China ‘forcing tourists to install text-stealing malware’ that hijacks phone when they cross border
CHINA is forcing tourists to install "text-stealing malware" on their smartphones, according to a new report.
The malware is said to download a visitor's text messages, calendar entries, phone logs â and even scans for "extremist files".
5
5
The sinister scheme was first revealed by Vice's Motherboard, which described it as a "massive campaign of surveillance", along with the Guardian.
It's part of a plot to spy on foreigners crossing into China's Xinjiang region, where authorities are cracking down on the local Muslim population.
Visitors are forced to install spy software on their phones that gives Chinese officials access to all of their text messages, the report claims.
The malware is installed by a border guard who physically seizes the phone.
5
5
Officials also scan the device for specific sets of files, including "Islamic extremist content", as well as innocuous materials and academic books.
"[This app] provides yet another source of evidence showing how pervasive mass surveillance is being carried out in Xinjiang," said Maya Wang, China senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
"We already know that Xinjiang residentsâparticularly Turkic Muslimsâare subjected to round-the-clock and multidimensional surveillance in the region.
"What youâve found goes beyond that: it suggests that even foreigners are subjected to such mass, and unlawful surveillance."
According to the Guardian, people using the remote Irkeshtam border crossing into China are "routinely having their phones screened by guards".
The app was reportedly designed by a Chinese company, and puts the 100million yearly visitors to Xinjiang at risk of state surveillance.
The Irkeshtam crossing is China's most westerly border, and is regularly used by tourists and traders.
At the crossing, travellers are made to unlcok and hand over their phones, which are taken away to a separate room.
Apple's high-security iPhones are plugged into a scanner, while Android phones have the snooping app installed.
China has come under increasing international pressure recently over its arbitrary detention of Muslims in concentration camps in the northwest of the country.
It is estimated that one million Uighurs, an ethnic minority in China, are being held in the camps, where they are subjected to torture, overcrowding, and a daily regime of party indoctrination.
5
DETENTION OF THE UYGHURS
Beginning in 2014, the Chinese government began building and opening massive internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China.
The region is populated chiefly by the members of the Uyghur Muslim minority, a Turkic people concentrated in China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey.
In the years since, reports have emerged that up to one million Uyghurs have been detained in the camps.
China acknowledges the existence of the camps, but maintains they are voluntary âvocational skills education and training centresâ.
Former detainees have reported being physically abused, forced to sing Communist Party songs, and made to consume pork and alcohol, both prohibited in the Muslim faith.
Local citizens are also forced to download spyware that restricts what they can access â and reports their usage back to officials.
Police also check mobiles for evidence of foreign social media apps like Twitter or WhatsApp.
One man named Kasim, who claims to be a Xinjiang native, shared what he says are secretly taken pictures inside the secretive region, which the Chinese government restricts access to by outsiders.
He says he used special software to bypass the government's censors and post the images on Twitter.
And he said living in China is âlike Nazi Germanyâ and likened the Chinese Communist Party to ISIS.
He said: "If you [have] got Twitter or Facebook in your phone, you will be sentenced to 15 years in concentration camps."
Kasim told The Sun Online: "China doesnât want you to know whatâs happening outside of China, so theyâve built a firewall.
"Police check your phone looking for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram â any app not made in China.
"If they catch you with any of these apps, or in contact with someone abroad - even someone from China who has now left the country - they accuse you of hating communism, of hating China.
"Almost every police [officer] has handheld equipment they connect to your phone with a USB where they can scan everything on your phone, all your photos, everyone youâve ever spoken to.
"They transfer everything to their own system, iPhones only take about three minutes to scan â other phones can take hours."
MEME MACHINE
Brit Insta star's 'ÂŁ250k' career - from shower selfies to flogging bath water
CORE OF THE PROBLEM?
Apple engineer says pressure to design iPhone is reason Iâm divorced
STRANGER THAN FICTION
Scientists bid to open portal to 'Stranger Things' parallel universe
NO MORE PORN?
What is the UK porn ban, when does it start and can you unlock the new block?
SCAM-SUNG
Samsung owners warned as 10million users 'tricked by fake phone updates'
This week saw rumours emerge that Apple is creating a special iPhone just for China.
But the company is also tipped to ditch China's iPhone factories to dodge "trade war" tariffs.
China's tech dominance is only growing however: last month, Chinese scientists claimed to have invented a "mind-reading computer chip" called Brain Talker.
What do you think of this scheme? Let us know in the comments!
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.
Gloss