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The leaked documents supposedly discuss spyware developed by I-Soon, a Chinese infosec company, that’s targeting social media platforms, telecommunications companies, and other organizations worldwide. Researchers suspect the operations are orchestrated by the Chinese government. Unknown individuals allegedly leaked a trove of Chinese government documents on GitHub. The documents reveal how China conducts offensive cyber operations with spyware developed by I-Soon, Taiwanese threat intelligence researcher Azaka Sekai claims. While several researchers have analyzed the supposedly leaked documents, no official confirmation of their veracity exists as of the writing of this article. We have reached out to I-Soon but did not receive...

In a crushing blow to LGBT+ communities in China, WeChat has, for unspecified reasons, permanently banned nearly all public accounts created and run by LGBT+ groups at Chinese colleges. According to Weibo user Xiǎolán Sānhàojī @小蓝三号机 (in Chinese), who frequently shares information and news about LGBT+ issues, complaints about the removals started to roll in on the evening of Monday, when followers of the affected WeChat accounts discovered that they had been shut down. WeChat is Tencent’s messaging, social, and payment app, which has become essential to communication and daily life in China.

WASHINGTON—The Commerce Department said Monday it was rescinding a list of prohibited transactions with TikTok and WeChat that were issued in September as the Trump administration sought to block new U.S. downloads of both Chinese-owned apps.The withdrawals came after President Joe Biden earlier this month withdrew a series of Trump-era executive orders that sought to ban new downloads of Tencent-owned WeChat and TikTok, and ordered a Commerce Department review of security concerns posed by those apps and others.The Commerce Department under Trump also had sought to ban other transactions that would have effectively banned WeChat’s use in the United States...

President Trump on Tuesday cheered Nigeria’s decision to ban Twitter from the country and called on other countries to follow suit. The Nigerian government last Friday announced it is suspending Twitter operations in the country indefinitely. Twitter suspended Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari last Thursday for “abusive behavior.” Buhari tweeted a warning to ‘insurrectionists’ on Thursday so Twitter stepped in and suspended his account. Trump Cheers Nigeria’s Twitter Ban, Calls On Other Countries to Follow Suit President Trump on Tuesday cheered Nigeria’s decision to ban Twitter from the country and called on other countries to follow suit. The Nigerian government last...

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order revoking former President Trump’s ban on Chinese-owned apps TikTok and WeChat. The Verge reports that President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday that revokes former President Trump’s ban on the Chinese-owned apps TikTok and WeChat. Biden will instead be instructing the commerce secretary to investigate apps with ties to foreign adversaries that may pose a risk to American data privacy or national security.

Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and her husband own a financial stake in WeChat parent company Tencent Holdings, even as the Commerce Department reviews a ban of the Chinese tech giant. Raimondo and her husband Andrew Moffit own a stake worth between $21,500 and $44,500 in Tencent Holdings, according to a financial disclosure filed Jan. 19 with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). The recently-confirmed commerce secretary promised to divest from other financial positions, citing potential conflicts of interest, but did not mention divesting from her stake in Tencent Holdings. President Joe Biden’s administration is conducting a broad review of...

(Paywall) China’s do-everything app, WeChat, has become one of the most powerful tools in Beijing’s arsenal for monitoring the public, censoring speech and punishing people who voice discontent with the government. Authorities are increasingly using the app from Tencent Holdings Ltd. to justify arrests or issue threats, say dissidents, consumers and security researchers. Snip Released in 2011, WeChat and its domestic sister app, Weixin, now have—Tencent says—more than 1.2 billion monthly active users in China, where its pervasiveness extends beyond any app used in the U.S. In addition to messaging, Chinese consumers use it to share photos, pay utility bills,...

He says that they are a security threat. If so, it is time to show the world the evidence. President Trump’s plan to severely restrict the popular WeChat and TikTok apps could be viewed as a tit-for-tat for China’s yearslong prohibition of American services like Facebook and Google. But I’d like to think we’re better than that. The president has cited security concerns in his quest to force the sale of the U.S. operations of TikTok to an American firm, setting off a bidding war that reached its nadir when he called for a fee to be paid to the...

More than 26-hundred fines handed out over a 24 hour period by Israeli police for violations of the country's coronavirus lockdown orders including 629 to people who did not mask-muzzle themselves..... Israel's coronavirus cabinet meeting Monday morning with voting on plans to strictly limit any business activity and issuance of work permits in the country.... Fines of up to $12,498.50 could be imposed on people who refuse an order to self-isolate in the UK because of the coronavirus.... There's concern in the UK that Prime Minister Boris Johnson may impose a nationwide lockdown..... Thousands of protesters in opposition to coronavirus...

The Commerce Department announced Friday morning that it would ban U.S. business transactions with Chinese-owned social apps WeChat and TikTok on Sunday. The announcement comes ahead of an expected statement Friday by President Donald Trump on whether or not the government will approve a deal for Oracle to take a minority stake in TikTok and become a “trusted technology partner” for the company in the U.S. It’s unclear if the Commerce Department’s announcement means there’s no possibility of a deal going through before the Sunday deadline, and it could be an aggressive move from the Trump Administration to push for...

After crippling Huawei and throwing cold water on ByteDance’s global business, the Trump Administration has turned its sights on a third Chinese technology giant, Tencent (TCEHY).Tencent was the only Chinese company to feature in the world’s ten largest providers of both apps and games by download volumes last year, according to the mobile platform tracker App Annie.Banning Tencent’s WeChat, an app that is central to the lives of over a billion Chinese users, would have a major impact not just on China’s second most valuable tech company, but also on a large number of large U.S. corporations.A strict interpretation...

President Donald Trump on Friday gave the Chinese company ByteDance 90 days to divest itself of any assets used to support the popular TikTok app in the United States. Trump’s executive order said there is “credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance … might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.” Trump last week ordered sweeping but vague bans on dealings with the Chinese owners of TikTok and the messaging app WeChat, saying they are a threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy and the economy. …

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that additional steps must be taken to deal with the national emergency with respect to the information and communications technology and services supply chain declared in Executive Order 13873 of May 15, 2019 (Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain).  As I explained in an Executive...

India's government has banned TikTok and dozens more Chinese-made apps it says are a danger to the country. In a statement, it said the apps were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order". In total, 59 different apps were banned - including popular messaging app WeChat. TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is headquartered in Beijing and the app first became popular in the Chinese market before spreading worldwide. As it grew in popularity, it has faced accusations of links to the Chinese state, and of sending user data into China. Many of...

New Delhi: The Centre has blocked 59 apps with Chinese links that included the hugely popular TikTok, WeChat and UC Browser, amid a huge economic backlash against China following the June 15 clashes at Ladakh in which 20 Indian soldiers died in action. Sources said inputs from intelligence agencies suggested that the apps have been violating the terms of usage, compromising users privacy, and being used as spyware or malware. Within minutes of the announcement, the Indian government's TikTok account MyGov, which had 1.1 milliorn followers, was disabled. The move comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India...

International users of Chinese messaging app WeChat could be helping the platform tighten its censorship system for users inside China, according to the latest report by digital watchdog Citizen Lab.The app, with over 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, is known to censor its users in China to ensure content falls within topics deemed acceptable by the Chinese Communist Party.The report, however, found that communications between users outside of China are also monitored to help refine the app’s censorship algorithm for its users in China.The findings revealed that overseas users are subject to “pervasive content surveillance that was previously...

Documents and images shared by users outside China on WeChat, the country’s most popular social media platform, are being monitored and cataloged for use in political censorship in China, a new report says. Citizen Lab, the University of Toronto online watchdog, says in Thursday’s report that WeChat users outside of China are thus unwittingly contributing to censorship. Content they share that censors deem inappropriate is thus barred from being seen by users inside China. Tencent is a major investor in Cary-based Epic Games, which is publisher of the globally popular Fortnite. Documents and images transmitted entirely among non-China-registered accounts undergo...

David, a Chinese American doctor who does not want to use his last name for fear of backlash against his relatives still living in China, noticed his posts on WeChat's Moments — akin to a Facebook news feed — were not going through. Undeterred, he kept sharing politically charged articles. Within days, he couldn't send messages to any group chat: "Although I was able to read the other people's messages, when I posted my message, nobody could see it. It was like I wasn't there," he says. David then dialed back his sharing of news articles, limiting his conversations to...

UYANG, China—One night this September, construction supervisor Chen Shouli fired off a joke in a chat group. “Haha,” he typed on his black iPhone 7, followed by an off-color wisecrack about a rumored love triangle involving a celebrity and one of China’s most senior government officials. Four days later, he says, the police telephoned, ordering him in for questioning. “I thought, I haven’t done anything wrong, have I? I’m law-abiding,” recalls Mr. Chen, a wiry 41-year-old. “So I went in. Once I arrived, they wouldn’t let me leave.” Mr. Chen was locked in a cell for five days, he says....

China is targeting popular smartphone-based instant messaging services in a month-long campaign to crack down on the spreading of rumors and what it calls “hostile forces at home and abroad,” the latest move to restrict online freedom of expression. The official Xinhua News Agency said the campaign started Tuesday and the services targeted included WeChat, a service run by TenCent Holdings Ltd, which incorporates social media functions that resemble microblog features and that has surged in popularity the last two years. Users can use such services to send messages to a select group of friends, or can follow public accounts,...