On 12/26/2012 12:34 PM, Eric S Johnson wrote:

Nathan, you've doubtless seen this article. What do your Tibetan friends say about this?

It is a great article, and such a short, fascinating study into the mindset of an activist under clear, demonstrable state surveillance. I think the point about the greater efficiency these tools (aka moving to IP based comms vs. GSM/Telco) have given the state security/PSB is the most important one. "We don't care if they're monitoring our WeChat use--we're out

of their reach?"

This is the mindset of Tibetans in exile, until they understand that every message they send, whether to their friend in India or Europe, or to their friend in Lhasa, is all going through China. Also, once it is made clear how chatting with someone in Tibetan exile community about anything political could be enough to incriminate a Tibetan in China on trumped up charges, they also think twice. Still, the growth in use continues... ... or "what's good enough for Hu Jia is good enough for

us" ...

Actually, the inverse here - Hu Jia's post and others within the Tibetan community on this topic (VOA Tibetan had good coverage about mobile security), has actually increased awareness about the problem. At least now, everyone knows the risk, and can perhaps act accordingly. In a recent training to some monks, I said "before you open the app, do a meditation and visualize yourself walking in the central square in Lhasa being observed by surveillance cameras and having your every move and word spoke observed by the PSB." I figured only then would they safely use WeChat, if that is even possible. or "WeChat's convenience advantages outweigh its known security"

(i.e. security isn't a sine qua non for them) .

From the users perspective, they feel the risk is no different than if

This is the reason that is mostly given. "It's free", or "It's easy". Texting and calling between India and Tibet is much harder and more expensive that it seems, and that is just one-to-one. The group voice and picture message features of WeChat are really a game changer when it comes to (perceived) free flow of information. Almost all videos of protests (including the recent self-immolations) have come via WeChat. they were using a telephone, so it doesn't feel *worse*. However, they don't understand the subtle difference and again, the increased efficiency, that IP-based surveillance gives to the Chinese authorities vs. GSM/TElco based surveillance. Since WeChat has no encryption at all, they don't even need to request anything of TenCent/QQ - no backdoors are required. As long as they know IP addresses and/or usernames, it is simple to monitor, capture and analyze packets. Best, Nathan -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE