The biggest data leak in human history Does Xi Jinping have Covid?
And if you give the Communist Party a cookie…
That and more on this week’s China news headlines
Welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Surfshark.
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It’s possibly the biggest data leak in history.
Nearly one billion people in China have had their personal data stolen.
That’s 70% of China.
Notice I said data leak, not hack.
That’s because it didn’t require hacking!
The data was held by the Shanghai police.
And you’d think that would mean it was really tough to get to.
Nope.
As has happened in the past in China, the personal data “was left unsecured and publicly
accessible for more than a year”.
Until someone just walked in and took it last month.
How do you leave something that valuable out in the open, completely unguarded?
For such an Orwellian surveillance state,
you’d think they’d at least use passwords.
But they didn’t.
While the data itself was on a secure server, “a dashboard for managing and accessing
the data was set up on a public web address and left open without a password.”
The person who stole the data left a ransom note for the Shanghai police to discover.
When they didn’t pay the ransom, the person put the data up for sale for 10 bitcoins.
That’s about $200,000 right now.
Bet he wishes he sold it a few months ago…
The Shanghai police files had the “names, addresses, mobile numbers, national ID numbers,
ages and birthplaces, as well as billions of records of phone calls made to police to
report on civil disputes and crimes”.
That’s a pretty big range of things.
And the fact this was in China, I wouldn’t be surprised if they also had a list of everyone’s
greatest fears, weaknesses, and where they were most ticklish.
“In one case, a Shanghai resident was summoned by police in 2018 for using a VPN to ​evade
China’s firewall and access Twitter​, allegedly retweeting ‘reactionary remarks
involving the (Communist) Party, politics and leaders.’”
“In another record, a mother called the police in 2010, accusing her father-in-law
of raping her 3-year-old daughter.”
So there is definitely blackmail potential with all this data.
The data has been verified by several news organizations, so yes, really, someone just
went into the Shanghai police database and stole the data on a billion people, and is
now selling it for about $200,000.
Wait, that means each *individual’s* personal data was only worth one fiftieth of a penny.
Oooh that hurts, because every time someone called you worthless, that was mathematically
accurate.
The data was held on an Alibaba Server.
You know, Jack Ma’s company.
Which is bad news for Ma since he’s already disappeared once for criticizing the Chinese
Communist Party.
But the fault clearly lies with the Shanghai police for not even having a password.
I mean come on.
Even people who use the word “password” as their password have better defense than
the Shanghai police.
“Two Western cybersecurity experts who spoke to CNN were both aware of the existence of
the database before it was thrust into the public spotlight last week, suggesting it
could be easily discovered by people who knew where to look.”
And yet only one hacker was entrepreneurial enough to try and make some money off of it.
This kind of thing has happened before.
In 2019, a Dutch cyber security researcher found the data of 2.5 million Uyghurs in a
completely unprotected database.
Which exposed just how much surveillance the Chinese Communist Party does on the Uyghurs.
And how stupid Chinese authorities are.
Then again, I guess I’m glad they have such bad data security.
And coming up after the break, Xi Jinping’s trip to Hong Kong.
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Last week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping traveled to Hong Kong for the July 1st celebration
of Hong Kong’s handover to China.
It was his first trip out of Mainland China in 893 days.
Actually he technically traveled to Hong Kong twice.
Because he went back to mainland China overnight, before going back to Hong Kong the next day.
Which means he’s either paranoid about getting assassinated, or he’s really, really into
social distancing.
He definitely wouldn’t want to get Covid.
Speaking of, one of the Hong Kong lawmakers he met during his trip just tested positive
for Covid.
Wow, imagine if Xi Jinping got Covid.
That’d be like going on a diet, then the first slice of pizza you had in two years
has a cockroach on it.
But also, he’s the one that helped cause cockroaches to spread in pizzerias around
the world, so…
I wouldn’t feel bad about it
Anyway, in his big speech in Hong Kong, Xi Jinping called for patriots to bring order.
Obviously, not these patriots.
They’re in prison now.
But it’s been interesting seeing who did not show up for Xi Jinping’s trip.
Most media were prohibited from covering the visit.
That wasn’t too surprising.
But you know who else didn’t show up?
Tung Chee-hwa, the former Hong Kong chief executive and vice-chairman of the Communist
rubber stamp legislature.
He apparently hasn’t been seen in almost a year.
He also was a close ally of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin . You know, Xi Jinping’s
greatest enemy.
I’m sure he’s fine.
And coming up after the break, Russia and China might not be seeing eye to eye.
Welcome back.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi are meeting
this week on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting in Bali.
And proving that the Chinese Communist Party is the master of diplomacy, China decided
to use the days leading up to it to criticize the US and NATO.
Ugh, China is like that person that always bad mouths you online, but then is nice to
you to your face.
Dude, we follow each other on Instagram, I saw what you wrote about me!
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, “[The] so-called rules-based international
order is actually a family rule made by a handful of countries to serve the U.S. self-interest.”
So I guess Biden’s whole plan to get the Chinese Communist Party to follow the rules-based-international
order isn’t going to work.
Who could have guessed?
Me.
I guessed.
But I’m sure in a few days when Biden rolls back Trump-era China tariffs, that’ll bring
China to the negotiating table.
After all, when you give an authoritarian regime what it wants in exchange for nothing,
they’ll be really grateful and respect you a lot.
And they’ll definitely work with you on climate change.
This isn’t a character from the latest Wes Anderson movie.
This is Xiao Jianhua, a Chinese Canadian businessman and one of China’s richest men.
“A tycoon that has business interests and investment interests spread through many different
areas of the financial circles, and reported links to some of the richest and most powerful
families in China.”
Until he disappeared five years ago, after being abducted from a hotel in Hong Kong.
Now he’s facing trial without consular access.
Which is wrong… unless he was arrested by the fashion police.
Because how is it ok to be that rich and still go outside looking like two-thirds of a stoplight?
Anyway, the Canadian embassy said, “Canada made several requests to attend the trial
proceedings of Canadian citizen, Mr. Xiao Jianhua.
Our attendance was denied by Chinese authorities.”
Apparently, that trial is the hardest ticket to get since Hamilton .
We did a whole episode about Xiao Jianhua back in 2017.
You see, he had his own entourage of female bodyguards.
Those female bodyguards would “even wipe the sweat from his brow”.
So what is Xiao being charged with?
Besides looking like a homeless, millennial Winnie the Pooh?
You know that couldn’t make Xi Jinping happy.
Actually, the real reason he’s in trouble is because, “Xiao Jianhua is the most important
‘money launderer’ of the Jiang [Zemin] faction.”
Remember?
Xi Jinping’s greatest enemy?
So clearly, being a Canadian citizen isn’t going to help the guy.
Especially because of how close Justin Trudeau is to the Chinese Communist Party.
If you want to know more about that, check out our recent China Unscripted podcast about
how Canadian Liberals including Trudeau are benefiting from Chinese money.
Link is below.
Then again, as we saw with Biden, if you give the Chinese Communist Party everything it
wants, I’m sure they’ll take you seriously.
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are pretty close.
After all, Xi Jinping once gave Putin a best friend medal.
Right before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia and China announced there was no limit to
their friendship.
Isn’t that adorable how they’re BFFs?
I bet they have
sleepovers, where they drink cream sodas, read Tiger Beat, and gossip about boys.
But there might be more going on behind the scenes.
A second, yes second, Russian scientist has been charged with treason for leaking state
secrets to China.
Hopefully those secrets weren’t also just left out in the open.
But secrets between friends?
Not a good idea.
Haven’t these two ever read the Babysitters Club?
Speaking of the Babysitters Club,
According to China researcher Ethan Gutmann, evidence points to China ramping up forced
organ harvesting from ethnic Uyghurs.
What, you never read that one in the Babysitters Club series?
Forced organ harvesting is where Chinese authorities are literally killing people for their organs.
But don’t worry, just the bad people.
Like Uyghurs, and Tibetans, and Christians, and Falun Gong.
For this to happen, Chinese authorities force doctors to also be executioners,
because the victims, “would have been alive at the time of heart extraction and the surgeons
would have been executioners”.
How widespread is this?
Well, it’s hard to know exactly.
But at airports in Xinjiang, there are express lanes like this for transporting organs.
According to Ethan Gutmann , “25,000 to 50,000 Uyghurs are being killed for their
organs every year.”
This system was first set up to get organs from Falun Gong practitioners.
But according to Gutmann, the Falun Gong organ supply has been mostly used up, so now Uyghurs
are being “volunteered.”
The incredibly corrupt Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands says he wants a permanent
policing arrangement with China.
He said it was to deal with “internal threats”.
In other words, his own people who want him to step down for selling out their country
to China.
But the world is full of people who want to appease the Chinese Communist Party.
Burma’s military junta is expediting Belt and Road projects.
After all, those projects worked out so well for Sri Lanka.
And the Pope himself says he really hopes the Vatican-China deal will be renewed.
This is the deal where the officially atheist Chinese Communist Party gets to appoint Catholic
Bishops in China.
This was something the Communist Party wanted for ages.
And as we know, when you give an authoritarian regime what it wants in exchange for nothing,
they’ll be really grateful and respect you a lot.
When asked for comment about the deal, 90 year old Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen said,
Nothing because he was arrested under the national security law.
This from the Pope who once said, It is the Communists Who Think Like Christians.
But you know what else the Chinese regime wants?
The moon.
According to NASA, China’s military space program wants to control the moon.
Keep in mind, China’s space program is run by the Chinese Communist Party’s military.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said, “We must be very concerned that China is landing
on the moon and saying: It’s ours now and you stay out.”
Yeah, yeah that sounds about right.
China is calling dibs on the moon.
Or as they now refer to it: “Space Taiwan.”
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
Thanks for watching China Uncensored.