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.
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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.
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.
I’m partial to thumbkey. It even has a Lemmy community: [email protected]
Thanks for the heads up. It’s really similar to the keyboard I use.
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.
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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 :)
you just look for users that have power in their governments. Getting a senators username/password would be invaluable to china
China being China, no surprise here.
Oh wow, who would have ever thought they’d do that? What a fucking surprise.
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?
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
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.
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?
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
This is why I only use a tablet made from slate with chalk
Look at this rich guy wasting chalk on his slate tablet, while everyone else has to use sticks and wet their mud tablets to erase them.
And it’s why I only use electrodes attached to my head that reads my thoughts
You’ll probably have breathing issues in the future, with that approach.
Never use a closed source keyboard app. It can read what you send for messages, websites you go to, search engine queries.
God bless gdpr
And the Platinum Award for Least Surprising News Headline goes to…
