oppression – Techdirt (original) (raw)

NSO Malware Discovered On The Phones Of Critics Of Putin And His Allies

from the NSO-may-be-down-but-its-software-is-still-running dept

Here’s yet more unsurprising news about Israeli malware developer NSO Group and its preferred customers. More phones infected by NSO’s flagship Pegasus malware have been discovered by Citizen Lab researchers. And yet again those targeted are journalists, critics, dissidents, and opposition leaders.

The latest investigation identifies seven additional Russian and Belarusian-speaking members of civil society and journalists living outside of Belarus and Russia who were targeted and/or infected with Pegasus spyware. Many of the targets publicly criticized the Russian government, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. These individuals, most of whom are currently living in exile, have faced intense threats from Russian and/or Belarusian state security services.

Even though the company is on the ropes, the software it sold to a variety of authoritarians and autocrats still exists. And it can still be used to target people these power-hungry governments don’t like.

What could possibly be the point of infecting phones owned by dissidents, journalists, and critics with malware pitched as a solution to violent crime and international terrorism? The entities NSO sold to have repeatedly made it clear they’ll spend millions on software for the sole reason of engaging in petty revenge operations. That’s because the governments in control of this spyware are too thin-skinned to deal with the normal downsides of being in the government business: criticism, dissent, and the rise of opposition leaders who stand for everything these governments don’t stand for.

While the revenge may be petty, the outcomes are far from trivial. Turning a phone into an active tracking device that also allows governments to eavesdrop on conversations and intercept communications means it is that much easier to locate the people you want to silence. As Citizen Lab points out, the retaliation against critics of Putin and his eastern European buddies is severe, ranging from travel bans to arrests. And there’s always the possibility that operatives will just try to kill critics — something Russian operatives have done multiple times.

While the news may be unsurprising, it’s helping keep NSO’s name in the news. The longer that lasts, the less chance there is that it will be able to slip back under the radar and continue business as usual.

It also provides another set of rebuttals to NSO’s multiple defenses of its products, sales tactics, and choice of customers. When the leak of NSO malware targets first occurred, the company claimed the list was bogus. And even if it was a list of targets, it was only a list of potential targets and not representative of how its customers deployed its products.

That list was full of journalists, critics, dissidents, opposition leaders, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and lawyers engaged in litigation against governments. That was the list the NSO Group claimed meant nothing. It was just a list and couldn’t be tied to NSO, its customers, or the people targeted by its customers.

Literally everything uncovered since that leak has shown the opposite to be the case: NSO’s customers directly or indirectly (by asking other governments to do their dirty work) target exactly the sort of people contained in this list. The malware NSO claims is a powerful tool that allows governments to track dangerous criminals and international terrorists is also just a way for governments to silence critics, eliminate inconvenient human obstacles, and otherwise ensure the narrative remains theirs alone. The deterrent effect of these actions is obvious.

NSO cannot claim to have clean hands. While it’s true it cannot prevent customers from abusive deployments of its malware, it could have refused sales to known human rights abusers. It’s not like this is news at this point. The first reports of NSO’s sales to miscreants like the Saudi government occurred more than a half-decade ago.

It’s not like a lot of the governments NSO sold to just recently started engaging in massive amounts of human rights violations. Every one of these questionable customers had been in the oppression business for years, if not for the entirety of their existence.

NSO has nowhere to go as long as these investigations and this sort of reporting continues. As long as the light remains bright enough, the shadows will be too small to hide in. So while this latest news may just be more of the same, it’s still essential.

Filed Under: activists, belarus, governments, israel, journalists, malware, oppression, russia, spyware, surveillance
Companies: nso group

China Finalizes Hong Kong Police State By Installing Man Who Led Crackdown On Protests As Its Next Leader

from the Hong-Kong-finally-gets-its-own-Judge-Dredd dept

The country that promised to allow Hong Kong to choose its own leadership until at least 2047 is putting the finishing touches on its ahead-of-schedule oppression. Pro-democracy protests greeted China’s incursion into the area, alerting the world to the fact the ultra-profitable region was being invaded by forces indistinguishable from those that had turned China into a quasi-socialist nation by murdering millions of people who disagreed with the government’s means and methods.

Hong Kong never really had a chance. It takes a nation of millions to hold a nation of billions back, but the current Chinese government doesn’t really care what the rest of the world thinks about it or its actions. While pretending Hong Kong was still a democracy, the Chinese government not-so-quietly installed its own leaders and laws, criminalizing pro-democracy activity and bypassing what little was left of Hong Kong’s democracy to put its preferred representatives in charge.

Carrie Lam, a pro-China stooge, was given the reins to Hong Kong. She was very useful to the Chinese government, advancing its laws and efforts without questioning the damage to the electorate she no longer needed to be worried about. The Chinese government then made it clear “police state” wasn’t something theoretical and/or metaphorical by moving up former Secretary of Security John Lee to second-in-command. It also promoted a former police commissioner to fill Lee’s spot.

Lee’s pedigree had apparently impressed his Chinese handlers. Lee was instrumental in the crackdowns on pro-democracy protests, heading up police efforts to enforce Chinese laws written specifically to punish protesters, critics, and dissenters.

To further rig things in its favor, the Chinese government decided its version of “democracy” would only pertain to “patriots” who supported its premature takeover of Hong Kong. Instead of counting votes cast by unhappy Hong Kong residents, the “election” of new officials would be handled by a Chinese-appointed “committee” that would handpick 40 or 90 city legislators, including the most important position: Chief Executive of the region.

Carrie Lam, the useful stooge, approved this move away from anything lightly resembling democracy, claiming it was important that Hong Kong be led by “patriots.” Her period of usefulness appears to be over. Lam’s kowtowing to China managed to set off the region’s largest ever demonstration after she proposed rewriting extradition laws to make it easier for China to disappear Hong Kong residents opposed to its actions. Having failed to live up to the Chinese government’s oppressive standards, Lam is stepping down.

She will be replaced by her second-in-command, John Lee — an official best known for his overseeing of law enforcement brutality targeting pro-democracy protesters. Lee obtained his position thanks to the Chinese government’s recently installed “patriot” committee that allows the puppet government to appoint pro-China legislators and officials.

John Lee, who became the face of the national security law and who oversaw the arrests of dozens of activists and raids on newsrooms, is set to replace outgoing Chief Executive Carrie Lam when she finishes her five-year term at the end of June.

In what the government billed as an “open, just and honest” election, a largely government-appointed, pro-Beijing committee of 1,461 people appointed the next leaderfor the city’s 7.5 million residents on Sunday. Lee wasthe only person in the running, in contrast to previous years that saw run-offs between multiple candidates.

Engage in enough intimidation and violence and you can pretend to uphold democratic ideals while ensuring the election process is a forgone conclusion. Lee also supported the revamped extradition bill that would have given the Chinese government the ability to spirit away Hong Kong residents at will. While protests raged, Lee gave the Chinese government what it wants: more violence against protesters and more public proclamations that demonstrators were “radicals” and “terrorists.” For this show of loyalty in the face of widespread condemnation, Lee has been awarded the keys to the region.

The Chinese government will also see its oppressive stock rise with Lee’s appointment. It now has a true loyalists installed, rather than an interim loyalist (Carrie Lam) who failed to demonstrate she could secure the submission of Hong Kong residents.

At the unveiling of his policy manifesto on April 29, Lee emphasized the need to integrate Hong Kong with other economically important Chinese cities. There was no English translation provided, despite English being one of Hong Kong’s two official languages – in striking contrast to most government events to date.

He also vowed to bolster security legislation and introduce “national identity” education. Both proposals have long been controversial, with previous attempts to introduce legislation foiled by protests and pushback – much to Beijing’s frustration.

There will be no independence for Hong Kong. The Chinese government has amply demonstrated it won’t be deterred by mass protests or worldwide condemnation. All that’s left to determine is how much the government can profit from Hong Kong’s position as a center of world commerce… and how long it can retain this position once its pro-democracy proponents have exited the county, either through self-exile or at the hands of John Lee, its new, unelected, thoroughly compromised Chief Executive.

Filed Under: carrie lam, china, democracy, hong kong, john lee, oppression, protests

Error 403: Syrians Blocked From Online Learning Platforms

from the don't-punish-victims-of-regimes dept

Individuals in dictatorships need more freedom not less. Syrians have for years been unable to work remotely or pay for remote services, even educational ones. Do we want to do the same now to Afghans, who are already in fear of the Taliban? Examining in detail the experiences of Syrians, can maybe lead us to a better solution.

Major online distance learning platforms based in the US, such as Coursera, that have emerged as crucial tools during the pandemic, are partially or fully blocked in Syria because of U.S. sanctions. While intended to weaken the Syrian government, the sanctions have also restricted access to an online learning universe that could offer critical opportunities to ordinary Syrians trapped in difficult circumstances.

With a global audience of 87 million learners, Coursera offers free lecture courses from universities around the world, including many top-tier American schools such as University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Stanford, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern.

But in the war-torn country, people are unable to take advantage of the online high quality courses.

Coursera is not alone: Its competitor, Udacity, is also banned in Syria. Of the major online learning platforms, the only one operating in Syria is edX, the nonprofit platform founded by MIT. However edX only offers a few courses. This is particularly problematic for a country that has often relied on these courses to innovate and create new job opportunities.

But why is Syria sanctioned?

Syria has been the target of economic sanctions imposed by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) since 1979, when the Carter administration added Syria to the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. The program includes trade embargoes, import and export restrictions, investment bans, asset freezes, and travel bans.

President Bush further expanded the U.S. Syria sanctions program in 2004 as part of the ongoing ‘War on Terror’ under the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 (SAA).

In 2011, President Obama imposed new sanctions against Syria in response to the Assad regime’s targeting of civilians in pro-democracy uprisings. The 2011 sanctions targeted the Syrian oil sector, freezing the assets of Syrian individuals and entities, prohibiting petroleum imports and investments, and prohibiting the sale of services to Syria.

What does this mean for Syrians?

The restrictions seem more symbolic than effective. IP address bans are notoriously easy to work around — to access the blocked websites, Syrians often resort to VPNs that mask their location. The problem is that VPNs are often unreliable and may interfere with the interactive experience offered by the platforms.

Even if Syrians manage to access free online learning classes via a VPN, they are unable to obtain certificates of completion, since those require a fee as and no online payment methods are available from within the country due to these same sanctions.

The same scenario applies to language tests. Syrians are unable to take TOEFL and IELTS, the two main English language proficiency tests accepted across the world, as payments made from within Syria are not accepted.

The easiest option is to take these tests in neighboring countries, such as Lebanon, but the costs of travelling are too high for the large majority of Syrians (80% live in poverty, according to UN data released in March 2021).

An alternative to IELTS and TOEFL is the Duolingo English Test, which became available in late 2020 after Duolingo managed to receive a special exemption from OFAC. While the exam can be taken online while in Syria, the fee must be paid from outside Syria. As such, people have to ask friends and relatives living in other countries to make the payment for them, a significant obstacle due to the difficulty of conducting wire transfers in the country.

Computer science students and software engineers are also unable to access some essential services offered by Microsoft’s GitHub, the world’s most-used tool for software development.

On top of all that, at a moment when much of the rest of the world is relying on digital tools to survive a pandemic, Syrians are also unable to access other online services, such as Amazon Books and Zoom, that have been crucial for online learning elsewhere.

We Need Better Legal Frameworks

People under military rule are essentially “Stateless” and should be provided opportunities to integrate into the global economy rather than kept out. The rationale for comprehensive sanctions seems to be that any money flowing into a country with a military dictator will end up in the dictator’s hands. However, this is not always the case – and allowing people a way to make a living and to educate themselves, independent of the ruling class, is likely to be in everyone’s interests in the long run.

Raise the Voices is an International human rights project that supports victims and their families.

Filed Under: ofac, online education, oppression, sanctions, syria
Companies: coursera

Alibaba Says It's Not Going After Uighurs (At Least Not Yet)

from the let-us-know-when-to-yeet,-chicom dept

Oh my. Be mindful about the suddenly sensitive Chinese government. Let’s not accuse them of things they want to do when those things haven’t been done yet.

Maybe it’s just a Winnie the Pooh meme. Maybe it’s the inability of professional athletes to keep their opinions to themselves. Maybe it’s an entire landmass who doesn’t want to see its independence crushed by a government that agreed to not crush its independence for the next several years.

Never mind the narratives. Here’s what the Chinese government has been doing. It wants certain citizens prosecuted, persecuted, and ejected. The Uighur population of China has been a target for years. Nothing will change that. But it can be made worse.

Huawei — currently the target of misguided or, at least, hypocritical US government activity — has been whipping up some AI that goes beyond facial recognition. The AI being built by Huawei will identify people based on the their race, sex, and religious proclivities. Never mind the fact that facial recognition still can’t reliably recognize faces. The tech being built by Huawei promises to subject millions of Chinese residents to algorithms at least as untrustworthy as those not being asked to suss out people’s race or religious leanings.

The Chinese government isn’t worried about backlash. But those still doing business in other parts of the world (like Huawei and others) are. You can’t increase market share when the rest of the world considers you an extension of an oppressive government.

Alibaba — the Amazon of the unregulated — doesn’t want to alienate a user base it’s attempting to cultivate. It has issued a statement that serves as a somewhat reluctant middle finger to the Chinese government. There’s a whole world of marks out there. Why should Alibaba restrict its hunt for rubes to whatever the Chinese government allows?

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has said it will not allow its technology to be used for targeting or identifying specific ethnic groups.

The statement follows reports that the company’s content moderation technology can pick out Uighur minorities.

Alibaba said it was “dismayed’ that Alibaba Cloud developed facial technology that includes ethnicity as an attribute for tagging video imagery.

“We have eliminated any ethnic tag in our product offering,” Alibaba said.

Fantastic. That’s a relief. Alibaba won’t help the government target Uighurs for government persecution, at least as far as its statement aimed at non-Uighurs asserts. But does this mean anything? Security researchers say Alibaba tools/algorithms already give the government the go-ahead to target Uighurs for additional oppression. A public statement may distance Alibaba from government oppression, but the fact that Alibaba continues to operate without interference in China suggests the Chinese government can get what it needs even if the online commerce site says it won’t do it for all the tea its government is currently taxing.

Filed Under: censorship, china, facial recognition, oppression, persecution, uighur
Companies: alibaba

UK Wing Of TikTok Swears It Isn't Helping The Chinese Government Oppress Uighur Muslims

from the but-would-you-swear-on-this-stack-of-little-red-books? dept

China doesn’t have a problem with censorship. By that, I mean the Chinese government sees no problem with its ever-expanding censorship of speech it doesn’t like. While China appears to have embraced capitalism, it hasn’t embraced the democratic accoutrements that normally accompany a move towards a more free society.

The government doesn’t like to be criticized, so it has engaged in several efforts to censor speech by people arguing for less censorship and a better government. These efforts have been greeted with some creative responses by citizens, but the government flips the internet kill switch on and off as needed, denying citizens access to something most people around the world consider to be as essential as tap water.

As if that weren’t enough to keep speech in line, American companies and… um… sportsball concerns have cooperated with censorship efforts to appease the Chinese government with the end goal of accessing China’s billion-strong user base.

The crackdown on speech is far more pronounced in one region of the country, where the government has targeted certain citizens — more than one million Uighur Muslims — with ever-increasing censorship, along with the killings and disappearings China has historically deployed against those on its expansive persona non grata lists.

A number of US companies have helped the Chinese government oppress Uighur Muslims. Unsurprisingly, a Chinese company is doing the same thing. TikTok, the social media upstart that has irrationally angered the Trump administration, has admitted its contribution to the government’s persecution of its least favored citizens. This includes efforts made by TikTok’s moderation teams located in other countries where one would (very hopefully) assume the Chinese government’s demands are free to be ignored. Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be the case.

At a UK parliamentary committee hearing on Wednesday, Elizabeth Kanter, TikTok’s UK director of public policy, was asked by Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani whether the app had quashed content about the Uighur crisis in Xinjiang, where at least 1 million Uighur Muslims and other minorities have been detained in so-called “reeducation camps.”

According to TikTok’s UK director, it’s policy of China-appeasing censorship in other nations is no longer a thing. But the explanation isn’t very convincing.

“At that time we took a decision […] to not allow conflict on the platform, and so there was some incidents where content was not allowed on the platform, specifically with regard to the Uighur situation,” she said.

Supposedly, things are better now. All you have to do is trust TikTok’s UK rep and your own eyes, I guess.

“If you look at the platform now and search for the term ‘Uighur’ on the TikTok app, you can find plenty of content about the Uighurs. There’s plenty of content that’s critical of China.”

Sounds good. Or, at least, better. But requests for more detail by the UK government were greeted with vague reassurances that the new, more permissive policy has been in place “for at least over a year,” but that as recently as “a couple of years ago,” the UK wing of TikTok was still acting as an extension of the Chinese government.

ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, has attempted to distance itself from the Chinese government and its censorship for a few years now. It operates a completely different social media service in China, putting a firewall between users located elsewhere and the Great Firewall the Chinese government has erected. But its home base is problematic. It’s impossible to please both the Chinese government and its non-Chinese users who expect their content to be exempt from China’s censorship efforts. The end result is, far too often, something that errs on the side of the Chinese government’s demands.

TikTok isn’t the security threat the Trump administration has frequently imagined it to be. (Well, it’s no more of a threat to users and their personal info than several American companies…) But it is still a problem for users located outside of China, who expect their interactions to be unmolested by laws they’re not obligated to follow.

Filed Under: censorship, china, content moderation, free speech, oppression, uighur, uk
Companies: bytedance, tiktok

Iran Accelerates Longstanding Quest To Cut Itself Off From The Internet

from the ill-communication dept

Tue, Dec 17th 2019 01:29pm - Karl Bode

For much of the last decade, oppressive regimes like Iran have made ample noise about wanting to cut themselves off from the internet. Much like Russia, Iran isn’t keen on this whole factual reality and free speech thing, so they’ve repeatedly floated the idea of severing Iranian internet access and replacing it with a local intranet — one that’s far easier to filter, censor, and otherwise disable during times of pesky democratic protest. You know, like last month, when at least 180 Iranian citizens protesting oil price hikes in Tehran were brutally murdered.

For five days Iran severed access to the internet as protests raged, though it did little to quell public anger or hamper overall protests. In response, Iran hopes to up the ante: a 2018 report (pdf) by the Center for Human Rights in Iran highlighted the country’s quest to build a National Information Network (NIN) that would give Iranian leaders more granular control over what they clearly see as the most pressing threat to their control. Already under development, the effort directs citizens to heavily censored and often outright fabricated information:

“The NIN?s national search engines now systematically filter key words and phrases?and send users to sites that deliver only stateapproved and sometimes fabricated content. NIN tools and services facilitate the state?s ability to identify users and access their online communications, deeply compromising user privacy and security. The government steers Iranians toward use of the NIN and its search engines, security certificates, email services and video broadcasting services through price and internet speed incentives, violating net neutrality principles.”

This week President Hassan Rouhani told Iran’s parliament that the company would be dramatically expanding the development of the NIN in what’s clearly a panicked response to unrest:

“Iran’s intranet, known as the National Information Network, will be expanded so “people will not need foreign [networks] to meet their needs,” President Rouhani said to Iran’s parliament on Sunday, according to Radio Farda. The decree to bolster the NIN comes from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself, Rouhani said.”

And a few days back, a number of letters were sent by the Iranian government to state-run organisations and private companies, asking them which websites they most rely on, presumably to help develop a new white list of which websites will be formally approved as the country’s internet clampdown accelerates:

“Many suspect that the authorities now want to move one step further and instead of having a “black list” of banned websites, there will be a “white list” of permissible ones, with all others blocked. Mahsa Alimardani, of human rights organisation Article 19, says that approach would be “in line with the worrying indications” that Iranian authorities want to restrict access to the uncensored internet to certain people “based on their professional and social circumstances.”

Granted this effort to build an Iranian internet has been ongoing since 2005 or so. But as Russia has found, the effort is a lot easier said than done, not just because it’s a technical nightmare to both implement and police, but because the filtering of what many now see as an essential utility only contributes to the unrest these governments are trying to (often violently) suppress. At the end of the day, such efforts are the last refuge of cowards terrified of their own citizens, and their ability to freely communicate about whatever idiotic, ham-fisted crackdown is coming down the pike.

Filed Under: censorship, internet, iran, national information network, oppression, private internet

Thai Government Uses Fake News Law To Lock Up Opposing Party Leaders

from the securing-a-nation-from-the-threat-of-free-and-open-elections dept

Thailand’s government continues to make life miserable for its citizens. Pretending mass censorship and broken encryption are just the price citizens have to pay for a “secure” nation, the government has turned the internet into a minefield for critics and political opponents. This is all on top of a lese majeste law that criminalizes badmouthing the king, which would be horrible enough on its own.

Thanks to the leader of the free world, the term “fake news” is now being deployed to put people in real jails for sharing content of dubious origin or not in alignment with the official narrative. Shutting down criticism by deploying anti-fake news laws is a horrendous abuse of government power. But even legitimate uses of these laws are still troubling. Should the sharing of actually fake news be a criminal offense? The Thai government says yes.

A spokeswoman for the Future Forward party said on Tuesday that a representative of the ruling military junta had filed a police complaint accusing Pongsakorn Rodchompoo of violating the Computer Crime Act, which carries a penalty of up to five years in jail.

Pongsakorn has admitted sharing an article that accused a top junta official of buying cups of coffee for 12,000 baht ($377) each, but says he deleted the post within minutes after learning it originated from a website promoting fake news, Future Forward spokeswoman Pannika Wanich said.

Five other people were also arrested for sharing the fake story, but it’s definitely a boon for the government in power when the law takes out a political opponent. Literally unbelievable, the government says the fake story — which detailed government overspending that didn’t actually happen — posed a “threat to national security.” Conveniently, the charges target the leaders of a political party current challenging recent election results.

If fake news is the new speech-damaging dodge, “national security” is the trusty standby — one that’s been used to increase censorship and surveillance all over the world, not just in nations run by hypersensitive authoritarians. The Thai government may be saying stuff about fake news and national security, but the real motivation is keeping its opponents quiet. Charges have also been filed against Future Forward party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit for “putting false information online.” The Guardian notes that Thanathorn is a “particularly articulate” critic of the Thai government and military.

And, because all of these new laws just aren’t enough to keep every critic silent, the nation’s criminal defamation law is still being used in particularly petty ways.

Thailand’s army chief, General Apirat Kongsompong, has ordered officials to file defamation charges against a former police chief who is running for prime minister after he made remarks regarding the many decorations on the general’s uniform…

Presumably, keeping the general’s chest free from criticism will result in a more secure nation — one run by some of the most insecure people in the country.

Filed Under: fake news, free speech, oppression, politics, thailand

Russian Gov't Forced To Pay Newspaper Editor It Falsely Accused Of Piracy

from the government-sometimes-loses dept

We’ve noted in the past how the Russian government (as many others do) abuse copyright laws as a means of suppressing dissent among the media and activist groups. While this tactic got some additional attention last fall when it was discovered that Microsoft often played along, the Russian government still has been known to accuse anyone it dislikes of piracy, often creating charges based on the fact that someone couldn’t find a receipt for a software package or couldn’t prove they had legally bought that software package. This is copyright as pure censorship.

Thankfully, the Russian government isn’t always succeeding with this strategy. Danny O’Brien was kind enough to send over the news that Sergei Kurt-Adzhiev, a local news editor in Samara, has finally been declared not guilty in his years-long fight against the Russian government in one of these trumped-up piracy lawsuits. Not only that, but in this case, the Russian Finance Ministry was ordered to pay him 450,000 rubles, or about $15,200 for the false charges that he’d used pirated software.

In response to the win, Sergei apparently said:

“I am pleased with the court’s decision, though I believe it would have been fairer to collect my compensation from those law enforcement agents who illegally persecuted me. I am ready to identify those persons by name and to determine the monetary responsibility of each.”

Should be interesting to see if he follows through on that threat…