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‘The Internet provides the technology to create the greatest global democracy we’ve seen, but equally it can be used to create the greatest totalitarian state’ predicted British political commentator and freedom in information campaigner, Heather Brooke.
Heather-Brooke:
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This second possibility already seems to be a reality in China where government controls over the web suffocate freedom of speech and information with ‘The Great Firewall’, large-scale deletions, website closures, real-name registration, and keyword blocks. A report published this month by the Pentagon has drawn attention to yet another addition to this list of oppressive cyber-tactics which extends beyond China’s borders: ‘cyber-espionage.’
American officials have long maintained that China is a top perpetrator of cyber-espionage (Verizon’s 2013 Data Breach Investigations Report identified China as the source of over 30% of cyber attacks globally), and this report goes a step further, blaming some cyber-instructions directly on the government and its military.
The report focusses primarily on Chinese theft of business secrets and industrial technology, leaving out some of the victims who suffer most at the hands of cyber-espionage: activist groups and NGOs (non-government organisations). Tibetan activists have been persistently attacked over the past few years yet they do not hold the financial capabilities of the corporate or government targets to investigate and prevent such attacks. The US claims that potentially billions of dollars’ worth of industrial secrets have been lost to Chinese spying, but in cases where the data of human rights groups is targeted, it is human lives that are at stake.
Fifty years ago the struggle for Tibetan independence was being fought out on in monasteries and the streets of Lhasa. Today the most important battleground between Tibetan activists and the Chinese authorities is cyberspace.
Photo: facebook
Within China, blogs and websites critical of Chinese policy in Tibet are immediately taken down and keyword blocks exist preventing anyone from searching for the likes of ‘freedom’ and ‘Dalai Lama.’ A recent study by researchers at Carnegie Melon University revealed that up to 53% of locally generated posts were deleted in Tibet, against just 12% in Beijing.
The Tibetan activist movement based abroad in exile communities is also vulnerable to cyber-espionage. The most high-profile cyber-intrusion against the Tibetan exile community in recent years has been the ‘GhostNet’ operation uncovered in March 2008 by the Information Warfare Monitor. Computer systems belonging to the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centres in India, London and New York were infiltrated as well as those belonging to embassies, foreign ministries and other government offices.
Although the investigation did not conclude that the Chinese Government was responsible for the intrusions, researchers from Cambridge University found actions taken by Chinese Government officials that corresponded with information obtained via computer intrusions, which points to their involvement. These incidents included a diplomat who was pressured by Beijing after receiving an email invitation to a visit the Dalai Lama, and a Tibetan woman who was interrogated by Chinese intelligence officers and shown transcripts of her online conversations.
This month, researchers at the global security software company ESET have discovered a cyberespionage malware targeting Tibetan activists which could have been active unnoticed for several years. The threat, which has been named Win32/Syndicasec.A, bears characteristics very similar to previous campaigns of espionage against Tibetan activists but uses unusual techniques to evade detection and achieve persistency on infected systems. The infection scale of Win32/Syndicasec is small and strictly limited to Nepal and China.
“The lack of built-in commands [in the master script] prevents us from discovering the real end-goal of this operation,” said Alexis Dorais-Joncas, Security Intelligence Team Lead at ESET. “However, we can affirm that the various characteristics observed around this threat are similar to other espionage campaigns against Tibetan activists that we have observed.”
Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) was targeted through a malicious email which they for warded to Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto project involved in a study of cyber threats against human rights organisations. They identified the methods and infrastructure of the attack as being closely related to recent attacks targeting industrial and corporate organisations. These operations were traced to China, suggesting that the group may be the 2nd Bureau of the People’s Liberation Army.
While there is ample monetary incentive for criminal hackers to attack industrial and commercial organisations, with non-corporate organisations this is not the case. The Chinese government, however, has every incentive to target Tibetan activists with whom they are engaged in a perpetual struggle. While there may be no conclusive evidence tracing this cyber-espionage to the People’s Liberation Army, as Alien Vault Labs director, Jaime Blasco asked: ‘Who is the only one interested in targeting big profile entities in the US and Tibet/Uyghur activists around the world?’
The circumstantial evidence available seems to point to the Chinese Government itself as the source of cyber-tactics used against multi-national industrial and corporate organisations and human rights groups alike. These tactics would appear to be fast becoming their most powerful instruments in the implementation of a totalitarian state.
Woeser
Photo: Wikipedia
Tibetan activists use the Internet to create international awareness of the Tibetan cause through social media, websites and blogs. Award-winning Tibetan blogger and poet Woeser is an inspiring example of this with an enormous following inside, and beyond, China. Her blog has been hacked and closed by the government on multiple occasions and she has been placed under house arrest for posting ‘sensitive material.’ However, she has stated that she will continue writing and speaking.
Photo Ai Wei Wei took of himself in hospital after being beaten by the Chinese police
So even in China, the internet is a powerful democratic platform for dissenting voices. In an article – ‘Chinese censorship will never defeat the internet’- Chinese artist and political and cultural critic, Ai Wei Wei writes: ‘Censorship is saying: “I’m the one who says the last sentence. Whatever you say, the conclusion is mine.” But the internet is like a tree that is growing. The people will always have the last word.’
Key websites blocked in China
Next Generation Online
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