Information/Technology - 52. page

According to an article that Chongqing Economic Times published, the cell phone version of Beidou Navigation APP will be launched on May 1. It is expected to replace the U.S. made GPS (Global Positioning System) and meet worldwide demand by 2020. The Beidou App is reported to have a location accuracy that is within a 1 meter diameter (3.3 feet) compared to the 10 meters (33 feet) that GPS has. China Electronics Technology Group Number 24 research center in the City of Chongqing developed the Beidou Navigation System. The research center collaborates with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Chongqing Green Intelligence Technology Academy and conducts a large quantity of research and development work on satellite surveillance products. The article reported that the Beidou Navigation system has entered into stage III and that 29 satellites have been launched so far. It is expected to reach 50 billion yuan (US $7.92 billion) in production by 2020. Currently GPS has over 90 percent of the market share in the world.

Source: Chongqing Economic Times, April 8, 2018
http://www.chinacqsb.com/fmbd/2018-04/08/content_42210.htm

Financial Times Chinese recently reported that the Chinese government has asked Chinese hackers not to participate in global hackers’ competitions. Instead, the Chinese hackers are required to report the bugs they have discovered to China’s national security government branches or to the original technology vendors. China has been tightening up its control of technology and information. Experts expressed their belief that China wants to expand its technical intelligence “reserve.” Some said China could see the bugs as opportunities to explore back doors to systems. This recent move is in line with other new requirements, such as requiring foreign vendors to store domestically collected data locally in China. Another effect of asking the Chinese hackers not to join the global events is to ensure that some important (Chinese) technicians be absent from many international gatherings that are typically considered an important venue to root out dangerous technical vulnerabilities. Chinese hackers have discovered many known system vulnerabilities. Although the Chinese government has not publicly announced anything yet, no Chinese hacker showed up at the Black Hat global conference held in Singapore a few weeks back. This largest global hackers’ conference used to be packed with Chinese hackers.

Source: FT Chinese, March 28, 2018
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001076933

Global Times recently reported that top Chinese smart phone manufacturer Huawei admitted to the U.S. media Android Authority that an earlier report on Huawei buying fake user reviews was true. The incident started with the U.S., when some media sites found a large number of buyers’ reviews on the Best Buy website praising the latest Huawei smart phone model, which, at the time, had not even been released. It turned out that Huawei went through a promotion campaign using a Facebook group offering “trial opportunities” under the condition that participants post five-star reviews on the Best Buy site. Huawei explained this was a “misunderstanding” that the promotion intent was to ask fans to post positive comments on Facebook. However, the Huawei social media manager “incorrectly” asked for reviews on Best Buy’s site. A total of 108 5-star Best Buy reviews were posted even before the product release time and only a few people had actually tested the phone. Since then, Best Buy has deleted 105 reviews.

Source: Global Times, February 14, 2018
http://tech.huanqiu.com/diginews/2018-02/11608021.html

Radio Free Asia reported on Aktion Plagiarius, a German organization, that publishes the Plagiarius Award list each year to recognize those companies that produce counterfeit products that are “deceptively similar to the original product and that show absolutely no creative or constructive personal contribution.” It just published its 42nd Plagiarius Award list in which Chinese companies dominated the top three spots. A company from Zhejiang Province won the top prize for plagiarizing a kitchen cutting device “Nicer Dicer Plus,” that a German company had actually made. The other two companies also plagiarized products that a German company made. The second prize winner plagiarized an inflatable water Park “Wibit Sports Park XL” and the third prize winner plagiarized PUKY Racer.

Source: Radio Free Asia, February 12, 2018
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/counterfeit-02122018061421.html

Apple announced that, starting on February 28, it will hand over its iCloud service for Chinese customers to a Chinese company. The company taking over the service is one that the Guizhou Provincial government owns called Guizhou Cloud Big Data (GCBD). GCBD will be responsible for the iCloud operations serving customers in China and also responsible for legal and financial relations with those customers.

This has triggered many concerns over data privacy. Chinese companies are known to share customer data with the government, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

Apple has given China-based users the option of deleting their data, but no option to store their data any other place.

The company TechCrunch found that, when the iCloud setting is set to China, the accounts to be handed over will also include “iCloud accounts that were opened in the U.S., are paid for using U.S. dollars and/or are connected to U.S.-based App Store accounts.”

“One user did find an apparent way to opt-out. It requires such users to switch their iCloud account back to China, then sign out of all devices. They then switch their phone and iCloud settings to the U.S. Then, upon signing back into iCloud, their account will (supposedly) not be part of the migration.”

Sources:

1. People’s Daily, January 10, 2018
http://media.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0110/c40606-29755229.html
2. TechCruch.com, January 11, 2018
Apple’s China iCloud data migration sweeps up international user accounts