The
Wall Street Journal reports that smartphones have turned into spies and tech companies are required to help the Chinese government "hunt down criminal suspects and silence political
dissent." These companies include Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu. Their technologies are being used to create
cities that are wired for surveillance. "Unlike American companies,
which often resist U.S. government requests for information, Chinese ones talk openly about working with authorities," explain reporters Liza Lin and Josh Chin.
The report goes on to explain how Alibaba has data on hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens who use the company's services to shop online, stream videos, pay rent, send text messages. The job of
monitoring this traffic comes under the company's security team.
Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal »
