Recently, a netizen discovered that the Android (android) system in his domestic TV set secretly collects information about users’ various networked home appliances, scanning them every 10 minutes, and even the neighbors’ network devices. Some legal professionals have criticized that the Chinese government is strengthening the information control of the public to achieve the purpose of thought control.
A netizen familiar with information technology recently reported on the Internet that his home TV set with Android system was found to have a surveillance function. In an article titled “My TV is spying on all connected devices”, the netizen revealed that a data service on his TV scans all connected devices, even his neighbors’ messages, once every 10 minutes.
Xing Jian, a former citizen journalist for June 4, who has studied Internet technology, pointed out on Tuesday (27) that the Chinese government has developed the open-source system Android twice and installed it in domestic TV sets, which were used in the rural “Xue Liang Project. He said the authorities are ostensibly providing TV viewers with richer programming, but the real purpose behind it is to monitor farmers’ homes.
Xing Jian: Android system is used in the “snow bright project” to achieve “full coverage, full network sharing, full time available, the whole process can be controlled” of public security video surveillance construction networking applications in rural areas and alleys. The application usually invades users’ cell phones, TVs and other Android devices in the form of “spyware” and automatically scans and collects users’ device models, usage information, social networks, etc. and uploads them to the official database to achieve network-wide surveillance, further strengthening the rulers’ efforts to maintain stability and making China a social situation where everyone is at risk.
He said that in mainland China, the authorities are working with the Internet Information Office, the propaganda department and the Internet police to jointly control China’s online speech and prevent people from speaking out.
Xing Jian: These three mainly use public power to obstruct public opinion monitoring and to wash the ground for corrupt officials to maintain their ruling purposes. The Internet Information Office uses such means as issuing letters and stopping domain name resolution to shut down public opinion monitoring websites in China, and takes blocking measures for overseas websites; secondly, the propaganda department uses letters and coercion to force website administrators to delete articles they monitor.
Xing Jian said that when the authorities fail to achieve results even for the above measures, the Internet police will arrest the administrators of public opinion monitoring websites within the country, and for overseas websites, the authorities will use hacking techniques such as invasion and DDOS to damage the servers.
The Internet Information Office punished 100 billion illegal messages cumulatively last year
According to data from China’s Internet Information Office, 100 billion so-called illegal messages were punished last year, and 18,000 websites and platforms were shut down. By this reckoning, the authorities averaged 30 million messages per day, focusing on purging so-called distortions of the Chinese Communist Party’s history and national history.
Mr. Song, a Shanxi legal scholar, pointed out that the above figures reflect that the authorities are tightening their control over online speech. He believes that a free and open cyberspace is one where people can access all kinds of information and make their own judgments. The Chinese government is trying to deprive people of that freedom of choice.
The government is tightening its control over people’s messages to achieve thought control, Mr. Song said. She also wants the government’s messages to reach people’s minds and influence their lives, choosing for them what is appropriate for them and what is not.
China’s ubiquitous network surveillance system
The Internet user who reported that his home TV was being monitored pointed out in a post that he noticed that the TV was slowing down and checked to see what background services were on, only to find a program called “hookup data service” running automatically. The article also said that after grabbing the packet research found that the service to hostname, mac, ip, and even network latency time all back, but also detect the surrounding wifi SSID name, mac address is also packaged to this gz-data.com domain.
Many Internet users in mainland China feel helpless about their home information being stolen, and some leave messages that they are afraid to put their domestic Android TV sets online. Others said, “My home Xiaomi router, has been requesting the API.miwifi.com domain name, every 3 seconds, I don’t know what for, afraid.”
The “Gozen Data Service” mentioned in the post is allegedly from Beijing GozenData, which is the first big data company in the field of smart big screen in mainland China and has covered 103 million smart TV terminals by the end of 2018, accounting for 55% of the total amount of devices on the network.
It is understood that in April 2019, Beijing Gouzheng Data Technology Co., Ltd.’s “Gouzheng Data” has entered into a long-term partnership with Skyworth, Kukai, TCL, Changhong, Konka, Fengxing, Micro Whale, TV Cat, Sanyo, Toshiba, Philips and other enterprises, through the implantation of SDK in the system layer in order to obtain smart TV data collection.
Netizens found that the Android TV system at home sweeps through home connected devices every ten minutes. (Weibo picture)
(Original title: domestic TV Android system is pervasive hidden information collection function covers neighbors)
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