
China forces one of its Muslim minorities to install spyware on their phones - libeclipse
http://mashable.com/2017/07/21/china-spyware-xinjiang/
======
sl4i6j3o4i98g
Could we please get a copy of the apk? I feel we need a multi-pronged defense
against such technologies:

* Fake app, so people can pass a manual inspection of their device

* Fake dataset, to feed so many false positives into their database it makes it time-cost prohibitive to investigate

* Conflicting dataset - Duplicate MD5 strings matching 'bad' and 'good' files; may corrupt internal databases or provide plausible deniability

~~~
ascom
I downloaded it and decompiled it here, if anyone wants to take a look:
[https://mirrors.asun.co/chinese-spyware/](https://mirrors.asun.co/chinese-
spyware/)

~~~
sl4i6j3o4i98g
Legend! thank you.

~~~
sl4i6j3o4i98g
Product: Landa iTAP Vendor:
[http://www.landasoft.com/html/class/dsjfx/index.html](http://www.landasoft.com/html/class/dsjfx/index.html)

C2 URL:
[http://bxaq.landaitap.com:22222/BXAQ/servlet/front/APPS?type...](http://bxaq.landaitap.com:22222/BXAQ/servlet/front/APPS?type=XXCJ)
(HTTP POST)

Update URL:
[http://47.93.5.238:8081/APP/VERSION/jingwangweishi_version/v...](http://47.93.5.238:8081/APP/VERSION/jingwangweishi_version/version.xml)

Interesting features:

MainActivity.this.scan = new
SdcardScan("3GP,AMR,AVI,WEBM,FLV,IVX,M4A,MP3,MP4,MPG,RMVB,RAM,WMA,WMV,TXT,HTML,CHM,PNG,JPG",
MainActivity.this.sdcardCallBack, true);

String SBMC = isTRN(isNull(EssentialInformation.getSBMC()));

    
    
            String IMEI = isTRN(isNull(EssentialInformation.getIMEI(this)));
    
            String MAC = isTRN(isNull(EssentialInformation.getMacAddress(this)));
    
            String CSMC = isTRN(isNull(EssentialInformation.getPhoneCsModel()));
    
            String XH = isTRN(isNull(EssentialInformation.getPhoneModel()));
    
            String SJH = isTRN(isNull(EssentialInformation.getLineNum(this)));

~~~
aaron695
Is

GA_AJ_JK_GXH_source_from_JADX\res\raw\test.txt

The md5's they are looking for you reckon?

------
virtuabhi
The most weird news I have heard from Xinjiang is when Chinese authorities
forced Muslims to dance on streets -
[https://tribune.com.pk/story/871879/suppressing-religious-
fr...](https://tribune.com.pk/story/871879/suppressing-religious-freedoms-
chinese-imams-forced-to-dance-in-xinjiang-region/)

~~~
cronjobma
this is absolutely sick. Why has this never reached the mainstream news?

~~~
AJ007
There is a lot of other stuff going on that is completely unreported. I would
recommend talking to Uyghurs directly.

Clearly China is trying to solidify their geographical borders by turning
majority ethnic groups in those given regions in to minority groups of ever
decreasing influence. This is straight out of a very old playbook for
colonization. That they are able to so opening continue doing this in 2017
with so little global acknowledgement is only partially surprising.

~~~
HowardMei
That's utter rubbish. In fact, due to the lack of birth control policy over
the ethnic minorities, the demographic structure in Xinjiang is changing
drastically and the 0~6 years old Han population is less than 10% percent
compared to 40% of the adult population. Colonization your ass.

The Han people are furious because the CCP uses Han as a tool to maintain its
rule over China but keeps sacrificing the future of Han.

Given the CCP's pro-Hui policy, many of Han people fear that some day China
will become an Islamic country like Iran or Malaysia.

When you talk to Uyghurs, don't forget to ask their opinions about the Hui
Muslim and Erdogan's Neo-Ottomanism.

I feel sick about the CCP's cruelty but I feel absurd when you blame the
ethnic majority for colonization.

------
zython
>The app reportedly scans for the MD5 digital signatures of media files in the
phone, and matches them to a stored database of offending files classified by
the government as illegal "terrorist-related" media.

What a dumb way to scan for "illegal" content, considering the goverment
already controls their portion of the internet. So instead of monitoring who
is accessing what they decide to compare checksums of files which can be
trivially changed which would result in a completely new hash value.

Seems like a very incompetent way of doing this.

~~~
Hasknewbie
In my opinion, in typical Beijing fashion the "competence" part of the
equation is irrelevant. it's all about sending a message, loud and clear:
"today we discriminate against YOU, by law, and there's nothing you can do
about it". That the method used is laughably inefficient is not the point,
it's all about keeping that boot in place on that throat, in a very visible
manner.

~~~
saimiam
Couldn't agree more.

Same with airline security theater, identifying citizens using biometric
markers (Aadhar card in India), pernicious internet monitoring in the UK...the
list goes on. I guess the idea is to use the dragnet to catch or deter a
majority of the population from thought crimes and preserve resources for the
real big fish.

------
sdiq
Elsewhere, I read that China doesn't allow Muslim civil servants and students
from fasting during Ramadan. Was that only applying to this region or was
applicable to other regions with non-Turkic Chinese Muslims?

~~~
dmoy
It's mostly just xinjiang that gets shit on.

See e.g. [http://time.com/3099950/china-muslim-hui-xinjiang-uighur-
isl...](http://time.com/3099950/china-muslim-hui-xinjiang-uighur-islam/)

The TL;DR of it is that it has not much to do with religion specifically, and
much to do with the region pushing for autonomy (which doesn't rate
particularly high in the eyes of Beijing).

(This is not to say it's ok, just stating the reality of the situation)

~~~
vslira
This is important to stress. It doesn't make the decision any less oppressive,
but framing it as anti-muslim instead of anti-insubordination obscures
Beijing's real priorities.

~~~
HowardMei
Yeah. In fact, the CCP has been pro-Hui Muslim to an extent that the Han
majority fear the country will be Islamicized some day.

The ordinary people's resentment towards Muslim stems from the Hui's abuse of
political privileges to expand their religious strengths, such as Saria Law,
to intervene Han people's daily life everywhere, from Ningxia, Gansu to Henan
and Shandong, from Canteens, Schools to Police, Courts.

In the meanwhile, the majority has little to zero knowledge about the Uyghurs
because only a few Uyghur people live outside Xinjiang.

The situation is really weird and there is a conspiracy theory saying that the
CCP leadership has been controlled by the Hui Muslim.

BTW, the Hui Muslim and the Uyghur Muslim have been enemies since the Qing
Dynasty.

------
kronos29296
Somehow china is becoming Ingsoc from 1984. Control people, censorship,
Dictator state with no prospect of change, monitoring people, big brother is
watching you type stuff among other things.

Just a week ago I read about traffic warnings personalised by face
recognition. Now this. Soon China might become Ingsoc with Minlove and Double
think and what not.

~~~
raverbashing
And this
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI)

~~~
kronos29296
Well damn. I am happy that I am not there.

------
kawera
And they're also targeting kazakhs according to this article I posted 5 days
ago but got no comments:

[http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-orders-
xinjiangs...](http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-orders-xinjiangs..).

~~~
tristanj
Your post [1] was autokilled because rfa.org is on the banned domains list.
Try submitting something from rfa.org and it doesn't show up on new [2]. pg
wrote a bit about banned domains here [3].

I don't think rfa.org should be banned, perhaps message the admins and they'll
take it off the banned domains list.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14785838](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14785838)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=rfa.org](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=rfa.org)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499044)

------
jakobbuis
I suppose it would be easy to carry a secondary, hidden device and only use
your primary device for inconspicuous activities?

~~~
dave_sullivan
It would likewise be easy for authorities to beat you within an inch of your
life and jail you indefinitely for "hidden communication with a bad intent" or
something similarly inane. They don't need you to unlock your phone for proof.

"Countermeasures" don't matter when there're a million ways to terrorize you,
your family, and your friends into submission. They just have to suspect you.

------
libeclipse
I can think of so many countermeasures.

\- Append a null byte to the end of your files, giving them a unique hash
value.

\- Disallow internet access to the application.

\- Spoof the server using DNS tricks and control what is sent and received.

\- Reverse engineer the application to make it look as if it's working while
it actually isn't.

\- Sandbox the application.

\- Use an alternative phone for all of your "sensitive" activities.

\- Don't keep "sensitive" information on phones, rather store on an encrypted
computer.

\- Use an old burner phone.

So not only is the policy utterly disgusting, it's also completely
ineffective. A small blessing perhaps.

~~~
fiblye
How easy do you imagine not only finding information on how to follow through
all of these steps, but actually acquire the needed materials (burners) within
the strictly controlled PRC is?

~~~
thinkloop
Not to mention the likely extreme punishment if any of that was detected.

------
OzzyB
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not
a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was
not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Muslims—and everyone rejoiced in their unity of hating
them together.

~~~
hnbroseph
people don't enjoy getting run over en masse by trucks or having their
children decapitated by 'enthusiastic' religious adherents.

~~~
greglindahl
Did you know that the Nazis hyped up Jewish criminals as a way of demonizing
all of them based on the actions of a few?

~~~
hnbroseph
did you know the 'allies' hyped up nazi criminals as a way of demonizing all
of them based on the actions of a few?

------
buttcake
Wow, those chinese surely are totalitarian in the way they approach
surveillance technology aren't they ?

Good thing we have nothing like that. Only just closed hardware with closed or
with some parts open complicated software mostly made by a few corporations
which tend to and have in fact in past coopoerated with governments without
even thinking about their customers.

~~~
Kenji
You're doing liberty and democracy a disservice with your whataboutism. It's
one thing to suspect your government of sneakily compromising hardware,
another to receive official letters to install a surveillance app or be
detained. Of course both are despicable, but they are not in the same league.

EDIT: I'm surprised about how many people jump to the defense of the Chinese
government here on HN. Seems in stark contrast with the usual political
opinion of the crowd. I can only ascribe this phenomenon to massive cultural
relativism.

~~~
Dylan16807
> It's one thing to suspect your government of sneakily compromising hardware,
> another to receive official letters to install a surveillance app or be
> detained.

Suspicions are of course lesser.

But sneakily compromising hardware is _worse_ then officially compromising
hardware!

> defense

That comment ain't a defense.

------
pyed
Disgusting

~~~
autopanopticon
Not to mention embarassingly ineffective.

~~~
kronos29296
Effectiveness has nothing to do with it. It is about sending a message and
very strong one at that.

------
piyushmakhija
This is an insightful documentary on this topic
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5IwwnP5e78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5IwwnP5e78)

------
chrishowlin
Is this OS specific? It would be good to have more details on the mechanism
this app is using. Presumably this can only scan media that is stored outside
of apps?

------
pacificera
At least the citizens know they are being surveiled.

~~~
striking
That hardly changes how terrible these measures are.

What's more, they seem technologically ineffective. As if the government were
just trying to make a show of its power rather than provide real solutions.

It's absolutely indefensible and you must know it, considering you opened a
new account to comment this.

------
logicchains
The headline is slightly misleading. It's not all muslim minorities in China:
it's muslims living in the separatist Xinjiang region, who are ethnically
Turkic. There are a non-insignificant number of muslims outside of Xinjiang,
such as the Huizu, which are essentially Han Chinese muslims. Lots of the
"terrorism" originating from Xinjiang has separatist rather than just
religious motivations; I wouldn't be surprised if this is why the Chinese
government is so keen to crack down.

*Edit: the headline was originally 'China forces its Muslim minority to install spyware on their phones'

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
When I read the headline, I immediately thought Xinjiang, because that is
where they have the greatest concentration of Muslims and where they have had
separatism issues.

And then the first sentence starts with "China has ramped up surveillance
measures in Xinjiang".

So I don't consider the headline misleading at all. News sites necessarily
have to use short titles. The lack of an exhaustive title shouldn't be
criticized unless it is clearly clickbait or contradicts facts or the article.

~~~
logicchains
I meant the headline of the Hacker News post, not the headline of the article.
The original Hacker News post headline was "China forces its Muslim minority
to install spyware on their phones", which is incorrect in the sense it
implies that China is forcing all its Muslims to install spyway on their
phones.

~~~
libeclipse
That's the same as the headline on the article itself.

~~~
logicchains
The article headline is slightly different: it's:

"China's forcing citizens in Muslim-majority region to install spyware on
their phones"

Note the "Muslim-majority region", which was missing from the original HN
title.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
It seems that mashable changed their headline, because I get "China’s forcing
citizens in Muslim-majority region to install spyware on their phones" when I
visit what appears to be a cached crawler copy at
[http://www.pipiscrew.com/2017/07/chinas-forcing-citizens-
in-...](http://www.pipiscrew.com/2017/07/chinas-forcing-citizens-in-muslim-
majority-region-to-install-spyware-on-their-phones/) but when I visit the
article itself, I see a different headline.

------
mrkrabo
This is interesting. It goes to show how an autoritarian government can fix
some problems in a more effective way. You can remove terrorist propaganda
from YouTube, but how do you stop the spread of those videos in private
platforms or messaging applications?

And even if the first version of this spying app only checks for md5 sums,
which is arguably useless, I'm sure they're working on something more
effective.

~~~
sa-mao
You know how to fix the problem more effectively? try to find the root cause
and fix it. It's simple and it works.

~~~
mrkrabo
The west has been trying to do that for decades. Things just get worse and
worse. What do you propose?

~~~
yorwba
The West does not currently have much of a problem with violent separatism.
Maybe someone got into a bar fight over Catalan independence or Brexit, but
all recent conflicts I'm aware of were relatively peaceful. If you compare
this to the situation in Northern Ireland, I'd say things have gotten much
better.

~~~
bsaul
yougoslavian people will beg to differ. Civil war in a european country
leading to the partition of the country into multiple states based on ethnic
and religious criteria happened in europe just 25 years ago.

~~~
yorwba
I have a slightly different perspective on what counts as "recent", most
likely because I am younger than that. I also looked up the Troubles for my
previous comment; apparently they officially ended in 1998, which is even more
recent. Take my comment as referring to the last 20ish years when I talk about
things getting better.

------
nunobrito
Its their country and their laws, trying to solve the problem of Islamic
extremism on their own.

In western countries, you get detained for years in Guantanamo under torture
without knowing for sure why you got arrested. Young girls get married as
early as 12 to creepy old dudes and there is no need to ask for installing
spyware because the phones and communications are already tapped by default.

Anyone criticizing China while permitting their own country to do worse is an
hypocrite. Still waiting for the outrage about the mass surveillance from
Amazon Echo, Google and others. Only the European Commission is doing
something visible against this trend.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
> "Islamic extremism"

In Xinjiang region, the concern is more about _separatism_ , which is not
terrorism, and which should be a right of any group.

> "Anyone criticizing China while permitting their own country to do worse is
> an hypocrite"

One can be critical of their own government while still being critical of
others. Even in US, ordinary people don't have much control over the
government, in particular over the security state, other than complaining, so
"permitting" abuses shouldn't be considered hypocritical.

~~~
nunobrito
Islamic extremism is deeply connected to separatism. That's what the "Islamic
State" is all about.

You can surely be critical of others, your own government does comparably
worse to the same minority without even letting ordinary people know. That is
hypocrisy.

~~~
dionian
"Islamic extremism" is a nebulous category that can be ascribed to ANY socio-
political unrest of peoples who happen to live in a predominantly muslim area.

What do they call extremism in other areas with deep socioeconomic problems?
Non-islamic extremism?

------
lechiffre10
Chinazi

------
paradite
Same intention, different approaches, move on to more interesting topics.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14823596](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14823596)

~~~
specializeded
Always one for facile comparisons between China and developed entities aren’t
we paradite?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14763085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14763085)

Your response to me back then seemed in good faith, if a bit naive. This
continued trend of blatant propagandizing is a bit worrying though.

Perhaps change it up so your work isn’t immediately recognizable? Even
sounding the least bit neutral would probably be enough to blend in.

~~~
paradite
Let's focus on meaningful and substantial discussions instead of derailing
into personal attacks. Happy to reply if you have anything interesting to say.

~~~
specializeded
I’d be happy to attack if you had anything worthwhile to dispute.

Consider my criticism and one day you might.

------
cronjobma
Unfortunately, this isn't any different from what a variety of countries have
been doing to muslims for the last 200 years. If your source of information is
mainly the Media, I suggest you spend an afternoon browsing through Wikipedia
and compare the numbers. The amount of terrorist attacks by 'so called
muslims' (let's just say they are muslim for a moment) is minuscule by the
amount of muslims killed by the west. Every single life matters, so let's put
things in perspective. The west has occupied and terrorised muslim nations for
2 centuries, but since they control the media, they keep them in the category
of 'bad guys'. This surveillance is disgusting. It's how muslims have been
occupied and oppressed for 200 years. Those who oppose freedom should downvote
this.

~~~
mercurysmessage
Yea, from what I've seen it's mostly retaliation from surviving members of
family and friends who were killed by Russia/US/Canada/UK etc, etc. The whole
thing sucks all around.

------
throw2016
No one cares about China or the people of Xinjiang. China probably cares more
about them than anyone else.

Human rights is just an opportunity for many to grandstand and make smug
declarations while making the flimsiest of excuses with a straight face and
hand waving away their own government's actions. Unfortunately so much water
has flown under the bridge this is just not credible.

What happened to the concern for all the refugees from Syria now, everyone is
fighting to keep them away yet are happy to make sanctimonious statements
feigning concern to justify destructive action that decimates entire countries
and destroys millions of lives driven entirely by political and economic
agendas. This kind of odious hypocrisy is just not tenable anymore.

~~~
gipp
So, what, ethical government is a nonsensical idea and we all just accept
autocracy around the world?

You're also putting a lot of words in people's mouths. Many or most of folks
who have a problem with things like this are also the people concerned with
their own government's actions abroad, and are _not_ those "fighting to keep
[Syrian refugees] away".

Everything can be made to look like hypocrisy if you just freely mix and match
opinions of completely different people.

------
bnolsen
Considering the "muslim minorities" went on a wild random stabbing campaign
and randomly injected people with some sort of syringes in public places, AND
entry into restaurands and stores all include metal detectors and xray
scanners and armed troops are standing everywhere, I'd say there's already
been a war declared by the minorities against the chinese there. Just in case
you are wondering my wife has family who live in different parts of xinjiang.
A couple of summers ago during the worst of it before all the above equipment
was deployed many people were afraid to go outside their homes.

I was talking with my wife this morning and other parts of western china (not
xinjiang) have some issues with radicalization. The muslims have been on a non
stop jihad since its inception and this is just a continuation of it. We could
also go over what's been happening in the russian republics (like kazakhstan)
which also have been feeling the effects of "invasion".

~~~
goodplay
>Considering the "muslim minorities" went on a wild random stabbing campaign
and randomly injected people with some sort of syringes in public places[...]

What percentage of those "muslim minorities" actually took part in those acts?
Does that percentage justify treating everyone who qualifies as "muslim
minorities" like a criminal?

> The muslims have been on a non stop jihad since its inception and this is
> just a continuation of it.

That's not remotely true despite what extremists on both sides like to delude
themselves into believing.

~~~
hnbroseph
the majority of nazis were reasonable people. why treat nazis as a whole so
poorly?

the issue isn't 'percentage' of active agents, or 'supportive' agents. it's
about ideologies with structural support for violence and oppression.

> That's not remotely true

how do you think islam spread historically? peaceful dialog over tea?

a rather significant contribution was conquest and the 'education' of other
people's children in the 'islamic worldview'.

