Chinese police are investigating an unauthorized and highly unusual online dump of documents from a private security contractor linked to the nation’s top policing agency and other parts of its government — a trove that catalogs apparent hacking activity and tools to spy on both Chinese and foreigners.
Among the apparent targets of tools provided by the impacted company, I-Soon: ethnicities and dissidents in parts of China that have seen significant anti-government protests, such as Hong Kong or the heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang in China’s far west.
The dump of scores of documents late last week and subsequent investigation were confirmed by two employees of I-Soon, known as Anxun in Mandarin, which has ties to the powerful Ministry of Public Security. The dump, which analysts consider highly significant even if it does not reveal any especially novel or potent tools, includes hundreds of pages of contracts, marketing presentations, product manuals, and client and employee lists.
I mean fuck china but I don’t think they are spying anymore than the US or any other government
Edit: Lemmy world being lemmy US, I can guarantee that google has more data on me than the CCP
Comments like this are so odd. People (rightfully) get all worked up about surveillance in the West like the US and UK, but then kinda shrug off the same stuff when it’s China.
China is no longer weak and isolationist. It’s been flexing its muscles around the world, with 102 overseas police stations in 53 countries, including Italy, France, Canada, Britain and the Netherlands for example.
Idk if we are misunderstanding each other or am I doing something dumb, but that’s what I am trying to say as well, that China and US both are pieces of shit and both deserved to be called pieces of shit, that’s all my original comment said, ig it maybe due to the context that it comes across that I am supporting china, in which case I am at fault probably, my frustration stems from the fact that some people here shit on china but when the US does something like this they come with some lame excuse (which is not the majority here I will accept)
I’m frankly surprised if you’ve been on lemmy any significant amount of time and haven’t seen people expressing privacy concerns regarding the US or other western governments (most recently the UK with their bullshit), and western private companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.
The reason you come off as some crazed lemmygrad sinophile when people decry China’s spying is because you reply “but whattabout muh westernz” while this site (or rather group thereof that constitutes “lemmy,” and frankly the entire fediverse,) is also constantly complaining about the western governments and companies that pushed us to be on places like lemmy to begin with, but we aren’t talking about them in this article/comment section, we’re talking about China. It’s frankly just an off-topic whataboutism. Go to c/privacy and see just how wrong you are that western based spying isn’t a concern of people on lemmy.
You are right, but also a lot of people here blindly support what the US is doing while shitting on countries like China, middle east and some south Asian countries (specifically about immigrants from there), ig I have been riding waves of emotions lately just seeing peoples blind support for the US, even if not directly done (instead by shooting down any criticism of the US)
You are right about me being off-topic though, I think this entire discussion doesn’t belong here, it is neither about digital privacy nor about China
And any government can just buy your data from Google etc whenever it wants, no warrants needed. No one has privacy anymore.
‘Nooo, but it’s different when the US does it🤡’ Fuck US, Fuck China, Fuck anyone who doesn’t respect peoples privacy, Fuck people who think/claim/defend that US is any better than China in most circumstances
Yes. Americans in general are way too “China bad! Murica good!” to understand such obvious thoughts. Anyone who is concerned with Chinese spying, needs to temper their outrage when confronted with American spying. Specifically the Five Eyes nations and the intelligence sharing and spying that happens.
You can argue that spying is bad or good. Obviously you want your team to know everything and the other team to be in the dark. This only works in very unbalanced ways. When you have actual sovereign superpowers that aren’t the US, you better realize they’re doing what you’re doing.
And then ask yourself who would you rather have all your information? Billy Bob at the NSA who can see and control everything you do in your life in America or Xi Wang in China that doesn’t give a flying crap about anything you do except if you plan to visit China and start protesting…
What’s your social credit score, citizen?
Yeah it’s fucked that some countries have a score that determines where you can live, what jobs you can have, or where your kids can go to college.
Huh? Idk what you are trying to say but I am not from China
Edit: Have y’all forgotten that google and meta are American?
Those famous branches of a nation’s government, Google and Meta.
The nation of Narnia.
If you are trying to imply that Google of all companies is NOT an arm of the US government, I’m sorry to say but you are so wrong.
Google was founded by CIA venture capital money. They’ve had massive contracts with the US government since they began.
I’m sorry…
You think Larry Page, Scott Hassan and Sergey Brin worked for the CIA while also completing their degrees at Stanford and because of that they started one of multiple competing search engines with some diabolical plan to use internet voodoo to kill all the competition? If the CIA has those sort of magical powers, we’re doomed.
Also, having massive government contracts doesn’t mean you’re an arm of the government.
Kraft has massive government contracts. You know, the cheese people?
Also- a big difference between Google and the Chinese Government? No one is forced to use Google and there are plenty of alternatives you can use without getting in any sort of legal jeopardy.
I never said they worked for the CIA. But Larry Page and Sergey Brin do have lots of contacts inside of the government (and had them when they started Google out).
And this isn’t secret information at all… https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e
And I love how you try to imply that having massive government defense and intelligence contracts means absolutely nothing.
When did I imply any such thing? Do you think the only two options are ‘exactly the same level of government surveillance as China’ or ‘absolutely nothing?’
Again- you do not have to use Google. Ever. No one is forcing you to use Google. It is not a requirement. The Chinese Government makes laws and has the power of life and death over its citizens.
Do you really not understand the difference?
As far as the article you provided, the author of it is a conspiracy-monger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nafeez_Ahmed#Controversies
It makes absolutely no sense for the CIA to have made Google because when Google was created, it was assumed either Yahoo or Lycos would gain supremacy. So, again, unless they used some sort of internet voodoo to be able to see the future and know Google would win over those two, it’s a nonsensical conspiracy theory.
Yeah no, the spectrum of surveillance is “US private and government intelligence agencies <- the rest of the five eyes -> nothing”. It’s not a dichotomy, it’s a spectrum.
And that Wikipedia (🤮) article basically has way stronger arguments FOR Ahmed than against him lol not sure what you thought that did. Just because he has a “controversies” section? Did you even read it?
My guess is that Google has more data on you, but as soon as you badmouth the CCP or talk about Tienanmen square, the proportion flips dramatically.