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Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

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Re: Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

#21

Post by lolpython »

emptybits wrote: post #14
MR4D wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s naive. China can just arrest you for using encryption. Same result. (This isn’t limited to China - the US could have similar results with slightly differing laws)

Enter: steganography. Useful under totalitarian regimes, I would think. Unlike the burden required to hide gigs required for large file transactions, hiding mere hundreds of bytes for textual conversations might be feasible. Maybe. Distribution of participating client software might be the problem.

Unfortunately there's already steganography detecting software on the market[0], and it seems they have a branch in China[1]. But that is a little reductionist of me because there are evolving techniques being produced by researchers that are not so easy to detect. For example I recently read about a CNN-based method for hiding data in images that proved much more resilient against detection.

[0] https://www.wetstonetech.com/products/stegohunt/

[1] https://www.wetstonetech.com/corporate/channel-partners/

Re: Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

#22

Post by _iyig »

dead_mall wrote: post #19

This makes me think of this Reddit meme I saw in the Gaming section, the gist of it: if you mentioned some specific chinese massacre in a game with chinese players, they would all leave the game.

There is a large copy-paste block with English and Chinese spellings of “Tibet, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, Tiananmen Square Massacre 1989” that also frequently gets posted on sites like 4chan and YouTube to ward off Chinese commenters. I imagine it’s not very effective, however, since these sites are blocked on the Chinese Internet, so any Chinese users would by default be posting via an encrypted VPN.

Re: Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

#23

Post by adzm »

emptybits wrote: post #14
MR4D wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s naive. China can just arrest you for using encryption. Same result. (This isn’t limited to China - the US could have similar results with slightly differing laws)

Enter: steganography. Useful under totalitarian regimes, I would think. Unlike the burden required to hide gigs required for large file transactions, hiding mere hundreds of bytes for textual conversations might be feasible. Maybe. Distribution of participating client software might be the problem.

Steganography can be trivially detectable though if someone actually starts looking for it. The problem is that making it accessible makes it stand out.

Re: Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

#24

Post by MR4D »

emptybits wrote: post #14
MR4D wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s naive. China can just arrest you for using encryption. Same result. (This isn’t limited to China - the US could have similar results with slightly differing laws)

Enter: steganography. Useful under totalitarian regimes, I would think. Unlike the burden required to hide gigs required for large file transactions, hiding mere hundreds of bytes for textual conversations might be feasible. Maybe. Distribution of participating client software might be the problem.

As long as you don’t share it in a picture of Winnie the Pooh! LOL!

Re: Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

#25

Post by nanokilo »

_frip wrote: post #16
thewhitetulip wrote: post #11

This has already been happening in India under the current govt Any Anti PM post gets the Whatsapp admin arrested under National Security Act! Of course, there must be some stupid party supporter who probably had to file a case or something. This will be worse as it'll be automatic as China MITM's everything

Pretty interesting comment. Let me see a reputable source which backs up 'anti pm message arrest under national security act'. I googled those and found just one arrest in a state which said > Asked why Shinde had been suspended, Sharma said, “He has not been suspended just for the message. In the past, too, complaints were received against him for favouring certain political party person and showing political inclin…

Forgive my naivety, but aren’t Whatsapp messages encrypted? If so, how can the authorities see what’s written in them?

Re: Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

#26

Post by everly »

nanokilo wrote: post #25
_frip wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty interesting comment. Let me see a reputable source which backs up 'anti pm message arrest under national security act'. I googled those and found just one arrest in a state which said > Asked why Shinde had been suspended, Sharma said, “He has not been suspended just for the message. In the past, too, complaints were received against him for favouring certain political party person and showing political inclin…

Forgive my naivety, but aren’t Whatsapp messages encrypted? If so, how can the authorities see what’s written in them?

Someone in the group chat is a snitch.

Re: Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

#27

Post by afterburner »

nanokilo wrote: post #25
_frip wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty interesting comment. Let me see a reputable source which backs up 'anti pm message arrest under national security act'. I googled those and found just one arrest in a state which said > Asked why Shinde had been suspended, Sharma said, “He has not been suspended just for the message. In the past, too, complaints were received against him for favouring certain political party person and showing political inclin…

Forgive my naivety, but aren’t Whatsapp messages encrypted? If so, how can the authorities see what’s written in them?

Maybe someone snitched?

Re: Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

#28

Post by josephagoss »

nanokilo wrote: post #25
_frip wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty interesting comment. Let me see a reputable source which backs up 'anti pm message arrest under national security act'. I googled those and found just one arrest in a state which said > Asked why Shinde had been suspended, Sharma said, “He has not been suspended just for the message. In the past, too, complaints were received against him for favouring certain political party person and showing political inclin…

Forgive my naivety, but aren’t Whatsapp messages encrypted? If so, how can the authorities see what’s written in them?

If people in the chat want him suspended, I guess it is those people with the complaint making a recording/listing of the chats and then passing the evidence onto authorities.

Re: Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

#29

Post by _frip »

afterburner wrote: post #27
nanokilo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgive my naivety, but aren’t Whatsapp messages encrypted? If so, how can the authorities see what’s written in them?

Maybe someone snitched?

That is exactly what happened.

Re: Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"

#30

Post by nitinreddy88 »

thewhitetulip wrote: post #11

This has already been happening in India under the current govt Any Anti PM post gets the Whatsapp admin arrested under National Security Act! Of course, there must be some stupid party supporter who probably had to file a case or something. This will be worse as it'll be automatic as China MITM's everything

This is false statement without no supporting source. This is the problem with social media. Someone posts fake news/propaganda and everyone starts believing or starts forwarding (whatsapp), which is causing Govts to take certain action against them/regulate them
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