Vulnerabilities and censorship tools among hot new features in Beijing's Olympics app Toronto-based Citizen Lab has warned that an app required by Beijing law to attend the 2022 Olympics contains vulnerabilities that can leak calls and data to malicious users, as well as the potential to subject the user to scanning for censored keywords. "To support the successful delivery of the Games and the safety of all …
I've said it before, I'll say it again: "I use a FeaturePhone that can not run apps, so how would you like to handle the situation?"
I agree with the AC that advised to just not go in the first place.
But if you must, get a burner FeaturePhone to drop a spanner in their attempts to instal scumware on your device. Then, once ready to leave the country, eject the SIM, toss the phone, & microwave the SIM until it turns to slag.
"Nuke it from orbit, just to be sure."
yes, it's quite a poser. These days, to visit China, visitors HAVE TO let their authorities 'inspect' their phones' content (in fact, download it), otherwise, they're not let into the country. I do wonder though, whether you'd be refused entry if you turned up with no phone, or one that's pre-hackable...
I wonder what other nation does this ? Is it not a problem when the USA demand all manner of privacy invasions if you want to visit ( I don't object to it - their country, their rules.) So why is it such a problem when China does it. Usual Sinophobic nonsense from the West, all bending over for the US.
Remarkably, the 2012 London Olympics went off without a hitch. I was quite surprised - even though I was involved in the IT side of delivering the Olympics and had confidence in my own organisation, it seemed too vast an endeavour on a relatively short timescale to not fall apart somewhere.
Perhaps it should be a case study on how to successfully deliver a big IT project. God knows, the successful examples are few and far between...
As someone has already mentioned, burner phones is a good idea.
According to an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung a few days ago, the Dutch team is issuing burners for their entire team. The German team is advised that if they don't want to use burner phones, to do an immediate factory reset the moment they out of China again. With some demanding that they should follow the Dutch team's example.
Apart from the shear ridiculousness of 14 days of pre-visit tracking this feels like a pretext to ban various foreign athletes who represent a threat to Chinese medal hopefuls for not 100% complying with the probably quite vague requirements. Aka cheating. (If that turns out to be the case the Australian government's tennis interference will have a lot to answer for too)
Leave the curling alone that's all I ask!
I am so over the Olympics.
From the corruption, to the cost to the cities, to the disruption of the cities, to the interminable coverage.
Plus, from less than 10 events in Ancient Greece, which we would all recognize, we now have over 109 events in Beijing and the summer Olympics in Tokyo adds 339 events for a total of 448 events. Most would not be recognized in Ancient Greece and few are followed by the general public.
Wake me when it's over.
I don't think that's quite correct. The app is very transparently designed to log everything you do and send it to the Chinese authorities. It also contains vulnerabilities that could allow other people to get access to the data as well. Being malicious is not the same thing as being competent.
… it was found within a file bundled on the Android version called “illegalwords.txt.”
Are there also analogous files for other languages, say, motsillégals.txt, illegaleWörter.txt, ulovligeord.txt, &c.? Or does illegalwords.txt include words from all languages that are of concern to the Chinese authorities?
China is bad for a lot of things and certainly not condoning their actions, so ignoring the holes in the app, the probable monitoring and tracking etc....
Someone has posted the list at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/citizenlab/chat-censorship/master/olympics/illegalwords.txt
Digging thru it, the far majority is for things that are illegal and are pretty much terms for "guns for sale, drugs for sale, prostitutes for sale" though some really odd ones like "national tourism board".
Have only had a 5 minute dig as currently in the midst of my work day.
out of interest, why is this list in Chinese? I presume intention was to block all those foreign sportsmen, women and undecideds to share their ourage at how they came to compete for the glory, laurels, precious metal, fame, more fame and, most of all, sponsorship contracts, in such a reprehensible, democracy-free country - but they'd vent their ourage and disgust it in their own tongues, presumably? And google translate is 'not always' very... accurate.
Having put a reasonable sized chunk of the list through google translate, and the fact that most of the list is in Chinese and some in Uyghur I suspect that a lazy programmer (!) when they were building this App copy and pasted some boiler plate code and files from another App meant for the locals.
The majority of the terms I could see are the sort of thing a Chinese citizen might search for, rather than a western journalist or Skier at the games as they could simply google the phrase when they got home.
They have a real downer on the "The Epoch Times" as that appears many times in the list and is freely available outside of China.
"But first, let me take a ...." oh no, that word's illegal!
Hope no academics are travelling either since "Graduation certificate" looks to be a no-no too.
In fact education is so frowned upon, "Graduation certificate" is there 3 times hmm.
List must also be sponsored by that company who likes to promote baby formula since the natural act of breastfeeding would land you in hot water it seems.
This turns my stomach, it’s outrageous that such a disgusting, cruel regime is hosting the games. Although it certainly shows what the IOC really is: a money-driven, power-hungry, morally vacant and unaccountable organisation. It’s contemptuous of ‘olympic ideals’ and uninterested in doing any good whatsoever, unless that good also happens to line delegates’ pockets with gold or first class flights.
It’s bad enough that China is hosting this thing, but the forced install of an app almost beggars belief! By allowing it, the IOC is providing implicit support for many of the egregious things the Chinese govt is involved in: mass surveillance, censorship, oppression, control of individuals through social-credit systems.
Just by holding the games there, they are turning a blind eye to the executions, human rights abuses, concentration camps and whatever else the Chinese are up to. That's bad enough, yet this app compounds the harmful message by helping the regime do their bad shit. It is obviously there to bolster the state control of Chinese AND foreign nationals, by surveilling, geo-tracking, listening etc. Of coure, the IOC knows this but stays quiet.
It’s pure moral cowardice from the IOC, and by turning a blind eye they help this sort of thing become the norm. So many countries are now invading our privacy by inspecting phones at border controls, if organisations and people don’t stand up, we are heading straight for dystopia.
I can't understand why there has not been more fuss made about this - it's a disgraceful intrusion of privacy for athletes and visitors. It's clear confirmation that the IOC has completely abandoned what it stood for, it’s lost all integrity. The people who run it should be ashamed.
For non athletes and media, the best option is not to go. Empty stadiums are a horrible optic on TV. For those who have to go, get a burner phone and ditch it after leaving as many have suggested. If you are an athlete, how about a convenient sprained ankle or similar injury conveniently just before leaving. If enough athletes are 'injured' the games will be disaster.
Another for those who were not going anyway, don't watch the broadcasts at all. Tank the TV ratings and anger the advertisers. I won't be watching but I haven't really paid much attention to the Olympics for about 20 years.
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