Chinese hackers used Facebook to target Uighur activists with malware
March 25, 2021 4 Comments
CHINESE HACKERS USED FAKE Facebook accounts to target individual activists in the expatriate Uighur community and infect their personal communications devices with malware, according to Facebook. The social media company said on Wednesday that the coordinated operation targeted approximately 500 Uighur activists living in the United States, Canada, Australia, Syria, Turkey and Kazakhstan.
At least 12 million Uighurs, most of them Muslims, live in China’s Xinjiang region, which is among the most impoverished in the country. The Chinese state is currently engaged in a campaign to quell separatist tendencies among some Uighurs, while forcibly integrating the region’s population into mainstream culture through a state-run program of forcible assimilation. It is believed that at least a million Uighurs are currently living in detention camps run by the Communist Party of China, ostensibly for “re-education”. Meanwhile, thousands of Uighur expatriates, most of whom live in Kazakhstan and Turkey, are engaged in a concerted campaign aimed at airing human-rights violations occurring in the Chinese detention camps throughout Xinjiang.
According to Facebook, Chinese hackers set up around 100 accounts of fake personas claiming to be journalists with an interest in reporting on human rights, or pro-Uighur activists. They then befriended actual Uighur activists on Facebook and directed them to fake websites that were designed to resemble popular Uighur news agencies and pro-activist websites. However, these websites were carriers of malware, which infected the personal communications devices of those who visited them. Some Facebook users were also directed to fake smartphone application stores, from where they downloaded Uighur-themed applications that contained malware.
Facebook said it was able to detect and disrupt the fake account network, which has now been neutralized. It also said it was able to block all fake domains associated with the hacker group, and notified users who were targeted by the hackers. It added that its security experts were not able to discern direct connections between the hackers an the Chinese state.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 25 March 2021 | Permalink
A security firm founded by Erik Prince, the former boss of the private military company Blackwater, has announced a deal with the Chinese state to operate a training facility in China’s largely Muslim Xinjiang province. In the months following the United States invasion of Iraq, Blackwater was hired by the Department of State to provide diplomatic security at several locations throughout the Middle Eastern country. By 2010, when the company was abruptly sold to a group of private investors, its tactics in Iraq had prompted international controversy. Prince went on to help found Frontier Services Group (FSG), another private security firm registered in Hong Kong. The company provides security training to personnel working for Chinese companies. Its specialization is training personnel of Chinese firms based abroad, mainly in regions of Africa.
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China assesses emotions of subjects using AI technology that monitors skin pores
May 26, 2021 by Joseph Fitsanakis 2 Comments
Xinjiang, China’s most impoverished region, is home to 12 million Uighurs, most of whom are Muslims. The Chinese state is currently engaged in a campaign to quell separatist views among some Uighurs, while forcibly integrating the general population into mainstream Chinese culture through a state-run program of forcible assimilation. It is believed that at least a million Uighurs are currently living in detention camps run by the Communist Party of China, ostensibly for “re-education”. Xinjiang is often referred to as the world’s most heavily surveilled region.
According to the BBC’s Panorama program, patents filed by Chinese companies point to the development of facial recognition programs that can distinguish subjects by ethnicity, and appear to be “specifically designed to identify Uighur people”. Among them are artificial intelligence systems that are able to detect facial micro-expressions, so as to analyze the emotions of subjects. According to Panorama, some systems even monitor “minute changes” in skin pores on the face of subjects, as a means of detecting micro-expressions. The software then allegedly produces a pie chart that details a subject’s state of mind.
The BBC said it reached out to the Chinese embassy in London, which claimed to have “no knowledge” of these alleged surveillance programs. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Chinese embassy said that “the political, economic and social rights and freedom of religious belief in all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are fully guaranteed”. It added that people in Xinjiang “live in harmony and enjoy a stable and peaceful life with no restriction to personal freedom”.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 25 May 2021 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with artificial intelligence, China, facial recognition, News, surveillance, Uighurs, Xinjiang (China)