line
This report is part of a series which analyzes regionally-based keyword censorship in LINE, a mobile messaging application developed by LINE Corporation. The most recent update to the censorship keyword list include a number of new entries as well as the introduction of regular expressions for more advanced keyword matching.
In this post we report updates on how LINE, KakaoTalk, OneDrive and Flickr are being disrupted in China. We find that Flickr and OneDrive remain consistently blocked, but LINE and KakaoTalk show inconsistent fluctuation between accessibility and inaccessibility. We also analyze security and privacy of FireChat and test accessibility of the service in China.
In this post we examine how the Great Firewall of China is implementing DNS tampering and HTTP request filtering on KakaoTalk and LINE domains, which is disrupting service of the applications as a result. We find that Flickr and OneDrive are also blocked through DNS tampering. We also analyze recent changes to the LINE keyword filtering list.
This report is the third in a series which analyzes regionally-based keyword censorship in LINE, a mobile messaging application developed by LINE Corporation. We document recent changes to the list of keywords used by LINE to trigger regionally-based keyword filtering for users with accounts registered to Chinese phone numbers.
This post is an introduction to Asia Chats, a research project analyzing information controls and privacy in mobile messaging applications used in Asia. The project will produce a series of reports that will begin with a focus on WeChat, LINE, and KakaoTalk. Reports will include analysis based on our technical investigation of censorship or surveillance functionality, assessment of privacy issues surrounding these applications’ use and storage of user data, and comparison of the terms of service and privacy policies of the applications.
This report by Seth Hardy (Senior Security Analyst, Citizen Lab) describes the technical details of client-side censorship functionality in the LINE messenger client for Android, and a method for disabling it.
This post is the first in a series of research reports analyzing information controls and privacy in mobile messaging applications used in Asia. An introduction to the project can be found here