Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims
#2To add a bit of context, China forces Android users in Xinjiang to install surveillance apps:
- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne94dg/jingwang-app-no-en...
- https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xgame/at-chinese-border-...
Such apps wouldn't work on iOS, due to its tighter security. But apparently if you're China that's not much of a deterrent, because you can just buy a rootkit to get around such limitations.
Re: Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims
#3It's telling that Google wasn't willing to name China publicly and that someone (most likely someone at Project Zero) had to leak it to this reporter off-the-record. Maybe they still have some hope of re-entering China?
Re: Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims
#4This is semi off topic, but why (from a mainstream Chinese perspective) is China targeting Uyghur Muslims? Is there just a general ideology of enforced conformity or is this a special case?
Re: Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims
#5This is semi off topic, but why (from a mainstream Chinese perspective) is China targeting Uyghur Muslims? Is there just a general ideology of enforced conformity or is this a special case?
How about you spare us and just google it?
Re: Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims
#6So we now know that drive-by rooting of even "locked-down" and "secure" user devices like the iPhone is possible and in active use by state actors. What are the odds that other governments, even the US (which has the additional advantage of being able to gag Apple and Google), are doing this? Seems like it would become a more important way to do surveillance as more data and networks become encrypted.
Re: Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims
#7This is semi off topic, but why (from a mainstream Chinese perspective) is China targeting Uyghur Muslims? Is there just a general ideology of enforced conformity or is this a special case?
"Chinese officials are concerned that Uighurs hold extremist and separatist ideas, and they view the camps as a way of eliminating threats to China’s territorial integrity, government, and population." [1]
1- https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-crackdown-uighurs-xi...
Re: Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims
#8This is semi off topic, but why (from a mainstream Chinese perspective) is China targeting Uyghur Muslims? Is there just a general ideology of enforced conformity or is this a special case?
It's not just Uyghur Muslims, it's also Tibetans & the Falun Gong. I'm sure there's other groups as well.
It seems to mostly be about ensuring there's no competing power structures, the strongest of which usually revolve around religion.
Effectively, China really doesn't want another Taiping Rebellion.
Re: Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims
#9It's telling that Google wasn't willing to name China publicly and that someone (most likely someone at Project Zero) had to leak it to this reporter off-the-record. Maybe they still have some hope of re-entering China?
It didn't have to be someone at Project Zero. Anyone with a bunch of network logs could have searched for some of the fingerprints or URLs that were publicly available and deduced the target from associated traffic.
Re: Sources say China used iPhone hacks to target Uyghur Muslims
#10To add a bit of context, China forces Android users in Xinjiang to install surveillance apps: - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne94dg/jingwang-app-no-en... - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7xgame/at-chinese-border-... Such apps wouldn't work on iOS, due to its tighter security. But apparently if you're China that's not much of a deterrent, because you can just buy a rootkit to get around such limitations.
supposedly Fuchsia closes that hole