Thread by @rj_gallagher

NEW: An American organization founded by Google & IBM is working with a company that is helping China's authoritarian government secretly monitor the phone & internet activity of 200 million people, documents & sources reveal: theintercept.com/2019/07/11/chi…

Shenzen-based Semptian has been working with the OpenPower Foundation, a nonprofit led by Google & IBM execs with the aim of trying to “drive innovation.” The foundation has enabled the Chinese company to collaborate with IBM, US chip manufacturer Xilinx & other US corporations.

We received a tip that Semptian has been using US technology provided through this collaboration to enhance the capabilities of internet surveillance & censorship technology it provides to human rights-abusing security agencies in China.

An undercover reporting project established that Semptian is selling mass surveillance & censorship tech through a front company called iNext.

It has built a system called Aegis, which it says can allow governments to see “the connections of everyone,” including “location information for everyone in the country" & also “block certain information [on the] internet from being visited."

A Semptian employee told an undercover reporter that Aegis is being used to covertly monitor 200 million people in China, which amounts to a quarter of the country’s total online population.

Read a document that we obtained about the Aegis system here. Its catchline is, "find one, find all; control one, control all." documentcloud.org/documents/6188…

Sen. @MarkWarner, D-Va., vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told @theintercept that he was alarmed by the revelations: “It’s disturbing to see that China has successfully recruited Western companies & researchers to assist them in their information control efforts."

Amnesty's @a_bacci said that the OpenPower Foundation’s decision to work with Semptian raises questions about its adherence to int'l human rights standards: “All companies have a responsibility to conduct human rights due diligence throughout their operations & supply chains.”

Two sources familiar with Semptian's work said that the technology has been installed within China’s phone and internet networks, enabling the country’s govt to secretly collect people’s email records, phone calls, text messages, cellphone locations, & web browsing histories.

Chinese state security agencies are likely using the technology to target human rights activists, pro-democracy advocates, & critics of President Xi Jinping’s regime, said the sources.

A video we obtained shows how the Aegis system tracks people's movements based on cellphone data. This clip shows a person being tracked as they travel through Shenzhen, through parks & gardens, to a conference center & hotel.

The video also shows the system can monitor people based on their instant messenger name, email address, social media account, forum or blog ID, & cellphone IMSI code or a computer MAC address, a unique series of numbers associated with each device.

No US companies who have worked w/ Semptian would comment on the surveillance or censorship. OpenPower said it “does not become involved, or seek to be informed, about the individual business strategies, goals or activities of its members,” due to antitrust and competition law.

Read the full story: theintercept.com/2019/07/11/chi…

*Shenzhen, sorry. 🙄

If you are having trouble viewing the video in the story (some mobile users have reported issues), you should be able to view it here: content.jwplatform.com/players/CEYUt1…

IBM told me it “has not worked with Semptian on joint technology development,” but declined to answer further questions. A source familiar with Semptian’s operations said that Semptian worked w/ IBM through a collaborative cloud platform called SuperVessel.

Semptian boasts on its own website that it is “actively working with world-class companies such as IBM & Xilinx." IBM wouldn't answer questions about that or explain the nature of its collaboration with Semptian.

“I would hope that American companies have rigorous processes for ethical review before engaging,”
said @EBKania. “But sometimes it seems like there’s a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ policy — it’s profit over ethics.”