China Skype service snags and stores users' messages More than a million messages logged
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco • Get more from this author
Posted in VoIP, 2nd October 2008 01:36 GMT
Human rights advocates have uncovered a huge surveillance system in China that monitors and archives text messages sent with the Tom-Skype chat client when they contain politically charged words.
Activists with Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto say they found a cluster of computers in China that had logged more than one million messages containing sensitive words such as Falun Gong, Taiwan and earthquake. The Tom-Skype chat software is offered through a joint venture of eBay, which owns the Skype service, and the Tom Group of Hong Kong.
The group found the huge cache of intercepted messages when one of its members began analyzing the Tom-Skype client. Each time he typed the word "fuck" into the program, an encrypted messages was sent to a remote location. The group eventually tracked the archive to Tom Online servers and shortly afterward discovered that the directories were accessible using a common web browser.
The discovery raises troubling questions about the extent to which online auctioneer eBay and the Tom Group cooperate with the Chinese government's monitoring of dissidents. While Skype says here that Tom-Skype has a list of words that will not be displayed during text chats, it goes on to assure users that "full end-to-end security is preserved and there is no compromise of people’s privacy."
"While Skype specifically stated that censored messages are 'simply discarded and not displayed or transmitted anywhere,' this report demonstrates that not only are filtered messages transmitted to and stored on TOM-Skype servers located in China, but also that the servers themselves are configured with such poor security that it is possible to retrieve and decrypt these logs," the group argues in a report (PDF) issued Wednesday.
Representatives from eBay weren't immediately available for comment. A spokeswoman told The New York Times, which reported the discovery earlier: "The security breach does not affect Skype's core technology or functionality." She went on to say: "It exists within an administrative layer on Tom Online servers." eBay didn't comment on the archiving of Tom-Skype user messages, The Times said.
Each machine inspected by the group contained a directory of encrypted messages and a separate directory with the key needed to unscramble the the log files. They contained the IP addresses, user names and content of text messages that had been caught in the Tom-Skype filter. They also included records of Skype voice conversations, including names, and in some cases phone numbers, of the calling parties.
The revelation adds eBay and the Tom Group to the growing list of companies who may be willing to compromise the experience of their users in order to assuage Chinese authorities. In that respect, the online auctioneer is no different from Cisco Systems, Google, Yahoo and others. But the activists took eBay to task for its public statements suggesting otherwise.
"What is clear is that Tom-Skype is engaging in extensive surveillance with seemingly little regard for the security and privacy of Skype users," they wrote. "This is in direct contradiction of Skype’s public statements regarding their policies in China."
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:54 am Posts: 7189 Location: CA
dkfan9 wrote:
simple schoolboy wrote:
A U.S. judge recently ordered the Feds to turn over the 17 Uiguhrs that are detained in Gitmo, presumably to release them. This is newsworthy, no?
yes, i saw that but forgot to make a mention of it it's probably deserving of its own topic, being a little broader than this topic and great news
We have a Gitmo/ GWOT thread, but I'm too lazy to find it. Anyhoo, as per expectations, China has been doing a bit of cracking down in the Western provinces now that the Olympics are over. The economic prosperity as an engine for integrating minorities isn't working out so hot, huh?
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:54 am Posts: 7189 Location: CA
It sounds like they'll be released in D.C. to the care of those in the community there. Were these guys even unlawful combatants? From what I know about the violent groups in this region of China, they tend to attack the state, which might very well be legitimate.
I don't understand this business of holding them. If we wanted to fuck them over, we could've just sent them back to China. Why should we do China's dirty work when we have plenty of our own human rights abuses to perpetrate?
I read an article about the "new" shoe throwing incident. The amazing part is how it has all been censored in China. Could you imagine living in a country where the internet is censored? Where a news story happens and you would never learn about it because all traditional media is run by the state and the internet is filtered to make sure you don't learn anything that upsets the status quo? Amazing. It's more amazing than the idea of a dictatorship or communism to me. The fact that in todays connected world events could happen and they would have no idea.
EDIT; Article below
Quote:
China Upset After Shoe Thrown at Wen; Local Media Silent
By Dune Lawrence
Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- China showed its displeasure today at Premier Wen Jiabao having a shoe hurled at him as he gave a speech in Britain, while domestic media made no mention of the incident in reports on his visit.
“The Chinese side expressed its strong dissatisfaction” to the British government, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement on the ministry’s Web Site. “Facts show that the perpetrator of this despicable action does not enjoy popular support, and won’t obstruct the trend of friendly cooperation and development of Sino-British relations.”
A protester blew a whistle, denounced Wen as a “dictator” and threw a shoe at him as he gave a speech at Cambridge University at the end of his three-day trip to Britain yesterday. The insult mimics one in Baghdad on Dec. 14 when an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush.
“The British side has expressed deep regret to the Chinese side and said Britain will punish this person according to the law,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.
The ministry didn’t describe the incident or mention the word “shoe,” referring only to a person creating a disturbance during the speech. The official Xinhua News Agency and state-run China Central Television reported the Foreign Ministry statement without giving any other information on the incident.
A search on the Chinese search engine Baidu.com for “Wen Jiabao” and “shoe” turned up only one news report that touched on the protest, on a Web site called Aweb.com.cn dedicated to agricultural news. A video of Wen’s speech on Sina.com, China’s biggest Web portal, cut out the interruption by the protester and Wen’s comment in response.
Chinese media recently also censored the inaugural address of U.S. President Barack Obama, publishing Chinese versions of the speech that removed reference to fighting Communism and a paragraph about leaders who keep power by silencing dissent.
_________________ CrowdSurge and Ten Club will conduct further investigation into this matter.
CAMBRIDGE, England — A protester threw an athletic shoe at the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, during his speech at Cambridge University’s concert hall on Monday, seven weeks after a similar incident involving President Bush in Iraq. The shoe missed Mr. Wen by at least 30 feet, but security officials promptly escorted the protester from the hall.
The police arrested the man on suspicion of a public order offense. Witnesses described him as a goateed European in his 20s or 30s speaking foreign-accented English. They said he blew a whistle as Mr. Wen spoke, causing him to pause and look up. “You should be ashamed of yourselves,” the man said, according to witnesses. “How can you listen to the lies he’s telling?” he shouted, in a video of the incident shown on Sky News television.
Mr. Wen appeared unruffled. Some in the audience said he called the protest “despicable.” Others said that when he resumed the speech, to an audience of Chinese government ministers, university officials and students, he assured them that “the relations between Britain and China” would not be affected by the protest. A police spokeswoman gave no other details about the protester, Reuters reported.
The incident occurred on the last day of a three-day trip to Britain by Mr. Wen focusing on talks with Prime Minister Gordon Brown aimed at increasing trade between the nations.
Human rights groups gathered outside the hall before the speech, protesting Chinese policies in Tibet and other suspected abuses. University officials said that those allowed into the hall had been carefully vetted, and that most were students or professors at the university.
“Cambridge is a place where ideas are put into play, not shoes,” the vice chancellor, Alison Richard, told the BBC.
_________________ CrowdSurge and Ten Club will conduct further investigation into this matter.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 13 guests
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot post attachments in this forum
