Snowden: US hacks Chinese mobile phone companies, steals SMS data

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1266821/us-hacks-chinese-mobile-phone-companies-steals-sms-data-edward-snowden

by teawithcarl • 13 years ago

286 172 13 years ago

scmp.com

skwirl• 13 years ago

"And the former National Security Agency contractor claims he has the evidence to prove it."

Well... where is it?

mortehu• 13 years ago

If your evidence is weak, I think it's better to leak a potentially controversial allegation well in advance of the evidence. Maybe it's conjecture from a bullet point in a PowerPoint slide?

untog7• 13 years ago

Excuse me if I am a little dubious of the South China Morning Post. According to the article, he gave them an exclusive interview 10 days ago that they are finally publishing now. Interesting that Snowden chose to completely ignore his contacts at the Guardian etc. for this.

Are there any other sources to back this up? Or evidence?

thenewkid• 13 years ago

The SCMP is the main English language newspaper in HK. It's been around for years and has reporters on the ground.

So what's a more "reliable" source? CNN? HuffingtonPost? Buzzfeed?

The Guardian is focusing on stories related to the UK, while the SCMP is focusing on stories related to HK and China.

untog7• 13 years ago

If Snowden granted them an interview ten days ago they've done a pretty bad job handling an internationally significant story. The one sole piece of evidence is this quote attributed to Snowden:

“The NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cell phone companies to steal all of your SMS data.”

No actual evidence this time. Just a quote from a guy no one can call to verify.

forgottenpass• 13 years ago

According to the article, he gave them an exclusive interview 10 days ago that they are finally publishing now.

A lot of wild interferences can be drawn from that fact, but isn't it just a common courtesy for a journalist or reporter to afford some control to a source providing information that can't be obtained elsewhere? "Off the record" and embargoed information are two widely accepted practices that exemplify giving publishing discretion to a source.

contingencies4• 13 years ago

As someone who, five years ago, tried to get commercial bulk SMS connectivity out of these same main Chinese mobile carriers (China Mobile and China Unicom), and watched them largely quash spammy SMS broadcasting with automatic SMSC service suspension after a certain threshold outbound rate, this is interesting. The guys I talked to inside of these carriers led me to believe their SMSCs were just a Linux box.

Also, SMSCs appear to be provincial entities rather than national ones, so these compromises are likely only in a subset of cities. (Further evidenced online, eg. http://www.smsclist.com/downloads/default.txt)

Note also that this article is poorly concluded: US President Barack Obama says the NSA is not listening in on phone calls or reading emails unless legal requirements have been satisfied. That's apparently only for US citizens inside the US, IIRC.

XorNot2• 13 years ago

And the NSA's explicit mission is the surveillance of foreign powers to the benefit of the US.

This is where Snowden is sinking his message because literally nothing they do in this arena is illegal in the US, and confirming it or giving out details definitely is undermining US interests by the trust placed in him by the NSA to start with.

mpyne3• 13 years ago

Making that Espionage Act criminal complaint a little more valid as well.

contingencies4• 13 years ago

Well, that's one view. Another view might be that he's not sinking his message since it's illustrative of what goes on that the majority of the world's public are unaware of (ie. constant electronic attacks mounted against other countries, constant surveillance of large numbers of global citizens). In addition, he covers his bases if he needs Chinese support to escape to a third country for the purposes of political asylum.

At the end of the saga, and in the history books, Snowden will not be judged by his own government but by the court of public opinion... and unlike its bloated bureaucratic overseers, that jury has already passed the verdict.

anon13852• 13 years ago

More fundamentally, the "US Persons" protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system. Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. Our founders did not write that "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all US Persons are created equal."

-- Edward Snowden

ImprovedSilence2• 13 years ago

Agreed. His first little bit of knowledge about PRISM and what have you was very noble and a worthwhile cause. This information is just straight up harmful, and getting more into the "traitor" category of leaking information.

Also, people will complain about what the US is doing, but sure, go ahead and tell yourself that any other country isn't doing the same. China, N. Korea, Iran, UK, France, Israel, Australia, Germany, Russia, come on, it's a spy vs. spy world out there, and information is KING.... This leak of information slightly undermines the US bargaining power.

tripzilch5• 13 years ago

This is where Snowden is sinking his message because literally nothing they do in this arena is illegal in the US, and confirming it or giving out details definitely is undermining US interests by the trust placed in him by the NSA to start with.

Why would anyone except American NSA apologists care about your peculiar legal system? It doesn't really change anything about what they're doing (in your name), does it?

Are you really saying that you consider "US interests" (which are basically US corporate interests and not yours, you know this) more important than bringing to light a grave scandal of global proportions, violating privacy and surveilling/monitoring all Internet and mobile phone users and who knows what else?

Because such attitude may prove a bit problematic, with this era of global communications and all. I'm not Chinese, but if I were, I'd probably be slightly more miffed than I already am.

jusben1369• 13 years ago

Now he's just becoming a tool.

trumpcard• 13 years ago

Like all those egyptian,iranian,chinese,russian,syrian ones?

teawithcarl2• 13 years ago

This story was published in HK only 5 minutes before this posting onto HN, by the only other journalist in direct contact with Snowden himself - Lana Lam.

SCMP is a top HK newspaper, and along with the Guardian, the primary publishing source for direct news from Snowden himself.

ryanhuff2• 13 years ago

The only mention of SCMP being a "top newspaper" that I could find is in reference to it being the most profitable newspaper (per reader) in the world.

However, according to Wikipedia, its independence from the Chinese government influence is suspect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Morning_Post#Editor...

teawithcarl2• 13 years ago

Quite the opposite - SCMP is renowned for publishing freedom articles against the CCP party line, which is one of the reason Snowden chose SCMP to publish to.

nmcfarl3• 13 years ago

teawithcarl did just call SCMP "a top HK newspaper" which is a much lower bar, than a global "top newspaper".

And frankly one I agree with from just wandering around HK for a few days (spread out over many years). And one I suspect you’d agree with if you did the same.

Their market share is large, and their reporting is way better than most local, city newspapers in America.

scarmig3• 13 years ago

I don't understand why everyone thinks it's terrible if a government surveils its own citizens but it's totally a-ok if it does foreigners. Because if you think about the reflexivity of it all, that means that it's a-ok if China surveils all American citizens and America all Chinese citizens. The only way that makes sense is if you think one government (America or China, depending on who you are) is privileged to violate the privacy rights of citizens of the other.

I would hope that Hacker News would be more cosmopolitan. So much of our work, especially, involves interacting with foreigners. If our government thinks that their communications with us deserve no protections because they're some suspicious other, and their government thinks that our communications with them deserve no protections because we're some suspicious other... then no one ends up with anything.

ETA: And when you think about it, that principle creates a giant loophole: country X surveils country Y's populace, country Y surveils country X's populace, and they have a mutual agreement to share data about each other's dissidents. Just goes to show that if you undermine a universal right for even one person, that right disappears.

untog7• 13 years ago

The reason people consider it different is that they realise the world is a complex place with complex actors. In an ideal world, no country would spy on another. But they do. How could we stop China from doing so? We can't. So we spy back.

However, what our democratically elected government does to us is very much within our own power to change, and we have the ability to hold them to account.

anon13852• 13 years ago

In an ideal world, no country would spy on another. But they do. How could we stop China from doing so? We can't. So we spy back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_wrongs_make_a_right

PavlovsCat8• 13 years ago

If you can't stop China from spying on you, how is "spying back" any more justified than ANY OTHER reaction? After all, it does not change anything.

What could change something, if one were to actually think freely, would be to have no secrets. Then suddenly what was stealing, is now just someone wasting their own time. BOOM. But of course, you can't have slavery and sitting fat on doing nothing without secrets, so that's not within the framework of allowed options.

temphn• 13 years ago

However, what our democratically elected government does to us is very much within our own power to change, and we have the ability to hold them to account.

We do not elect the Director of National Intelligence and we did not have a public debate about secret laws. The only reason these things are coming to light is due to the extralegal actions of one brave man, one technologist, one individual. Not due to "our democracy".

joelrunyon3• 13 years ago

How could we stop China from doing so? We can't. So we spy back.

We also spy on the same people & aggregate the data so that instead of doing it themselves, they only have to breach one data trove.

olalonde• 13 years ago

Does Canada spy on US citizens? Because the US government does spy on me. In other words, it is not the case that the US government only spies on countries which spy back on the US.

pietro• 13 years ago

The reason people consider it different is that they realise the world is a complex place with complex actors.

People do no such thing. They are just members of the tribe and are highly suspicious of members of other tribes, like all primates.

macspoofing2• 13 years ago

I don't understand why everyone thinks it's terrible if a government surveils its own citizens but it's totally a-ok if it does foreigners.

What did you think the CIA and NSA was for?

Are we now going to have a debate about whether militaries and intelligence services need to exist?

nmcfarl3• 13 years ago

Yes.

Or at least exist at what scale, for what purpose, at "peacetime".

History has taught us over and over huge standing armies will be drawn into conflict (often quite easily) and wars ensue. Perhaps the same is true for huge standing intelligence services - not something we’ve had to deal much with in the past…

pavanred2• 13 years ago

I don't think the issue is a government surveillance on its own citizens or on citizens of other countries. And, its ridiculous if you think about it. The intelligence services are using a brute force technique of spying on everyone (own citizens and citizens of other sovereign nations) to find a handful of wrong doers. It's analogous to saying if there is a murder then the police considers everyone as a suspect instead of finding any leads and pursuing them.

tripzilch5• 13 years ago

>I don't understand why everyone thinks it's terrible if a government surveils its own citizens but it's totally a-ok if it does foreigners.
What did you think the CIA and NSA was for?

There is a point when foreign signal intelligence project turns into an act of war.

Large scale hacking of phone companies and stealing SMS data gets pretty fucking close to that line, if not outright crosses it.

Not that you should care about my opinion of course, I'm just one of those silly foreigners whose right to privacy you think it's just fine to violate. You have a gov agency whose self-proclaimed job it is to monitor the world and violate everyone's privacy. Congratulations, it is doing its job very well. So, everything is fine, right?

carbocation2• 13 years ago

Your point from the edit is the most important point. I actually disagree with your views (that countries should not spy on a potential enemy's citizens), but I agree that the collusion of friendlies can have a catastrophic result for individual liberties. That needs to be clarified to be unlawful, if it is not intrinsically so due to the nature of the constitution of wherever you are living.

If China wants the US to stop spying on its citizens, it can negotiate, throw up technological barriers, or declare war. Vice versa.

pavanred2• 13 years ago

There is a difference between spying on potential enemies and spying on everyone to find potential enemies.

psutor• 13 years ago

What you describe in your edit has been happening between the US and UK for decades. They spy on each other (using the more permissive "foreigner" spying privileges) and then share the data.

scarmig3• 13 years ago

Do you have more information on this?

PavlovsCat8• 13 years ago

All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side.

-- George Orwell ( http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat )

mpyne3• 13 years ago

It's ironic that I've been complaining about this exact same thing. It's a more specific instance of tribalism.

sown• 13 years ago

I don't understand why everyone thinks it's terrible if a government surveils its own citizens but it's totally a-ok if it does foreigners.

I think a lot of people are in the "right is might" way of thinking. Consider this quote from the Peloponnisian War.

"...since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

--The Athenians to the Melosians

alan_cx• 13 years ago

Well, I say no to all mass slurping of data, foreign or domestic, but yes to targeted spying with the full weight of government and technology, foreign or domestic.

The problem is not spying, the problem the industrialised mass spying of literally everybody as though we are all the target.

I'm happy for any of us to be targeted as long as there is good reason to do so.

However the problem with public opinion is that a lot of it is either patriotic or of fear, rational or irrational. This is where we get those double standards, which are understandable, but should be resisted, even plain ignored. I say that we are all human beings first and foremost, citizens of arbitrary borders and religions second, right?

7952• 13 years ago

We need a privacy equivalent of mutually assured destruction. All politicians submit documentation of their most hideous perversions to a central register. If the country is caught spying on another the information is released. It would also encourage people who are not bad to go into politics.

ge0rg• 13 years ago

and the only way to ensure that all hideous perversions are submitted is... total surveillance!

mahyarm3• 13 years ago

It's already kind of happened informally. It acts like natural selection and you get really boring squares or people really good at hiding things.

pmorici• 13 years ago

"it's terrible if a government surveils its own citizens but it's totally a-ok if it does foreigners"

Because a foreign government doesn't have much if any power over a citizen of a foreign country?

mahyarm3• 13 years ago

Supposedly it's about ability to punish. If someone can spy on you but can't do something horrendous to you and get away with it, then it's harm is far less. Loopholes such as you describe would be the same, since it still will be indirect surveillance.

Of course in practice it's not.

mtgx• 13 years ago

Not saying China is innocent, but this is why stuff like this needs to be transparent and the public needs to know about it, and if the government isn't willing to make it public, then whistleblowers like Manning and Snowden need to make the public aware of it, no matter what "laws" they have to break to do it. But then it's the public's responsibility to protect them against the government, for doing them that service.

Because you have no idea what the government is doing in your name, and what kind of conflicts they are creating, and then "all of the sudden" you end up with another war on your hands, and the US government propaganda machine tells you it's their fault and they are the aggressor against US, when in fact it could be the opposite, and the attack may simply be retaliation for USA's own actions.

CatMtKing• 13 years ago

I agree. Even if this sort of thing happens behind the scenes, there are repercussions that will come back to affect people and businesses, even those without direct ties to China.

johnrob• 13 years ago

The great firewall of China is seeming less totalitarian and more pragmatic. The US at least has to hack to get chinese SMS messages; allowing its users visit Facebook/Gmail/etc is like giving data away.

babesh• 13 years ago

Is it legal for a foreign government such as the UK to spy on Americans and then hand that data to the US and vice versa? I bet they are doing that.

codygman• 13 years ago

They are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement

general_failure• 13 years ago

Looks like he is bordering on treason. Be careful snowden.

j546• 13 years ago

Was thinking the same thing.

bayesianhorse2• 13 years ago

I think he is well past that point. He might have done a big service to his constitution, but he certainly broke the laws and all sorts of oaths.

dnautics3• 13 years ago

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

Not that the US follows the constitution, but you know, in theory nothing he's done is remotely close to treason, and even if what he did qualifies, it might be difficult to get two Witnesses.

cletus• 13 years ago

Snowden's choice of Hong Kong as a hiding spot becomes more and more interesting. I suspect the timing of this particular revelation is timed deliberately just after the US files charges against him seeking his arrest by Hong Kong authorities.

A recent article suggested that China was already inclined to "solve" this problem (from a diplomatic and political standpoint) by doing what it does best: simply dragging its feet. This seems incredibly easy to do when the Hong Kong legal system is inclined to move slowly anyway, any extradition will go through a number of appeals and the process for applying for asylum is being revamped putting all such cases on hold (not that Snowden has applied for asylum yet).

It is an somewhere between widely suspected and an open secret that China engages in concerted intelligence efforts against the US government and US corporations. Many cyberattacks originate in China (and there is strong evidence that at least some are state-sponsored). And China is widely believed to have stolen nuclear secrets [1].

But this revelation goes the other way. I really can't predict how China will take this. I suspect they'll be more disinclined to hand Snowden over (or at least do it in any kind of timely fashion). To paraphrase Ned Flanders "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"

Who knew in 2008 that during the Obama administration it may get to the point of people wishing for the good ol' days of George W. Bush? Well maybe not that far but it's really not that far off. The war for intellectual property, Federal prosecutorial overreach (eg the Y12 "terrorists", Aaron Swartz), the relentless pursuit of whistleblowers and the end-run around the Fourth Amendment are simply stunning, particularly from an allegedly Democratic administration.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/06/world/breach-los-alamos-sp...

downandout4• 13 years ago

Who knew in 2008 that during the Obama administration it may get to the point of people wishing for the good ol' days of George W. Bush?

I only wish that Snowden would have been in a position to leak this stuff about a week before Obama was reelected. At least then voters would have been able to make an informed decision. Romney may have been equally as evil as Obama in terms of surveillance ambitions and disregard for the constitution, but the difference is that part of Obama's election pitch was that he was going to get rid of these types of programs, while Romney never said anything of the sort. I don't like the fact that a man who clearly lied about his fundamental political views just to get elected is sitting in the Oval Office right now. Bush, and all Presidents before him, may have lied about many things, but at least you knew where most of them stood politically.

untog7• 13 years ago

I don't like people that would lie about their fundamental political views just to get elected sitting in he Oval Office.

A more charitable reading is that Obama didn't lie, he was just an idealist and changed position when he was confronted with the realities of being President.

That's not to defend it, but I don't think Obama knowingly and cynically lied his way into office.

mistercow• 13 years ago

I only wish that Snowden would have been in a position to leak this stuff about a week before Obama was reelected.

Politics is the mind killer. Partisanship is already interfering with many progressives' ability to evaluate this situation rationally; had it been released in the middle of a heated election battle, that problem would arguably have been much, much worse.

Alex3917• 13 years ago

"I only wish that Snowden would have been in a position to leak this stuff about a week before Obama was reelected. At least then voters would have been able to make an informed decision."

For everyone for whom his war crimes, failure to fix healthcare, war on drugs, anti-transparency policies, support of the patriot act, legalizing the indefinite detention of Americans without trial, lack of action on climate change, failure to fix our infrastructure, failure to prosecute/reform wall street, illegal drone strikes, destroying freedom of the press, torturing whistleblowers, selling public schools to private corporations, war on religion, etc. weren't already enough.

zzzeek• 13 years ago

I don't like the fact that a man who clearly lied about his fundamental political views just to get elected is sitting in the Oval Office right now.

Right, Mitt Romney didn't lie about anything. Except of course every time he opened his mouth (many links, here's one with a pretty long list: http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/12/14397013-chroni...)

Mitt Romney was an inveterate, habitual liar, on virtually every topic.

dnautics3• 13 years ago

Bush in 2000 ran on a platform of non-interventionist international policy.

diminoten2• 13 years ago

It alarms me to think that people don't realize how little Obama had to do with this, and how much it has to do with Dick Cheney.

Obama is at fault for continuing it, but Cheney would have had way more hooks into a Romney presidency to continue to push it further and further beyond what it is currently.

Also, I don't think anything short of pictures of Obama eating children would have changed the outcome of that race.

diminoten2• 13 years ago

But this revelation goes the other way.

That's not what this is saying. China hacks US and other foreign corporations for specific and exclusive economic gains. They steal intellectual property and pass that IP onto Chinese competing companies.

The US hacking into China is state run spycraft. Maybe it's not good, but it's not "the other way", because that implies the US government is taking intellectual property from Chinese companies and passing it on to US companies. There is NO evidence that such a thing is happening at a scale anywhere approaching Chinese activities.

SmokyBorbon• 13 years ago

Who knew in 2008 that during the Obama administration it may get to the point of people wishing for the good ol' days of George W. Bush?

Republicans.

Havoc• 13 years ago

But this revelation goes the other way. I really can't predict how China will take this.

Super pissed and not at all inclined to play ball with the US. They probably knew/suspected anyway, but this just plays into their hand so they won't let such minor details interfere.

I sure hope China refuses to hand him over. The US intelligence has overplay its hand & they could do with a trashing or two.

rapind2• 13 years ago

"Who knew in 2008 that during the Obama administration it may get to the point of people wishing for the good ol' days of George W. Bush?"

C'mon man, why does everything have to be partisan? Can't you just admit that both of your major parties are douches and do something about it, instead of arguing about who's worse? It ends up hijacking the entire thread.

The whole republican v.s. democrat thing is just a tired facade... Kind of obvious by now isn't it?

steve19• 13 years ago

I don't think he was saying that Bush or Republicans are better, rather the opposite.

Back when GWB was in power he was widely deride as a tyrant (especially online) and the worst thing to happen to American foreign relations ever. Yet it would not be hard to make an argument that Obama has been worse with regards to civil liberties and foreign relations. Different guy, different party, same (or worse) policies.

Also remember Obama was (re)elected only some months ago.

lallysingh• 13 years ago

IMHO the problem lies in the winner-take-all voting system. A vote for a third party just counts "against" the primary one you would've voted for if the 3rd wasn't there.

intelliot• 13 years ago

Great point. The real choice is between liberty and statism. And the difference between republicans and democrats on this point is truly minuscule.

brown9-2• 13 years ago

Wait, do you really think that the USG only started hacking Chinese communications, or collecting intel on foreign governments and countries, on or after Jan 20, 2009?

bayesianhorse2• 13 years ago

Accusing China of human rights violations and large scale cyber warfare is going to get more difficult in the future...

mpyne3• 13 years ago

Why? Those accusations would be dependent on whether they were doing them or not. China has been "accusing" the U.S. of cyber warfare activities as well, and anyone who knew what the NSA was before 2013 knew that China was probably being truthful about that in general.

thezach• 13 years ago

The USA use electrnoic surveilance on China... China uses electronic surveilance on the USA... its the nature of things.

Seriously, countries spy on countries and China sure is not innocent in hacking foreign countries.

Aloisius• 13 years ago

Oof. We're moving quickly out of whistleblower territory and into actual espionage.

microb• 13 years ago

Because of all this bad press, the US will rally around a fake-libertarian or Republican in 2016. Rinse, wash and repeat.

mark_l_watson• 13 years ago

I agree. It is always (somewhat) interesting to see who the elites place in the oval office every four years via near absolute control of the news media and a corporate owned congress, full of people who can switch talking points on demand.

marcamillion• 13 years ago

ARGHHH....WHY WOULD HE DO THIS?

All he is doing is muddying the waters.

How can I claim to defend what he has done, if he is giving sensitive intelligence data to the CHINESE!!!!

He shouldn't muddy the waters. Just keep it focused on how the USGov't is taking away US civil liberties and privacy.

I mean...I understand why he is doing this - self preservation - but now he is looking more like a "spy" than a "whistleblower".

HarryHirsch• 13 years ago

This is all a bit reminiscent of Frederick Forsyth's "Fourth Protocol". A few words about the plot: the book is set in the early years of Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister, in the time of the Reagan Rearmament. Elements in the Politburo devise a secret plan to explode an atomic bomb near RAF Bentwaters, blame this on a malfunction of American nuclear ordnance and cause a leftist government to be elected and Britain to fall into the USSR's sphere of influence. This plan was to be kept secret even from the KGB.

Both MI5 and KGB get wind of this, and they work in concert to stop it while they remain enemies, because either side feels that if it succeeded they would open Pandora's box and have no institutional knowledge to deal with this new world.

It is my sincere hope that the world's intelligence agencies have the institutional knowledge to deal with the widespread knowledge on spying on its own citizens.

powertower• 13 years ago

What a disgusting circle-jerk of comments.

So far we have -

1. Only China should be able to hack and spy on other nations.

2. The USA should just leave everyone alone!

3. Ohh, and this guy is not committing treason and espionage by releasing things like this, he's a freedom fighter. No more secrets!

Anyone else stopped reading HN these last couple of weeks?

I stopped right around when people were beginning to suggest that random government employees should be shot in protest, and as I looked as some of the posters names, I recognized a bunch of them.

Snowden: US hacks Chinese mobile phone companies, steals SMS data

Related Stories