CHINA'S 'BLACK TECH' push for more surveillance
At a recent Beijing security fair, there appeared to be an arms race for surveillance tech, a trend that is raising privacy concerns, report Pei Li and Cate Cadell, of Reuters.
IT can crack your smartphone password in seconds, rip personal data from call and messaging apps, and peruse your contact book.
The Chinesemade XDH-CF-5600 scanner — or ‘‘mobile phone sleuth’’, as sales staff described it when touting its claimed features — was one of hundreds of surveillance gadgets on display at a recent police equipment fair in Beijing.
The China International Exhibition on Police Equipment is something of a onestop shop for China’s police forces looking to arm up with the latest in ‘‘black tech’’ — a term widely used to refer to cuttingedge surveillance gadgets.
The fair underscores the extent to which China’s security forces are using technology to monitor and punish behaviour that runs counter to the ruling Communist Party.
That sort of monitoring — both offline and online — is stoking concerns from human rights groups about the development of a nationwide surveillance system to quell dissent.
The Ministry of Public Security, which hosted the Beijing fair, did not respond to a request for comment.
At the fair, Reuters also saw stalls offering cutelooking robots, equipped with artificial intelligence systems to detect criminals, as well as an array of drones, smart glasses, DNA database software and facialrecognition cameras.
At the fair, which is held annually, most buyers appeared to be local Chinese police, though some global firms attended, selling mainly vehicles and aircraft. Ford Motor Co, Daimler AG’s MercedesBenz and Airbus SE had cars and model helicopters on display.
The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It is not unusual for Western companies to sell vehicles to overseas police forces.
It was not possible to verify all the claims made about the products at the fair, including the XDHCF5600 scanner, which is made by Xiamen Meiya Pico Information Co Ltd, a Chinese provider of security products and services. Scanners like the XDHCF
5600 exist in other markets around the world, including the United States, but their use is contentious, especially regarding the forcible extraction of data from mobile phone devices.
Chinese firms are rushing to meet the growing demand from the country’s security services, fuelling a surveillance tech arms race as companies look to outdo each other’s tracking and monitoring capabilities. Western firms have played little overt roles so far in China’s surveillance boom.
Beijingbased Hisign Technology said its desktop and portable phone scanners could retrieve even deleted data from more than 90 mobile applications on smartphones, including overseas platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
A big selling point of the technology, according to a policeman from the restive far western region of Xinjiang who was eyeing a Hisign scanner, was its claimed ability to get data from Apple Inc’s iOS operating system, used in products such as the iPhone.
‘‘We are actually using these kinds of scanners in Xinjiang already, but I am interested in this one as it claims to be more successful with iOS phones than other brands,’’ said the policeman, who had travelled 3000km to attend the fair.
The iPhone’s iOS system is seen by many analysts as the most secure operating system. A handful of firms in Israel and the US have been able to crack into the iOS system, according to media reports. That ability is often shrouded in secrecy, however.
‘‘The ability to crack iOS has been around,’’ said Matthew Warren, the deputy director of the Deakin University Centre for Cyber Security Research in Melbourne.
‘‘What’s different in this situation is that Chinese authorities are admitting that they have the capabilities to do that.’’
At the Beijing fair, several firms told Reuters they could crack fourdigit passwords on platforms ranging from iOS 6 to iOS 8.1, and were working to break through security of the latest iOS 10 platform.
Apple’s latest operating system uses a stronger sixdigit password.
Apple declined to comment on the vendors’ claims.
Surveillance web
Chinese authorities are targeting a nationwide surveillance network, leveraging off tools made by companies like Hisign to compile data gleaned from smartphones and cameras into an online database of its near 1.4 billion people.
‘‘Our forensic products are sold in 26 provinces across China and have helped police process 11 million cases,’’ Han Xuesong, a sales director at Hisign, said.
Hisign is not alone. Meiya Pico has a rival offering, the DC8811 Magic Cube, which it describes as ‘‘the Swiss Army Knife of forensics’’. The larger FL2000 is a ‘‘forensic aircraft carrier’’.
Pwnzen Infotech, a firm backed by Qihoo 360, a cybersecurity specialist, was another scannermaker at the fair talking up its system’s ability to get data from overseas platforms.
A sales representative described a case last year in which Pwnzen cracked the phone of a suspect who was ‘‘subverting the government’’ to get data from his Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokeswoman for Twitter said the firm was unable to comment on technology it had not seen, but added ‘‘privacy is built into Twitter’s DNA and it’s something we take an active role in promoting and advocating for across the world’’.
Blueeyed robot
Other sellers tout police glasses that scan people and match them with a database of fugitives. There was also the AI2000Xiao An robot, a blueeyed police automaton for use at train stations and airports.
The robot, shaped like R2D2 from Star Wars, but with red flashing ‘‘ears’’ and more than a dozen sensors and cameras, can identify people in a crowd, engage in conversations and broadcast police announcements.
The robots were used for security at an international summit last year in the port city of Xiamen, state media reported.
Zhao Jianqiang, an R&D manager at Meiya Pico, said the firm’s tools used AI to detect ‘‘terrorismrelated or violent content’’ online and on smartphones. Zhao cited images of guns, and the crescent and star symbols often found on the flags of Muslim nations.
The firm also has software to analyse audio files, convert voice messages into text, and translate minority dialects like that of the Turkiclanguage speaking Uighurs in Xinjiang into Mandarin Chinese.
Over the past two years, Chin ese authorities have escalated security and surveillance operations across Xinjiang, widely using technology to track the Uighur population and other Muslim minorities, residents and human rights activists say.
China denies carrying out repression in the region.
The rise of sophisticated monitoring technology in China has raised fears among rights activists that Chinese citizens will have little space left that remains private.
Public debate on the subject is more restrained though, with many resigned to the fact individual rights are subordinated to state interests.
Liu Haifeng, vicegeneral manager at Xindehui, a Meiya Pico subsidiary, said he saw surveillance tech as positive.
‘‘It is impossible for people, especially the younger generations, to live without electronics,’’ he told a roomful of police at the Beijing event. Therefore, suspects trying to escape, ‘‘can never get away’’.