In my opinion, the author of this opinion piece (who has written 5 of the last 6 opinion pieces, so what does that tell you?) often makes a mountain out of the smallest molehill. The takeaway from the article is that a Chinese company manages Line’s servers. An Indian company once managed my server in America while I was in Taiwan, so that doesn’t mean much. He says the Chinese company accessed information 32 times, then says a Chinese company is required to turn over stored data. He does not say the Chinese company stored information, only had access to it. And as stated, messages are encrypted, an important fact which he doesn’t mention. He goes on to make a comparison to Xinjiang fate in an occupied Taiwan. But if Taiwan is occupied, China is going to take what information they want.
It doesn’t matter, it’s only TaiwanNews.
I always felt Line was trying to be a budget wechat with stuff like line pay, now I guess they have the same chinese security snooping too.
It was. My understanding is that it was bought by Japanese.
Good stalker advice there.
I use Cake App. Face to Tree talking technology , completely secure.
I tried to buy cake from the Yannick machine…
But instead the machine was taken over by an evil AI who insisted that I take some test to get cake…
But it was a lie… all of it…
The cake is a lie.
I quite like Line Pay. I’ve been unable to get a credit card but I can use Line to transfer money from my bank to pay for things online and in stores. I also save a lot of money when stores are running discounts in cooperation with Line.
I sound like an ad, but I do like it. I get a little back in Line points, which spends like money though Line Pay, every week for my regular grocery shopping, and some stores have I bought I use regularly in bulk from one store that was having a special and got 12% in points back from a $7500 order. That’s rare, most only offer 1-5% back, but every few months I save enough for a free week of groceries.
I super hate to use line, quite a stupid app. For me, signal only. But all the local people use line, I really can’t understand why.
Same. It also lets you use US credit cards for most local shops and many online retailers that only allow Taiwan-issued cards otherwise.
I have signal as well but locals aren’t really concerned about privacy. Most North Americans also don’t care about privacy , look how many use WhatsApp.
But yes line never impressed me. Cutsey stickers, annoying ding dong notification sound, or worse the people that use the fast voice… lineeeeee
But that’s the app of the day so go with the flow I guess.
It’s a Japanese app. Does it need more explanation?
I start missing the sounds of Taiwan when away for too long.
LINE sounds.
Buses beeping…
The MRT closing door chirp
Their passion in using line is the reason I don’t like it. For the natives, nowadays connection way is line and line only, it just like this entire local society ties my hands and force me to accept it. There is no other option. Sir, your quotation? Sure, here is our Line QRcode, add it then we will…your booking? your everything, all the same.
When I finally gave up and installed it in my old backup phone, guess what? It seems there is a freaking secret curtsy, sort of : you should reply the others line message and replay asap, otherwise …also, can’t replay the other before 9 am and no late than 10 pm.
Really piss me off.
We saw this during COVID. The telcos basically handed over all their data to the government. Was barely a peep about it in the media.
It’s fine for the public to have a favourite comms app I suppose, even if the UX is not everyone’s cup of tea, like LINE. But what I dislike is businesses, even government organisations hitching to it, without, it appears, very much thought or consideration. So some corporations here now are using it for ‘offline’ team comms, like a freeby version of Microsoft Teams. Some have it in place for call trees and their disaster recovery processes. Anyone see a problem here? As far as I am aware it is becoming quite embedded in schools too.
I must have missed this. Telcos were tracking and handing data to the government?
You can read about how government engineers worked with the 5 major telcos below.
People if you blindly believe e2e encryption will help you avoid authorities, you’re being too naive. It’ll help in cases where your data needs to be protected from casual theft, hacking.
Each and every communication service in the world today has to operate within the bounds on law of that country. And that means cooperation with authorities when required. It’s that simple. If you think Line is CCP compromised, then go ahead and use WhatsApp, FB, gmail, Skype which are US govt compromised.
Skype was known to extract relevant encryption info and metadata before encryption - so what’s the point of e2e encryption? Legal authorities will always have the means to get your data.
Apple may cry hoarse in public about not cooperating with the FBI for unlocking suspects phones. But it’s just PR nonsense. Given a court order they have to comply. They have to build in back doors for the US government to spy. If not they’ll have to shut down.
Well, metadata is not the message itself, so that’s the point…
The problem with data from messaging apps isn’t usually the end to end encryption - it’s device access itself, once they snag yours, or the person your messaging.
The point is if yesterday they gave metadata today they may be giving direct access to data. It’s not hard to understand.
As shown by Snowden’s revelations, these things are happening right now, as we speak. The techniques and data are all revealed in secret federal courts. So publicly companies are free to say that they don’t cooperate with authorities. But that’s obviously bullshit.
In 2006 it was revealed how ATT had a special room to tap all fibre traffic. You think it stopped ?
I’m not against authorities getting relevant info. How else will you catch criminals or terrorists if you can’t get their info? It’s no different from examining your bag at security checks or searching your apartment. The days of doing everything slowly with written warrants is over. When there’s an inminent threat, they’re not gonna wait for some warrant to arrive. Secondly, some threats can’t be determined unless you actively spy on all communication, and then separate the wheat from the chaff. Which is exactly what the prism program was … (is?)
I think Wire and Signal may have ephemeral messaging now.
It makes you think it has disappeared. Unless you have written the code yourself, you have no way of knowing if those messages aren’t stored somewhere else.