Contact is taking a holiday!

China has been accused of hacking into Tibetan websites based in India in order to gain information which they can use to track down and jail people inside Tibet.

Hackers seized control of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile’s official Chinese language website on August 13. Tibetan cyber-security officials lost control of their own site for three hours which, according to their advisers, was enough time for the hackers to access the details of up to 300 visitors.

Lobsang Sither, a leading Tibetan cyber-security consultant, has said that he has no doubt that China was behind this latest attack, and also that the web-chat site, WeChat, has been used by Chinese officials to track Tibetans who voiced nationalist opinions, and to jail them. Lobsang Sither leads a public education campaign to train exiled Tibetans to protect their digital profiles. “We are trying to raise public awareness among Tibetans. We are focusing on basic online hygiene to teach Tibetans not to click on attachments or downloads, to use secure email protocols, to only buy genuine software,” he said.

The Telegraph.co.uk has reported that the WeChat application effectively gives the Chinese government free access to the user’s phone and email accounts.

Lobsang Kunchok
photo: China Daily Huang Zhiling

Lobsang Kunchok, a 40 year old monk from the Kirti Monastery in Ngaba, was arrested earlier this year after he used his iPhone WeChat app to post a photograph of an immolation protest. He was given a suspended death sentence.

Dharamsala-based Tibetan websites have been victim to a spate of cyber attacks including the Tibet Times, which was shut down temporarily, the Voice of Tibet radio station and the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. There have been rumours that the Dalai Lama’s site DalaiLama.com was hacked. Experts believe that China is behind all the attacks, and their motive is to obtain information about visitors to the sites. They want to collect data about Tibetans in exile who are communicating with people inside Tibet, and to intercept their communications.