Researchers uncover China cyber spies

Time , AP TORONTO – A cyber spy network based mainly in China has tapped into classified documents from government and private organizations in 103 countries, including the computers of Tibetan exiles, Canadian researchers said Saturday. The work of the Information Warfare Monitor initially focused on allegations of Chinese cyber espionage against the Tibetan community in exile, and eventually led to a much wider network of compromised machines, the Internet-based research group said. “We uncovered real-time evidence of malware that had penetrated Tibetan computer systems, extracting sensitive documents from the private office of the Dalai Lama,” investigator Greg Walton said. The research group said that while its analysis points to China as the main source of the network, it has not conclusively been able to detect the exact identity or motivation of the hackers. The Chinese Embassy in Toronto did not immediately return calls for comment. Students For a Free Tibet activist Bhutila Karpoche said she was not surprised about the possibility that China could be behind the network. “Our computers have been hacked into numerous times over the past 4 to 5 years and especially in the past year,” Karpoche said. She said she often gets e-mails that end up containing viruses that crash the group’s computers. The IWM is composed of researchers from Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. The group’s initial findings lead to a 10-month investigation that has been summarized in the report, “Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network.” It will be released online Sunday. The researchers detected a cyber espionage network involving over 1,295 compromised computers from the ministries of foreign affairs of Iran, Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Barbados and Bhutan. They also discovered hacked systems in the embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan. Once the hackers infiltrated the systems, they gained control using malware — software they install on the compromised computers — and sent and received data from them, the researchers said.

China Spying On Internet Use In Hotels

AP
July 29, 2008

Foreign-owned hotels in China face the prospect of “severe retaliation” if they refuse to install government software that can spy on Internet use by hotel guests coming to watch the summer Olympic games, a U.S. lawmaker said Tuesday.

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., produced a translated version of a document from China’s Public Security Bureau that requires hotels to use the monitoring equipment.

“These hotels are justifiably outraged by this order, which puts them in the awkward position of having to craft pop-up messages explaining to their customers that their Web history, communications, searches and key strokes are being spied on by the Chinese government,” Brownback said at a news conference.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brownback said several international hotel chains confirmed receiving the order from China’s Public Security Bureau. The hotels are in a bind, he said, because they don’t want to comply with the order, but also don’t want to jeopardize their investment of millions of dollars to expand their businesses in China. The hotel chains that forwarded the order to Brownback are declining to reveal their identities for fear of reprisal.

Earlier this year, the U.S. State Department issued a fact sheet warning travelers attending the Olympic games that “they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations” in China.

“All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times,” the agency states.

The Public Security Bureau order threatens that failure to comply could result in financial penalties, suspending access to the Internet or the loss of a license to operate a hotel in China.

“If you were a human rights advocate, if you’re a journalist, you’re in room 1251 of a hotel, anything that you use, sending out over the Internet is monitored in real time by the Chinese Public Security bureau,” Brownback said. “That’s not right. It’s not in the Olympic spirit.”

Brownback and other lawmakers have repeatedly denounced China’s record of human rights abuses and asked President Bush not to attend the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing.

Brownback was introducing a resolution in the Senate on Tuesday that urges China to reverse its actions.

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China To Censor Internet During Olympics

AP
July 29, 2008

China will censor the Internet used by foreign media during the Olympics, an organising committee official confirmed Wednesday, reversing a pledge to offer complete media freedom at the games.

“During the Olympic Games we will provide sufficient access to the Internet for reporters,” said Sun Weide, spokesman for the organising committee.

He confirmed, however, that journalists would not be able to access information or websites connected to the Falungong spiritual movement which is banned in China.

Other sites were also unavailable to journalists, he said, without specifying which ones.

BBC China has been monitoring and censoring messages sent through the internet service Skype, researchers say.

Citizen Lab, a Canadian research group, says it found a database containing thousands of politically sensitive words which had been blocked by China.

The publically available database also displayed personal data on subscribers.

Skype said it had always been open about the filtering of data by Chinese partners, but that it was concerned by breaches in the security of the site.

Citizen Lab researchers, based at the University of Toronto, said they discovered a huge surveillance system which had picked up and stored messages sent through the online telephone and text messaging service.

The database held more than 150,000 messages which included words such as “democracy” and “Tibet” and phrases relating to the banned spiritual movement, Falun Gong.

“These text messages, along with millions of records containing personal information, are stored on insecure publicly accessible web servers,” said Citizen Lab’s report, entitled “Breaching Trust”.

They said that by using one username, it was possible to identify all the people who had sent messages to or received them from the original user.

No. Korea Confirms Americans Were Detained

CDT: Two American journalists working for Current TV, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, have been arrested in North Korea, apparently after mistakenly crossing the border while reporting from China on North Korean refugees

from ABC via CDT:

The reporting Ling and Lee were doing took them all the way to the border between China and North Korean.

It is a difficult, even dangerous trip. They got help planning the journey from Reverend Chun Ki Won, a Christian missionary from South Korea whose organization smuggles Bibles into North Korea through China.

[...] “It’s hard to determine the border, that which is North Korea or that which is China because it is just frozen river,” he said.

So Chun said it’s possible that the reporters inadvertently stepped onto North Korean territory, and that was likely when North Korean soldiers arrested the two women, accusing them of entering the country illegally.

This page is from China Digital Times and includes really interesting documentaries about China.

The rare footages of Chinese police beating Tibetans

Here’s the video link:

http://tinyurl.com/c7d6t3

or go through China Digital Times where I found it:

http://tinyurl.com/cplt3w

This is definitely a rare video, but it is not a rare occurence.  The Chinese gestapo is brutal as you can see, but this is nothing compared to their torture routines in secret places (so called state secrets protected by so called law).

I think this video can help people feel the the heartlessness of the CCP agents. Please help.

Chinese spy comes clean in USA

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A man who said he was a Chinese spy appealed Thursday to the United States to pressure Beijing, charging it was running a vast intelligence operation at home and abroad to suppress dissent.

Li Fengzhi visited the US Congress to talk to lawmakers and appeal for asylum. His supporters said it was the first time a Chinese intelligence officer had defected.

A visibly nervous Li told a news conference that he served for years inside China for the Ministry of State Security but had grown “furious” that his job entailed spying on dissidents, spiritual groups and aggrieved poor people.

“China’s government not only uses lies and violence to suppress people seeking basic human rights, but also does all it can to hide the truth from the international community,” he said.

Li said that despite China’s rapid economic growth, “a government that disrespects and suppresses its people cannot be stable.”

“When the West engages with China, if it only focuses on temporary economic and political benefits but keeps silent on human rights issues, it is tantamount to reciting from the book of the communist party’s tyranny,” he said.

Li, a bespectacled man in his early 40s, gave few details about his own past, saying he feared for family members in China. His supporters said he slept for only one hour the night before his news conference.

China’s Ministry for State Security operated a worldwide network to steal secrets from foreign countries, Li said, adding the agency also keep a close watch on Chinese citizens overseas.

The communist party “uses huge expenditure of funds to suppress ordinary citizens and even extend their dark hands overseas,” he said.

Li said he defected “several” years ago to the United States but did not speak publicly until this month.

He renounced his membership in the communist party as part of a drive led by supporters of the Falun Gong, a movement combining meditation and Buddhist-inspired teachings that China banned as an “evil cult” in 1999.

One of China’s highest profile defectors — Chen Yonglin, a diplomat in Sydney who sought asylum in 2005 — has said Beijing had more than 1,000 agents in Australia alone who kidnapped some Chinese and repatriated them for political reasons.

I know this picture is really evocative, butguess what, it is real.  But for me, it is not the technology and industry spies that freak me out.  It is the cold war type who are there to influence public policiy on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.  They are there to beat down dissent and bolster propaganda in the Chinese communities around the world.  Proportionately, I don’t know how many are assigned to this section, but the amount of Chinese spies in Canada represents the biggest intelligence security threat of any country.

National Post: Canada’s CBC taking the Communist Party of China’s stance on Falun Gong???

Posted: March 17, 2009, 5:21 PM by NP Editor David Matas, CBC

When it comes to covering Falun Gong, both the English and French branches of CBC have adopted a view of the world disturbingly similar to that of the Communist Party of China.

Falun Gong is a spiritual movement that combines ancient Chinese traditions, Buddhist and Taoist practices, and qi gong exercises. Founder Li Hongzhi began writing and speaking about Falun Gong in 1992. The movement took off, growing to a Chinese government estimate of 70 to 100 million practitioners by 1999. The growth was partly attributable to encouragement by the Chinese government itself, which was impressed by Falun Gong’s health benefits.

But in 1999 then-President Jiang Zemin — out of jealousy that something an outsider proposed could become so popular while his own “Three Represents” writings languished in confusion and obscurity — spurred the government to ban the practice. To justify the banning, the Communist Party of China (CPC) developed a conspiracy fantasy. All those individuals engaging on their own or in small groups in harmless, indeed healthful, exercises, the CPC alleged, were part of some vast organization aimed at overthrowing communist rule.

Persian Xiaozhao: My First “Tea” Experience

This set of articles from China Digital Times has broadcasted this woman’s experiences “being called for tea” by state security agents (like the KGB) because she 1. signed Charter 08 (a charter describing the need human rights and democracy in China) and 2. because she has been so public that the Washington Post intervied her.

So she was in trouble but you can’t really tell much from her experience, well, the KGB characteristics are a bit nuanced in this context.  I just hope the people who battled in the front lines have paved the way for her to able to get away with voicing her values.  I hope she will have adequate support, if not, the CCP will be too eager to get rid of her and spare her no agony…

I especially liked reading the last entry because there are lot’s of supportive comments towards Xiaozhao

China rule of law, oxymoron

Most of the issues plaguing the world could be solved with a comprehensive legal understanding.  In China the biggest problem is corruption, and that is due to the people in power not abiding by the constitution and instead using fear tactics to keep the people quiet.

The point is that the top level of the CCP cannot rectify this issue (in my opinion).  If the top levels stop the lower levels from doing whatever they want to get rich and live an exploitative lifestyle, then the top CCPers would no longer have the tools to run the lower levels and control the whole society as it does through fear.

If the lower levels did not have the huge incentive of total freedom to exploit, then why would they lie boldfaced through the media?  Why would they do so much harm on behalf of the CCP to keep the people quiet?

They do that because they have an understanding with the top level.  They have sold their mafia services to the top level for freedom of corruption.

If the tope level CCPers start cracking down on illegal activity in the true sense of the word, then they will be the first ones to go to jail, so how can the CCP implement it’s own doom?

Gao Zhisheng is known as “the conscience of China”. He is self taught lawyer, a great lawyer who believes in the spirit of the law and justice, so of course, he is in jail suffering torture for that under the CCPs orders since they do not want anyone disturbing the way they have it set up.  They do not want people with conscience showing courage and influencing others to stand up.

Please support lawyer Gao…

China Human Rights Getting Better, At Least According To An Analyst In America

This is an older article, but it is good because it shows an overall positive movement by the Chinese people.  I know it might seem that I am always frustrated that the people in China don’t solve the problems of human rights, but maybe they are and I just am not seeing it reported…

Sociologist Ching Kwan Lee, a sociologist at the University of California-Los Angeles, writes in the summer issue of the American Sociological Association’s Contexts magazine that there is a ‘quiet revolution’ happening among citizens of China that isn’t recognized by the louder human rights activists.

In the case of labor rights, despite a series of labor laws passed since the 1990s, Lee asserts that labor standards in China have remained extremely bad since the country’s economic reform began 30 years ago. As a result, non-governmental organizations have formed to provide legal and other services; the legal profession has ballooned; and workers are protesting through civil disobedience and other strategies.

Property ownership is another area in which local governments violate citizen rights in pursuit of financial gains from land lease sales and urban redevelopment. Homeowner activism has included petitions, mass occupations of property management company offices, development and use of neighborhood Web sites, hunger strikes and other strategies. In addition, homeowners’ associations are increasingly being formed to advocate for rights and prevent power abuses by the local government.

In the area of land rights, thousands of conflicts, some violent, arise every year in China due to illegal land grabs by local officials, withholding of farmer compensation and lack of job replacement for those whose land has been taken. An estimated 34 million farmers have lost some or all of their land over the past two decades. Rural Chinese citizens are reacting to these rights violations by issuing public statements, filing lawsuits and organizing collective protests.

“Today’s rights activism in China provides a look at the forces driving the near-total transformation of the most populace nation in the world,” Lee said. “Attention may shift away from China after the 2008 Olympic Games conclude, yet the struggles between economic growth and social stability; between authoritarian rule and a more responsive state and involved citizenry; and between local and central governments will continue to shape and define China for the long-term future.”

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