Jeffrey Knockel

Articles

Chinese censorship following the death of Li Keqiang

As part of our ongoing project monitoring changes to Chinese search censorship, we tracked changes to censorship following Li Keqiang’s death across seven Internet platforms: Baidu, Baidu Zhidao, Bilibili, Microsoft Bing, Jingdong, Sogou, and Weibo. We found that some keyword combinations in search queries triggers hard censorship whereas others trigger soft censorship. Our results demonstrate China’s ongoing efforts to push state-sanctioned narratives concerning politically sensitive topics, impacting the integrity of the online information environment.

“Please do not make it public”: Vulnerabilities in Sogou Keyboard encryption expose keypresses to network eavesdropping

In this report, we analyze the Windows, Android, and iOS versions of Tencent’s Sogou Input Method, the most popular Chinese-language input method in China. Our analysis found serious vulnerabilities in the app’s custom encryption system and how it encrypts sensitive data. These vulnerabilities could allow a network eavesdropper to decrypt sensitive communications sent by the app, including revealing all keystrokes being typed by the user. Following our disclosure of these vulnerabilities, Sogou released updated versions of the app that identified all of the issues we disclosed.

解读 WeChat 生态系统中的隐私问题

该报告通过审查 WeChat 应用程序在其各种功能正常运行期间收集并发送到 WeChat 服务器的数据,对流行应用程序 WeChat 的隐私问题进行了分析。我们发现,他们收集的使用数据多于 WeChat 隐私政策中披露的程度。

WeChat 生態系統的隱私權解析

這份報告檢視熱門應用程式 WeChat 在其各種功能的正常運作過程中所蒐集並傳送至 WeChat 伺服器的資料,以此分析該應用程式存在的隱私問題。我們發現,WeChat 蒐集的使用資料比在隱私權政策中公布的還要多。

Not OK on VK: An Analysis of In-Platform Censorship on Russia’s VKontakte

This report examines the accessibility of certain types of content on VK (an abbreviation for “VKontakte”), a Russian social networking service, in Canada, Ukraine, and Russia. Among these countries, we found that Russia had the most limited access to VK social media content, due to the blocking of 94,942 videos, 1,569 community accounts, and 787 personal accounts in the country.

Should We Chat? Privacy in the WeChat Ecosystem

We conducted the first analysis of WeChat’s tracking ecosystem. Using reverse engineering methods to intercept WeChat’s network requests, we identified exactly what types of data the WeChat app is sending to its servers, and when. This report is part one of a two-part series on a privacy and security analysis of the WeChat ecosystem.

Privacy in the WeChat Ecosystem Explained

This FAQ accompanies the full report on privacy in the WeChat ecosystem. We analyzes privacy issues with popular app WeChat by reviewing the data collected by the app and sent to WeChat servers during the regular operation of its various features. We find that they collect more usage data than is disclosed in the WeChat privacy policy.