Asia Pacific
In response to a call for input issued by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, Emile Dirks, research associate at The Citizen Lab, prepared a written submission underlining the legal and human rights implications of the collection and usage of biometric recognition data by the People’s Republic of China.
In this report, we examine cloud-based pinyin keyboard apps from nine vendors (Baidu, Honor, Huawei, iFlyTek, OPPO, Samsung, Tencent, Vivo, and Xiaomi) for vulnerabilities in how the apps transmit user keystrokes. Our analysis found that eight of the nine apps identified contained vulnerabilities that could be exploited to completely reveal the contents of users’ keystrokes in transit. We estimate that up to one billion users could be vulnerable to having all of their keystrokes intercepted, constituting a tremendous risk to user security.
Emile Dirks, Research Associate at the Citizen Lab, prepared a written submission for the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) about the state of human rights in the country. The CECC was established by Congress in October 2000, with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China, […]
As part of our ongoing project monitoring changes to Chinese search censorship, we tracked changes to censorship following Li Keqiang’s death across seven Internet platforms: Baidu, Baidu Zhidao, Bilibili, Microsoft Bing, Jingdong, Sogou, and Weibo. We found that some keyword combinations in search queries triggers hard censorship whereas others trigger soft censorship. Our results demonstrate China’s ongoing efforts to push state-sanctioned narratives concerning politically sensitive topics, impacting the integrity of the online information environment.
What is this report about, and what did it find? The report is an in-depth analysis of the doxxing campaign known as “HKLEAKS”, which began in August 2019 and for at least two years targeted protesters active in the Anti-Extradition Bill 2019-20 Hong Kong protests. In February 2019, the Hong Kong government proposed a bill […]
In August 2019 a wave of websites and social media channels, called “HKLEAKS,” began “doxxing” the identities and personal information of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. While the creators of these sites and channels claimed that HKLEAKS was the product of local volunteer communities, several indicators suggest a coordinated information operation conducted by professional actors in alignment with Chinese state interests.
We conducted the first analysis of WeChat’s tracking ecosystem. Using reverse engineering methods to intercept WeChat’s network requests, we identified exactly what types of data the WeChat app is sending to its servers, and when. This report is part one of a two-part series on a privacy and security analysis of the WeChat ecosystem.
We discovered over 60,000 unique censorship rules used to partially or totally censor search results across eight China-accessible search platforms analyzed. These findings call into question the ability of non-Chinese technology companies to better resist censorship demands than their Chinese counterparts.
We discovered over 60,000 unique censorship rules used to partially or totally censor search results across eight China-accessible search platforms analyzed. These findings call into question the ability of non-Chinese technology companies to better resist censorship demands than their Chinese counterparts.
At least five civil society victims of QuaDream’s spyware and exploits were identified in North America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Victims include journalists, political opposition figures, and an NGO worker. We identify traces of a suspected iOS 14 zero-click exploit used to deploy QuaDream’s spyware.
