WhatsApp finally down in mainland China

As far as I know, WhatsApp has been down in mainland China, for both cable and mobile data.

Nothing works so far.

WhatsApp main server works fine, tested via circumvention methods.

It looks like the GFW finally takes down WhatsApp, just before "main event" October.

Reports from other outlets would come very soon. And, lol, nothing will change for users inside China.

WhatsApp has been a great app. So long.

China's Current Censorship Is Ridiculous

O.K. I have been thinking about writing on this for a while. Facing shit load of work this has to wait. But as the time goes by, things are getting serious, and in the end, down right ridiculous, to a degree that I can not believe I am living in a country that most earth people think as a modern country.

Everything now is political, yet really no one cares about politics.

Everyday people I know of, cares less about politics, than a volcano burst on a remote planet. Most of the people I know goes to work everyday, and rest, repeat. Unlike America right now where politics sometimes considered as a dirty word, in China, politics is a distant and rather boring word. Years of Chinese education, politics as a subject is being taught, less importantly than, say math, but being taught from a very young age all the same. In Chinese so called politics classes, little about democracy process or legal systems are in there. Instead, it's almost all about one logic, over and over again, from 1st grade to even doctoral degree. That logic is, only Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could save China, and only CCP can help China grow. In other words, the legitimacy of CCP monopoly rule. Now imagine being taught this for so many times, that the word politics in the end becomes a boring subject. And politics as a whole, becomes disconnect with everyday life.

Of course there are people cares about the going ons in the high ranks of CCP, or local branches, The in fightings, and all, can be an interesting topics for some. And occasionally some groups of people would express openly on some political issues, just to be seen as a grass root political movement but few are fooled.

But for some reason, or honestly, for the same reason politics as a subject in China being so boring, legitimacy of rule, now everything is political.

First goes bunch of social media accounts which only focus on entertainments. That's weird. Why shutting down those whose media presents have nothing to do with politics, by force of a nation machine? Then a flood of even weirder and similar stuff happened. The latest one being forcing TV stations showing only propaganda shows at prime time. And yes, VPNs are being cracked down like never before.

Yet little is being discussed inside the Great Firewall of China (GFW). Everyday people still don't care. Censorship as a tool being used without moderation of any kind, things are bond to become weirder, and downright ridiculous.

To be honest I don't care. Personally I really don't want to spend my time on stuff that are being censored anyways. But this ridiculousness, just got me.

Surprise Update for LG V20 H990DS

As I have mentioned before, time and time again, that LG doesn't seem to pay enough attention to updates of V20 H990DS version. There had been a year for the last update. And who knows, today I got a notification on my V20 saying there is another update, June update.

On update summary it says:

Phone usability and functionality has been further improved.

Well, I guess it comes with June's security update as well. It's 190mb in size, so, I am not hoping much.

Let's see what happens after a few days on this new update.

Privacy As A Marketing Tool

For those who are in the known, privacy nowadays is just a dream. Especially in China these days, for example it's very hard to find a Chinese email provider, that doesn't require your phone number to set up a new email account. And, at the same time, every phone number in China is registered using ID numbers, as required by law. Now is the question of how to minimize exposure, not complete privacy, or illusions of.

Yet we could see, time and time again, some hardware manufacturers would use privacy as a marketing tool, combining the two to boost sales. You can't sell privacy, not in this day and age anyways. It's both dangerous to average consumers and laughable to experts.

The reasoning behind this market scheme is, understandable. Profit model of hardware sales is so 90s that companies are all trying to get out of. Services both in the client side and cloud are better, but not much. One thing about services, especially free services though, is that they can run on any capable hardware, on any platform worth running on, and users love them.

Hardware manufacturers should be worried, and has been for some time. Some of them can make money by building a closed ecosystem, in it every transaction would require a fee, up to 30%. The logic is clear, although I have a huge profit margin on hardware, I can still count on people using my hardware to make me some extra money. Makes sense. Until the free services.

There are no transactions. Your hardware and your platforms are being used heavily and yet there is nothing to gain from it. How these free services making money you say? By controlling data.

Defencive move?

Sell people privacy. Easy and simple.

But in the long run? One losing battle.

Trust Me, In China No One Cares If You Are A Spy

It really confuses me when I read something on Economics, that "even children are watching for spies". That's just beyond laughable, that's sad. I really don't want to bash media, especially western media. I respect them, but stuff like this coming out in print really makes me laugh, then makes me sad.

The fact is, in China there is almost no one cares if you are a spy. I would venture out and say it's best time for spies.

But there are several catches.

First is the anti-spy operations must be very effective. No matter how China gets its info from, hacking, showing money, whatever, it must be effective. But that doesn't mean everyone here in China is watching every foreigner. Come on, it's no North Korea. Of course Chinese are curious, they would sometimes looks at foreigners for a bit too long. But no one gives a damn about what you do.

Second, there are known spy operations for a long time. From where I live, it's a known place for spies from some countries to carry out their business.  It is widely known and hey guess what, nobody cares. Normal everyday people can hardly get by, they really don't want to and care to mind more than what they already have at hand.

Third, the education. Of course, the party gives a lot of propaganda material in Children's education. Well it's certainly not good, but Chinese people generally give it any thought. Everyone knows the fact, no matter what the government says.

Just saying.

A V20 Update

Well, after about half a year, my Taiwan region, dual SIM version V20 finally has an software update.

It has been on last year's security patch for better part of 2017, and it's ridiculous. Maybe it's me, spoiled by Nexus lines of phones for years. What's strange is, with different versions of V20, some has regular updates, pretty much in sync with Google's patches. But some, like mine, updates are really really rare.

Anyways, it's a good thing to finally have some patch going on (now it's May patch). As a costumer, I really don't expect to have 7.1 or 8 any time soon. But I think for an unlocked phone, having regular security updates should not be a hard thing to ask for, right?

The Gone Emoji

In fact it never occurred to me the big change ahead with the emoji in android O. There are a lot changes under the hood but visually not much with the latest version of the most popular OS on earth. I can't say much is because, hey, there is little chance for me to have android O now that I am on LG V20 instead of a nexus of a pixel.

But, after reading the verge coverage (https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/25/15688528/google-blob-emoji-android-o-rip), with all the comparison of emoji from different versions, I find myself missing the days of android 4.4.

It's just my personal opinion but emoji back to version 4.4 is really the best of all. With everyone else doing a round face, what android had back then is a "blob". Not any blobs but blobs with a neck (sort of). Blobs can look up and down and sideways because of the neck they have. To me that's way more expressive than what we will have.

I guess it has something to do with time as well. Back then, most apps with built in emojis were doing apple line of them. Sending a blob most always meant I am the only person who can see what it really was. It is strange. But people are strange anyways. And, I guess people just don't like changes.