common acquaintances, never at the same place at the same time, no shared interests) you have an anomaly that can be processed further.
The next useful thing is once you have this model of expected behavior you can start modeling stuff like “A talked to B, B to C and then C changed behavior. A talked to D and D talked to E, and E changed behavior”, and more or less direct chains.
This effectively tells you that A is influencing the behaviors of C and D. By tracking how influence (and money and stuff) flows through a network of people, you can extrapolate things like leadership, communication pathways, and material support pipelines. If you’re the US, you can then send a seal team to shoot someone.If you’re, supposedly, anyone doing this you can more selectively target people for influence based on the reach that it’ll have, use your models to target them better, and generally improve the quality of your attempted influence.
I personally have my doubts it’s being used that way because it’s just as effective and far cheaper to hire a public opinion research group to pay a significant sample of people $5 to figure out how to make better propaganda, and then like 75¢ each to get Facebook to target the right people.
It’s really only valuable if you eventually care about an individual. Most unfortunate privacy violations are aggregates.Even if it’s not directly actionable or a threat, you should still be wary about letting your browsing habits leak because the information can much more plausibly be used for phishing purposes.
If you just bought some clown outfits and get an email about your clown plants being held at customs you’re a lot more likely to click to figure out what’s going on.Personally I think this approach is used to rewind history for an investigation. If soemeone falls under suspicion for whatever reason, investigators can rewind history to find all their movements, all their connections, all their calls and posts and everyone who looked at them. Even in the absence of abuses of authority, that casts a pretty wide net.
Am I comfortable that whoever has access to all that collected data will never abuse their authority? Am I comfortable that when I get caught in such a big net, they’ll quickly realize I’m not a valid catch and throw me back without harm? Even if they have the best intentions, this is for all time: do you really think the world will always go perfectly? I’d rather not be in that net in the first place, even if it makes life harder for national security investigators
It’s also thought but not confirmed to be used for parallel construction. If the information is collected through illegal or inadmissible means, the NSA can inform the relevant agency that they have reason to believe that the individual is doing “illegal activity in question” and relevant details. The agency, now knowing the conclusion, can use legal means to gather the needed evidence for something they otherwise would never have even looked at.
The NSA isn’t supposed to monitor anything on US soil that doesn’t involve both terrorism connections and communication with foreign parties, but due to “reasons” they regularly collect a lot of stuff that isn’t that, and they’ll (likely) inform the DEA.It’s a preposterous violation of the 4th amendment, but it’s also nearly impossible to prove.
China has state-coordinated schemes to both suppress its own internal population (which may not concern you if you aren’t Chinese and never go to China) and to manipulate people globally (which everyone should be concerned about).
While it’s true that all countries collect data for the purposes of propaganda, China does so at a scale and with a level of precision and control that pretty much no other country can reach.
Is there any actual evidence that the Chinese state spends more money or man-hours attempting to collect, analyze, and manipulate public opinion than - say - The NSA? Or, for that matter, Google AdSense?
You should be trying to limit the amount of data that ANY group gets about you, but some groups will do more nefarious things with it than others. Google for example just wants to advertise to you.
Firstly, isn’t that the entire threat that this data analysis presents? A malicious actor wants to accrue enough information about you such that they know exactly what to say in order to manipulate your behaviors and beliefs. That’s advertising in a nutshell.
Secondly, why is the threat of a domestic advertiser somehow less existential than that of a foreign one? Does Sundar Pichai have more of my best interests at heart than Zhang Yiming purely by proximity? Or is this purely a “Chinese people think evil, American people think good, its just in our natures” thing?
Thirdly, if Chinese investment in American technology is such an existential threat to our freedom of thought and rational action, why is the American military industrial complex so glacially slow in their response? You want me to believe that the Chinese government is brainwashing Americans en mass with their evil TikToks, and we’ve got proof, but we still want to let them keep doing it until November (squarely in the middle of election season) before they’re forced to divest or stop serving content?
This all just strikes me as xenophobic hysteria, especially given the blaise attitude towards domestic advertisers (oil companies lying about climate change, crypto shills lying about their financial risks, Joe Rogan/Alex Jones types pushing phony nutrition supplements, political mega-donors lying about one another’s platforms, outright scammers just trying to fleece you).
I’m not a US citizen but I’d say if you don’t like US overthrowing governments all around the world, then you should be double concerned it happening to your country. Those data are really powerfull tool for such thing and they have been used for it in case of Brexit. It’s quite shocking to compare a foreign superpower with an advertising company and put it on the same level.
It’s quite shocking to compare a foreign superpower with an advertising company
Glances at Coca Cola, United Fruit, Disney, Ford, and IBM
Yes, but not for the reasons you imply.
Is there any actual evidence
I knew this topic would bring you people out of the woodwork. I’m not interested. Fuck the CCP and its Winnie the Pooh dictator, free Tibet, Taiwan is the real China, Tiananmen Square Tiananmen Square Tiananmen Square.
Block me or I’ll keep saying forbidden things and your handlers will start to get mad.
Block me or I’ll keep saying forbidden things
Prove you are not some little pink and make 3 bullet points of nothing but criticisms (not constructive, not positive, NEGATIVE criticisms) of the Chinese Communist Party. You wont. You cant!
Will you give actual evidence that China’s surveillance is worse than USA if I can say negative things about China?
- China is a authoritarian country that should be broken up.
- It should be investigated and sanctioned if found guilty of Uyghur genocide.
- Fuck Xi and his cronies
- Free Tibet
- Free Hongkong
Do you need more?
Russian trolls are greatly superior to Chinese ones, because Russian trolls are allowed to criticize their own government and that of their allies. Chinese trolls must support the “China is amazing” narrative, which makes them super easy to spot and call out.
Mao was an absolute moron who, in addition to the intentional genocide, also accidentally killed tens of millions of his own people by being too stupid to understand ecology.
Block me or I’ll keep saying forbidden things and your handlers will start to get mad.
“I know I’m right and you’re wrong, no matter what the reality is” isn’t the flex you think it is.
Also go ahead lay everything out here and let’s see if it deters everyone you consider a CCP shill to stop as you’re told by your handlers.
brainwashed psycho.
Haiiiiii Putin buttboys! I was wondering when you would show up
https://mullvad.net/en/why-privacy-matters
Excellent set of articles on why.
It’s not about what country has it, it’s about that they CAN have it, and what they could do with it.
We continue to spiral into a dystopian area. To say it won’t happen to you, remember that period tracking apps are being used to track women and arrest them. If I was a Chinese data center grabbing data, this is a nice piece of info to sell and make a profit out of it.
But what about you? Surely you don’t do anything. But lets think of a hypothetical. Maybe you visit sites in Opera that are anti-Russian, a news site that had a story about Putin shitting his pants. We’ll with all the data stored, they can identify who you are. You’re now on a Russian list of people who hate Russia. Maybe you’ll go, “But I’ll never go to Russia.” But who knows?
When women were using those apps, they didn’t expect it to be used to get them arrested.
People who practice good privacy have a significantly less chance of getting shit on. So why not?
Maybe you’ll go, “But I’ll never go to Russia.”
But maybe Trump wins the election and now the US government is starting to harass you because Trump is Putin’s lapdog.
You just don’t want that info out there.
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Good question. One reaaon is that wherever it goes you can’t ensure that’s where it stays.
also, generally, you want your data going as few places as possible. not to beijing, not to washington, not to palo alto.
So this isn’t a compelling argument because it sounds outlandish and the implications (while serious) are indirect
Every major power, and some companies, have population simulations. It’s not that hard to build one - we’ve been using them for decades, and they start yielding useful results even when they’re pretty simple. Individuals are complex, but populations can be boiled down with statistics pretty easily
Let’s say I want to increase stochastic violence in America. I rate the traits of as many people as I can across as many useful criteria as I can measure. I could then tweak an algorithm to show something I think would radicalize people to a test group, and measure again. I then take what I learned, and polish my approach until I’m ready to go live
You can do this to whatever end you like - and browsing habits can only tell a human so much, but this is what big data does. It finds associations humans wouldn’t see through math
This probably sounds like I’m wearing a tin foil hat, but this is a real thing. This is how foreign election interference works - astroturfing blindly only does so much, and modeling a population isn’t difficult (depending on what you’re trying to do)
Now as for browsing habits - like location data or Facebook friends, with enough data points you can find out things about a person they don’t know themselves. It may or may not make sense to a human, but big data is all about finding associations through blind math.
If you provide a set of data points, you contribute. It may or may not influence you, but either way it improves the ability to influence those around you.
I don’t know how much opera collects, I don’t know how much of that data is exfiltrated to China. I know I don’t want anyone to have too much of that data, but I also have to live my life.
It’s a matter of harm reduction - educate yourself on your choices, listen to people who dive deeper than you’re willing to, and do what you can to make the most ethical choice based on where you are right now. There’s no perfect choice
Personally I think it’s overblown, with way too much Sinophobia, similar to “the red scare” of the Cold War. It’s easier to control and manipulate your own population if they’re all afraid of “the big bad”.
However I’ll agree with pretty much all the risks, all the ways it can be abused. It’s just that local companies will “legally” abuse that data with far more direct impact to me, as do local political groups. A foreign government collecting that data may be able to manipulate crowds to meddle and someone needs to be concerned with that, but they have no reason to meddle specifically with me.
You should definitely be concerned about data collected about you and how it can be abused, but not just by China
The pessimistic view: basically everything you do online can be tracked, sold, and bought by anyone with a few bucks. Poor online security means you have no privacy regardless of browser, while good (or at least “better”) online security is possible with almost any browser.
If your friend is advocating switching browsers, but with no other behavioral changes, that’s just a false sense of security, which may be worse.
To more directly address the question, unless you are a Chinese dissident, “China” having your browsing data isn’t any better or worse that Google or Microsoft or Meta having that same data. Spoiler: for the average user, they already do.
I’m not a Chinese dissident but it’s not inconceivable that I might want to go to China one day for business or pleasure. That would be a bad idea considering how vocal I’ve been about hating the CCP. If they’ve correlated my statements to my identity, they could have me arrested on trumped up charges when my flight lands.
Google or Meta wouldn’t do that. It’s not even in the same ballpark as bad as a state level actor.
Good example is this woman who went to Russia
Opera specifically is owned by a loan shark company; avoid that shit even if you’re a member of the CCP itself.
Why would you not want your data to be sold in general? Because it’d lead to your internet experience being less private. Companies can buy your data to give you targeted content while you’re browsing the internet and it could influence you all sorts of ways from giving you the idea to buy a product, to showing you a specific political candidate’s propaganda during elections; which does literally influence another country.
Others have explained why Chinese ownership of Opera might be bad.
I suggest you try the Vivaldi browser which is made by a company started by the co-founder & CEO of the original Opera. Basically builds upon the heritage and philosophy of the original Opera. Extremely customizable, tracker and ad blocking built in along with speed dials, gestures, UI customization of just about everything.
Has desktop for all platforms including Linux, and mobile for Android and iOS with sync (not going through Google) for all platforms.
Optional email, calendar, Mastodon and RSS clients in the desktop versions. Optional email account and Mastodon account accessible from any standard client and the Web, or via their desktop.
Not fully open source (nor is Opera) and built on the same open source Chromium base as Opera, Brave, Chrome, but seriously de-Googleized and does not use the Chromium UI. Will continue to support ad blocking even after Google/Chromium removal of the interfaces for ad blocking extensions. Yet desktop versions do allow installation of extensions from the Chrome/Chromium extension store.
Edit: fix link and some grammar
Knowing things about people and having lots of info on them gives someone power over them. And they don’t just do it for fun. They have some motives. I’d also rather not give it to some authoritan regime.
Ultimately everyone has to decide… Do I tell everyone my exact salary? Do I keep it to some people and not tell others? Do I close the blinds of the bedroom while having intimacy? And what harm is there in the neighbors knowing what I like to do in private?
