The biggest data breach in Chinese history?

The China Letter: July 5, 2022

For the latest dispatch about China, we’re updating you on an apparently massive data breach, how the 25th anniversary of the Hong Kong handover was commemorated, the latest wave of coronavirus lockdowns, a newsworthy journalist response to Joe Biden, and how fake Twitter trolls are having a real economic effect.

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Hacking a hacker chat

Fox News @FoxNews

HISTORIC HACK: More than a billion records reportedly stolen in massive China breach

fxn.wsHacker claims biggest Chinese data breach with 1 billion resident records stolen: ReportThe hacker posted a sample of the data on a forum and asked for 10 Bitcoin – roughly $200,000 – for the full trove of names, addresses and other personal information.

“ChinaDan” claimed on the hacker site Breach Forums that he acquired 23 terabytes of data containing Shanghai police information about one billion Chinese citizens, which he was willing to part with for 10 Bitcoin—worth about $20,000 U.S. Whether or not the number is exaggerated, Chinese social media monitors are actively censoring references to the hack.

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No sound in this crowd

Fight For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong. 重光團隊 @Stand_with_HK

🇨🇳 CCTV’s Livestream unwittingly showed us what we were not supposed to see. Xi Jinping’s highly anticipated speech in #HongKong was delivered to a massive crowd of… FOUR people. This is how the Leader of a “Great Nation” is addressing ‘HongKongers’, inside of a train station:

July marks the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong being handed back to Chinese rule, and Xi Jinping made his first trip outside the mainland since the pandemic began to mark the occasion. The president defended his vision of the future at the swearing-in of Hong Kong’s new leader, John Lee—an event at which it turned out COVID-19 was in the air.

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Continued case counting

Reuters @Reuters

Eastern China cities tighten COVID curbs as new clusters emerge reut.rs/3bLSW8W

Coronavirus cases detected where it all began in Wuhan sparked new concern as China’s determination to stick with the zero-COVID policy led to tighter curbs in eastern cities. Lockdowns across Beijing and Shanghai resulted in no cases for the first time in four months—but 18 cases among 13 million people has shut down the city of Xi’an for a week.

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Dunking on capitalism

New York Post @nypost

Biden trolled by Chinese state media after urging gas companies to drop prices trib.al/2JccmS0

“Now US President finally realized that capitalism is all about exploitation. He didn’t believe this before,” was the tweet from Chen Weihua of China Daily, in response to Joe Biden urging gas companies to drop their prices in advance of the 4th of July. The president is also nearing the process of lifting tariffs on China to help fight inflation.

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The bots caught trolling

The Globe and Mail @globeandmail

A cybersecurity firm is alleging that Chinese government-funded bots are attacking Canadian rare earths company @Appiareu in an attempt to cement China’s dominance in the sector. @NiallCMcGee reports:

tgam.caChinese bots spread disinformation about Canadian rare earths company in targeted attack, report allegesAppia Rare Earths & Uranium targeted by Chinese social media attacks says Virginia-based Mandiant

Beijing agents are spreading disinformation about a Canadian rare earths company Appia according to researchers who noticed thousands of Twitter postings purporting to be from everyday people. The intention was to give China a competitive advantage in the field. And this form of foreign interference has been proven to have an effect in the energy industry.