Bermuda Post

Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

The surveillance concerns around China’s Winter Olympics app – explained

The surveillance concerns around China’s Winter Olympics app – explained

A report found the app that will be used to monitor athletes’ health and travel data has a ‘devastating’ encryption flaw
With the Beijing Olympics just weeks away, concerns are mounting over a mandatory health app for competing athletes, after a new report revealed the app contains security flaws and a list of “politically sensitive” words that have been marked for censorship.

The report, published by University of Toronto’s research and strategic policy unit Citizen Lab, found that the My2022 app, which will be used to monitor athletes’ health and travel data, has a “devastating” encryption flaw that leaves users’ files and media vulnerable.

The problem, researchers say, is twofold: first, the app does not always verify that the servers where encrypted data is being sent are the intended servers, which could enable malicious actors to spoof or mimic that server’s identity to access those files. That could allow the attacker to, for instance, “read a victim’s sensitive demographic, passport, travel, and medical information sent in a customs health declaration or to send malicious instructions to a victim after completing a form”, the report said. Second, the app is not encrypting some sensitive data at all. Effectively, that means some sensitive data within the app, “including the names of messages’ senders and receivers and their user account identifiers”, is being transmitted without any security.

“Such data can be read by any passive eavesdropper, such as someone in range of an unsecured wifi access point, someone operating a wifi hotspot, or an internet service provider or other telecommunications company,” the report reads.

The Beijing Olympics are already taking place under a cloud of controversy. The US announced in December that it would stage a diplomatic boycott of the games over human rights concerns, as China continues to deny its years-long campaign against Uyghur minorities. US lawmakers have also proposed new legislation that would strip the International Olympics Committee’s (IOC) tax-exempt status over its refusal to challenge China on its human rights violations.

The encryption flaws in the app have raised further concerns, but how worried should visiting countries and athletes be? Though experts say general concerns about surveillance during the Olympics and the app are warranted, the reality is the app’s security flaws are probably more a reflection of poor design rather than sinister intent to surveil. In other words, athletes and others visiting the country during the Olympics should be as careful as they normally would when visiting China.

“The main thing that Citizen Lab has told us is that there is a substance behind our fears and concerns, but it’s also true that we have a tendency to demonize China,” said Jon Callas, the director of technology projects at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital right group.

Callas and other experts say the Chinese government should certainly fix the security flaw, but that the flaw doesn’t necessarily open the athletes up to a higher risk of being surveilled by the government. And it’s not likely the encryption is faulty by design, said Kenton Thibaut, the resident China fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. It’s unlikely anyone intentionally sabotaged the encryption of the app in order to more easily access user information, she pointed out, because all the information is going to the government anyway.

“If you’re using Chinese apps, even if you’re not in China, they’ll still have access to the information that you submit because the data is ending up in a place where the government has control over and access to,” Thibaut said. “The app itself is made by a government entity, there would be no reason to do that.”

That said, the Olympics are a hugely important event for Beijing, Thibaut said, and it’s fair to expect a certain degree of monitoring, “especially for athletes who have perhaps indicated displeasure about not being able to speak out or displeasure about the IOC’s stance on China”.

Citizen Lab reported that there was a list of 2,422 political keywords described in the app’s codebase as “illegalwords.txt”. Though the function to censor these words did not appear to be active, the report said the keywords varied from references to pornography, mentions of the Tiananmen movement to some words in Uyghur including “the Holy Quran”, “injections”, and “forced demolitions”.

This is not unexpected, Callas said. “China does an awful lot of blocking of chat from absolutely everything and they throw their weight around in ways that are objectionable, with stuff like how much you can even mention that Taiwan exists,” he said. “They’re not going to allow free and unrestricted speech because they’re not that country.”

“When we agreed to let the Olympics happen in Beijing, we agreed implicitly that these are some of the things that were going to happen,” he continued.

However, there are regular precautions that those traveling to China, during the Olympics or otherwise, should take, Callus said. National Olympic Committees around the world have advised their teams to leave their personal devices behind and take burner phones instead.

“It should be assumed that every text, email, online visit, and application access can be monitored or compromised,” the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee said in an advisory.

Callus said this should always be the case when traveling to China because all your personal information – from your contact list to your pictures – can be compromised.

“One reason for making sure you use a burner phone is your address book slash contacts list has sensitive information in it – in the sense that anybody who has your address book has, to some level of accuracy, your social graph and who you’re connected to,” he said. “What we learned from, for example, those Snowden drops nearly 10 years ago now, is that governments are far more interested to know who you are connected to and who you regularly talk to than what it is that you say.”

For athletes looking to communicate with their family or friends outside the country – particularly given families are not permitted to attend the Olympics due to Covid – Callus said they should use a “reasonably secure” encrypted messaging app, including iMessage, Signal or WhatsApp.

“If the Chinese [government] has not shut it down, it’s probably OK,” he said. “That’s probably the best way to talk to people back home.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

Bermuda Post
0:00
0:00
Close
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Steve Jobs' Son Launches Venture Capital Firm With $200 Million For Cancer Treatments
Israel: Unprecedented Civil Disobedience Looms as IDF Reservists Protest Judiciary Reform
Google reshuffles Assistant unit, lays off some staffers, to 'supercharge' products with A.I.
End of Viagra? FDA approved a gel against erectile dysfunction
UK sanctions Russians judges over dual British national Kara-Murza's trial
US restricts visa-free travel for Hungarian passport holders because of security concerns
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Political leader from South Africa, Julius Malema, led violent racist chants at a massive rally on Saturday
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Spanish Citizenship Granted to Iranian chess player who removed hijab
US Senate Republican Mitch McConnell freezes up, leaves press conference
Speaker McCarthy says the United States House of Representatives is getting ready to impeach Joe Biden.
San Francisco car crash
This camera man is a genius
3D ad in front of Burj Khalifa
Next level gaming
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
'I just lost it' Lowe’s worker fired after 13 years of employment for confronting thieves trying to steal $2K of merchandise
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Italian Court's Controversial Ruling on Sexual Harassment Ignites Uproar
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
×