China’s New Cybersecurity Program: NO Place to Hide
If you were still in doubt about the level of detail in which the criminal Chinese government is trying to implement George Orwell’s ‘1984’ then perhaps this article might be of some help. Here’s from “China’s New Cybersecurity Program: NO Place to Hide” (September 30th 2019):
The Chinese government has been working for several years on a comprehensive Internet security/surveillance program. This program is based on the Cybersecurity Law adopted on 2016. The plan is vast and includes a number of subsidiary laws and regulations. On December 1, 2018, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security announced it will finally roll-out the full plan.
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This system will apply to foreign owned companies in China on the same basis as to all Chinese persons, entities or individuals. No information contained on any server located within China will be exempted from this full coverage program. No communication from or to China will be exempted. There will be no secrets. No VPNs. No private or encrypted messages. No anonymous online accounts. No trade secrets. No confidential data. Any and all data will be available and open to the Chinese government. Since the Chinese government is the shareholder in all SOEs and is now exercising de facto control over China’s major private companies as well, all of this information will then be available to those SOEs and Chinese companies. See e.g. China to place government officials inside 100 private companies, including Alibaba. All this information will be available to the Chinese military and military research institutes. The Chinese are being very clear that this is their plan.
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This means intra-company VPN systems will no longer be authorized in China by anyone, including foreign companies. This in turn means all company email and data transfer will be required to use Chinese operated communication systems that are fully open to the China’s Cybersecurity Bureau. All data servers that make any use of Chinese based communications networks will also be required to be open to the Cybersecurity Bureau’s surveillance and monitoring system.
It is important to fully understand what this means. Under the Cybersecurity Law, the Chinese government has the right to obtain from any person or entity in China any information the Chinese government deems has any impact on Chinese security. The Chinese government understands that foreign companies and individuals will be reluctant to simply turn over their information to the Chinese government when asked. For that reason, the Chinese Cybersecurity Bureau does not plan to politely make a formal request for the information. The fundamental premise of the new cybersecurity systems is that the government will use its control of communications to simply take the information without discussing the matter with the user. All data will be open to the Chinese government.
This is why a company such as Huawei, or any other Chinese company for that matter, cannot be trusted; as discussed before:
This requirement is consistent across several laws on the protection of China’s state security. For instance, Article 7 of the National Intelligence Law (国家情报法) 17 declares:
Any organisation and citizen shall, in accordance with the law, support, provide assistance, and cooperate in national intelligence work, and guard the secrecy of any national intelligence work that they are aware of [emphasis added]. The state shall protect individuals and organisations that support, cooperate with, and collaborate in national intelligence work. Similarly, Article 22 of the 2014 Counter-Espionage Law (反间谍法) states that during the course of a counter-espionage investigation, “relevant organizations and individuals” must “truthfully provide” information and “must not refuse.” The implementing regulations, released in November 2017, clarified the law’s provisions:
“When state security organs carry out the tasks of counter-espionage work in accordance with the law, and citizens and organizations that are obliged to provide facilities or other assistance according to the law refuse to do so, this constitutes an intention to obstruct the state security organs from carrying out the tasks of counter-espionage work according to law.”
And here’s more showing that the criminal Chinese government means business:
China’s new MLPS (Multi-level Protection of Information Security) 2.0 cybersecurity laws goes into full effect on December 1st, 2019 and will see all internet service providers (ISPs) and mobile data providers requiring facial scans to sign up for new service. This means every new mobile phone number assigned in China will be associated with a facial scan. On top of this, the new rules by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security mandate that all data on Chinese networks and systems be available for the Chinese government to sift through at will – and by default through the use of big data techniques. The government emphasized that the new law is meant to help the populace, not suppress it further. Guo Qiquan, one of the politicians responsible for the plan explained the width and breadth of the new cybersecurity surveillance system to SCMP:
“It will cover every district, every ministry, every business and other institution, basically covering the whole society. It will also cover all targets that need [cybersecurity] protection, including all networks, information systems, cloud platforms, the internet of things, control systems, big data and mobile internet.”
In essence, every entity in China will be pulled behind the Great Firewall of China once these rules are fully in place. Entity could mean a Chinese citizen – who may have already gotten used to such restrictions. However, the government has made it clear that foreign owned businesses are specifically being targeted, as well.
So far it seems like the big corporations in the West have chosen to go along with the criminal Chinese government choosing huge financial gain above basic morality.
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