Chinese Government Admits Collection of Deleted WeChat Messages

The South China Morning Post reported over the weekend that Chinese authorities have the capability of retrieving deleted messages from the WeChat app. The newspaper noted that an anti-corruption commission in Hefei province posted Saturday to social media that it has "retrieved a series of deleted WeChat conversations from a subject" as part of an investigation. TechCrunch reports: The post was deleted Sunday, but not before many had seen it and understood the ramifications. Tencent, which operates the WeChat service used by nearly a billion people (including myself), explained in a statement that "WeChat does not store any chat histories -- they are only stored on users' phones and computers." The technical details of this storage were not disclosed, but it seems clear from the commission's post that they are accessible in some way to interested authorities, as many have suspected for years. The app does, of course, comply with other government requirements, such as censoring certain topics.

Easy, and not even lying....

[magarity]

Just set up some government server(s) as a "user's computer" and subscribe it to every WeChat group. Presto, all the chat history is only stored on users' computers.

Re:Easy, and not even lying....

[ShanghaiBill]

The Chinese government doesn't need to lie. They WANT their citizens to know they are being watched. Chinese censorship works mostly through deterrence.

Re:Easy, and not even lying....

[alvinrod]

To be fair, that's how most laws work. Look at the U.S. with respect to copyright. The government can't even investigate or prosecute .01% of cases because its so pervasive. By nailing a few unlucky bastards to the wall and making a big show of force they hope that the rest will fall in line.

I'm under the impression that if streaming services and digital access had been further stifled as the content cartel would have liked, we would have changed copyright laws as a result of popular ballot initiative because a majority would be pirating by this point due to onerous restrictions on accessing content.

China has the benefit of most of the population remembering a time when even allegations of misbehavior could get you sent to a reeducation camp of sorts to straighten out that improper attitude. Over time that will fade and so will China's propensity for trying to exert this level of control.

Re:

[crimson tsunami]

Even if Trump goes to prison, it's not like everyone who voted for him or supports him will have to join him there.

Those are the best ones

[SuperKendall]

If you are any government agency looking to collect the best intel, deleted messages are pretty obviously the most valuable as people generally only delete things they care about, useless things they never bother to remove.

WeChat is creepy as hell

[StickyKeys]

I use it to communicate with a Chinese friend since WhatsApp is blocked. I discovered that if I send them a URL to something on my server and then tail the logs, I see two separate requests from two different IPs, one is my friend and the other is some unknown IP in China.

Re: WeChat is creepy as hell

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, thatâ(TM)s nothing. I used WeChat to communicate with a love interest who lives in China but we met in France. Our message communication was actively sabotaged by messages being randomly delayed, dropped and on a few occasions changed in transit. Needless to say, we grew apart quite fast, and after she seemingly got angry and me and asked to stop communication which I did. Couple of years later she called me for my birthday and asked why I stopped talking to her out of a sudden, and that as a resu

Re:

[Tablizer]

Our message communication was actively sabotaged by messages being randomly delayed, dropped and on a few occasions changed in transit...She said she never told me to stop communicating with her and was quite hurt that I did.

Perhaps we should consider Hanlon's razor: it's just sloppy tech instead of intentional message tinkering. I can list tons of crapware that only half works.

Re:

[mea_culpa]

It's probably WeChat generating a preview. There is far too much traffic for censors to check every URL. Chinese most likely have a direct feed to WeChat's servers much like the NSA had (probably still does) when Snowden revealed Prism.

Re:

[StickyKeys]

Maybe, it specifically happens when you click/tap the link so probably would be too late to generate a preview. It's not snooped on when the URL is originally transmitted.

In Soviet China...

[dryriver]

... YOU are the deleted message!

Stupidity

[110010001000]

How is this any different than any other chat app? They all store your messages (forever) on their servers. There is no such thing as deleted messages. And for you who think "this is China. It doesn't happen here", I don't know what you think goes on in the tech industry. They aren't out to provide you with "free" services.

Re:

[johanw]

No, WhatsApp does not do that, and Signal certainly doesn't. Both can't read the contents of the messages anytway, even if they wanted to.

well yeah

[Ryanrule]

we chat is govt owned and controlled.

Communism

[Anonymous Coward]

Our largest trading partner is not a democracy - and tramples human rights as a matter of course - yet we constantly vilify other nations for political expediency.

Re:

[johanw]

At least China doesn't start wars all around the planet.

Re: Communism

[magarity]

Thet don't need to. The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution killed as many people as the entire second world war.

Re:

[Tablizer]

Indeed. While they haven't yet, if they did, it would be big and nasty. They've been getting aggressive lately over disputed islands, and are constantly threatening Taiwan. Unlike democracies, they can order tens of millions to war and few would challenge the decision.

Re:

[Tablizer]

Terrorism is a real problem, US just got the targets wrong.

Re:

[Tablizer]

We'll see how China deals with terrorism as it gets more influential...

Re:

[kaatochacha]

We can already see. They just kill large groups of people Google Up china uyghur

Or something

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

an anti-corruption commission in Hefei province posted Saturday to social media that it has "Looked in the mirror and realized anti-corruption is really corruption defending a dictator,, so we immediately suicided."

Well maybe there is a god.