App attempts a rare trick in China: online privacy

guest · Sep 6, 2019

App attempts a rare trick in China: online privacy
September 6, 2019
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...e-trick-in-china-online-privacy-idUSKCN1VR0MG

In a country where privacy protections are considered weak and anything-goes data collection has become the norm, Chinese tech entrepreneur Yang Geng stands out.

His service, LeakZero, helps people surf the web anonymously, protect passwords and send encrypted messages. By design, he can’t find out the names of the app’s users or even know how many there are. It doesn’t have a so-called ‘back door.’
And as far as he knows, it’s the only one of its kind on China.

Yang and the users of his service are fighting uphill and unusual battle for privacy in a place where the government is deeply involved in Big Data, and companies have done little to resist.
Click to expand...

Users launch LeakZero’s encrypted messaging service and use a random name generator to create an ID. Then, when they open a messaging app like WeChat, LeakZero is “layered” on top.
When they type a message, they can use LeakZero to turn their message into a nonsense string of letters and numbers in WeChat. The recipient must use LeakZero’s app to decrypt the message.

Yang says users are superfans who spread the message and even help new joiners troubleshoot. So far, his encrypted messaging app has more than 34,000 aliases - although by design, he does not know how many users are behind them.
Click to expand...

Log in or Sign up

App attempts a rare trick in China: online privacy

guest Guest

Log in or Sign up

App attempts a rare trick in China: online privacy

guest Guest

Useful Searches