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20 karma · joined April 1, 2011
What’s the costs/benefits versus the temperature gun method already being used in Asia?
I fear that “perfect” or “near-perfect” solutions such as daily saliva testing would be potentially unrealistic for widespread rollout in an effective amount of time. Could we perhaps consider prioritize the superior daily testing solutions for high-priority environments like first responders and hospitals and nurses while reserving the “less-than-perfect” solutions such as what’s being done in Asia for environments with other essential workers, at least until scale-up hurdles can be surmounted?
Paul advocates daily saliva-based testing, but as an intermediary imperfect, but "better than nothing" measure, what are the benefits and drawbacks of requiring people entering public shared spaces to have their body temperatures taken via handheld temperature guns or infrared monitors, a measure that's already taking place in much East Asia (Greater China, Japan, Korea, etc.) in public shared spaces like malls, restaurants, office buildings? My understanding is that these methods are not as accurate as direct thermometers or Paul's saliva-based test; nonetheless, they would detect a good portion of mildly symptomatic people and also have the benefit of externally signaling to the populace to continue "sheltering-in-place" if they have a fever.
Is there any issue with supply chains? Or is there scientific evidence disproving the effectiveness of this precautionary measure that's already in place in so many regions that have already seemed to have crested the first wave of the pandemic?
https://help.wechat.com/cgi-bin/newreadtemplate?t=help_cente...
Perhaps the official docs offer a more clear explanation.
Amongst WeChat's many local competitors were equivalent messaging apps including China Mobile's "Feixin" messaging app and China Telecom/Netease's "Yixin". Both competitors, as officially published apps from the telcos themselves, had the ability to leverage free SMS messaging, an ability that WeChat did not have access to. WeChat is considered a tangential competitor to the telcos.
WeChat doesn't block or QoS other IM products. That would be illegal and, frankly, a PR fiasco in addition to a great way to lose user trust.
3) It's against WeChat values to push mobile phone makers, distributors, or ROM publishers to preinstall WeChat for pay. In addition to being against WeChat values, it's also a big hassle as preinstalls require careful version management. Due to the popularity of the app and the relatively high cost of data for many low-end users, many of these distributors have voluntarily preinstalled certain popular apps including WeChat as a convenience to their consumers. WeChat did not "negotiate" to keep WeChat app in memory -- I'm not sure where you're information comes from. For users within China where Google Cloud Messaging is not an option, a background process for Android continues running to receive push notifications from a notifications server. WeChat works with various partners including "phone security" apps to make sure that this background process isn't being unnecessarily killed by an overly aggressive memory manager process which would result in not receiving notifications. Outside of China, WeChat uses GCM for push notifications for Android devices. This is a common requirement for apps within China since GCM is not available, but because some apps have lower engagement they are more likely to have their notifications background process killed by aggressive memory managers.
4) WeChat for Android uses the X5 kernel, a branch of Webkit (not Chromium) and largely initially used because certain security vulnerabilities on older versions of Android system browsers (including things like SSL-vulnerabilities) made it impossible to safely deploy properly encrypted communications and transactions in webviews without making sure there a secure web rendering kernel.
iOS versions of WeChat, of course, use the default in-app Safari for webviews because it's considered secure.
5) WeChat blocks certain URLs from appearing in webviews because a) they contain malicious code and are unsafe to users or b) too many fraudsters were using certain domains to host spammy marketing content and would leverage WeChat to spam out links to these pages to make money or c) local legal requirements require blocking of certain content.
I understand that it's sometimes difficult to get good information on a product that's very popular in China, but not in Western markets. That's why it's so valuable that the YC team has spent their time to help other founders understand some of the underlying dynamics for WeChat's successful product strategy. Misinformation, therefore, is not valuable in helping the YC team achieve this goal.
https://soundcloud.com/wechatpodcast/interview-with-product-...
Fixed Security Flaw in WeChat 6.2.5 for iOS
A security flaw, caused by an external malware, was recently discovered affecting iOS users only on WeChat version 6.2.5. This flaw has been repaired and will not affect users who install or upgrade WeChat version 6.2.6 or greater, currently available on the iOS App Store. Here are some important points about the situation.
1. The flaw, described in recent media reports, only affects WeChat v6.2.5 for iOS. Newer versions of WeChat (versions 6.2.6 or greater) are not affected.
2. A preliminary investigation into the flaw has revealed that there has been no theft and leakage of users’ information or money, but the WeChat team will continue to closely monitor the situation. 3. The WeChat tech team has extensive experience combating attempts to hack our systems. Once the security flaw was discovered, the team immediately took steps to secure against any theft of user information. 4. Users who encounter any issues can contact the team by leaving feedback in the “WeChat Team” WeChat account.
The WeChat Team September 18, 2015