More Fun in A Totalitarian State-Life in China

Like all totalitarian states, the Chinese government fears all information that it doesn't control. One of the greatest sources of information today is , of course the internet and the Chinese government does its best to monitor and control its citizens.

Here's a little item on China and fear.

If you're an authoritarian government that closely monitors your citizens' online communications, here's a tip from Ars Technica: tell your minions not to store the logs on publicly-accessible servers. This is exactly what China has done with information pulled from the TOM-Skype network, leading a handful of researchers to discover that China is logging text messages and analyze the country's behavior with regards to the online monitoring and censorship of citizens. In a joint report between ONI Asia and the Information Welfare Monitor, author Nart Villeneuve details evidence that China not only monitors and logs text chat, but also targets specific users for further monitoring.
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The report published yesterday, titled "BREACHING TRUST: An analysis of surveillance and security practices on China's TOM-Skype platform" (PDF), explains that full chat text messages from TOM-Skype users were found on insecure, publicly-accessible web servers along with the encryption key required to decrypt the data (TOM Online is Skype's operating partner in China). This—along with "millions of records containing personal information" such as IP address, usernames, and landline phone numbers—were stored along with additional data detailing Skype users outside of China who have communicated with TOM-Skype users in China.

"The captured messages contain specific keywords relating to sensitive political topics such as Taiwan independence, the Falun Gong, and political opposition to the Communist Party of China," reads the report. Villeneuve explains that the surveillance doesn't stop there, either. According to the groups' analysis, many of the captured messages contain content that falls outside of typically-censored words or topics, "suggesting that there may be criteria, such as specific usernames, that determine whether messages are captured by the system." Translation: If you're the type who regularly talks about unapproved topics on Skype, you may be flagged for further monitoring of everything you say.