Australian Minister's Phone Hacked as Report Reveals Hong Kong Link (bloomberg.com) 37
A second senior Australian government minister has revealed his mobile phone was hacked through the Telegram messaging app, with a media report saying the phishing scam was aimed at revealing contact details of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. From a report: Health Minister Greg Hunt's office said in an emailed statement on Thursday that "a cyber security attempt to impersonate the minister has been referred to the Australian Federal Police and investigations are underway." That follows Monday's statement by Finance Minister Simon Birmingham that he had been targeted. The Australian newspaper reported late Wednesday that the details of pro-democracy Hong Kongers were provided to someone impersonating Birmingham, with one of the recipients being asked: "Do you have any contacts in Hong Kong?" The person handed over details of Hong Kongers without realizing they were speaking to a cyber-hacker, the paper said, citing the person who it didn't identify.
Someone give pooh-bear the Ghaddafi treatment (Score:2)
Doctors recommend a bayonet enema for relieving ones self of dictators.
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Not as many as the US State Department though ;)
Except for those ones, we actually have the evidence courtesy of Wikileaks.
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Are you saying that other countries should not stand with Hong Kong?
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Here's the thing: the US and it's allies aren't bringing democracy to Hong Kong. They are returning it to a place it already was, before the Chinese government destroyed it. What is it about democracy that you hate? Why do you love dictatorships?
No, anarchy isn't a form of democracy. What a dumb statement. Anarchy is the lack of hierarchy. It's literally in the name. If anything, democracy is a form of anarchy because everyone's vote is equal.
That's what you hate, isn't it? Everyone having an equal say. It
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Why do you keep trying to deflect to criticism of the US? What's that got to do with anything? And yes, of course Hong Kong had democracy under British rule. Maybe not perfect, but better than the authoritarian crap the Chinese government inflicts. And let's be very clear: the British colonial governors wanted more democracy, but the CCP said they would fight against it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It's just a Chinese talking point, pushed very heavily as propaganda, that HK had no democracy as a Briti
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Because it is hackingbear posting Anonymously as a Wumao.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
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Well, yeah. That's why I said "I have a feeling you know exactly what I mean here, Anonymous Coward."
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Shut up, China. We don't buy your paid propaganda here. Go bother less observant or informed folk, we know what you are.
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TL; DR China. Craft better propaganda. Whoever wrote this gets -1000 social credit score for their failure, and one random family member carved up for organs.
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Here's the thing: the US and it's allies aren't bringing democracy to Hong Kong. They are returning it to a place it already was, before the Chinese government destroyed it. What is it about democracy that you hate? Why do you love dictatorships?
Well, that's a very limited view of history. Quick question: For how many years, between 1898 (the start of the UK's 99 year lease on the New Territories) and 1997 (the year the UK handed Hong Kong back to China), was Hong Kong "democratic"? (I'm presuming that this is what you meant by 'a place it already was'.)
Never mind, I'll fill in a few blanks (since I lived there for several years during its period of UK rule).
Until 1985 there were no elections in Hong Kong [wikipedia.org]: "The Governor was the head of government a
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You forget that for much of the time since the CCP took power, they forbid the British from instituting any kind of democratic reform, through the threat of violence. So that made it kind of difficult, wouldn't you say?
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You forget that for much of the time since the CCP took power, they forbid the British from instituting any kind of democratic reform, through the threat of violence. So that made it kind of difficult, wouldn't you say?
I did not forget, because I was not aware of that fact (the only 'veiled' threat of violence I was aware of was made in 1982 by China’s then-leader Deng Xiaoping who said to Mrs Thatcher directly: “I could walk in and take the whole lot this afternoon.”). Would you have a refence to a source to back up that claim? I mean, given that up until that meeting I just referred to only the New Territories was leased to the UK. Technically, by treaty, we fully owned Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Sid
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"Liao Chengzhi, a senior Chinese official in charge of Hong Kong affairs, said in 1960 that China "shall not hesitate to take positive action to have Hong Kong, Kowloon and New Territories liberated" should the status quo (i.e. colonial administration) be changed. The warning killed any democratic development for the next three decades"
That page, on the development of democracy in Hong Kong, tells a more complete story. It was never perfect, but there were democratic movemen
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Interesting, thanks.
I hadn't seen that page before, nor the (indirectly) linked diplomatic dispatches released by the British National Archive in 2014. I live and learn.
Thanks again.
perhaps you can tell me what changed, do you think, that the UK did then make Hong Kong democratic?
...to give a brief answer, what changed is that Governor Murray MacLehose met with Deng Xiaoping and they hashed some things out.
I confess my read here is more that Chris Patten and, to a lesser degree perhaps, the UK Government decided to force the issue, probably calculating that China would not do anything 'stupid', with the handover being so close. Somewhat moot, either way though.
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Yeah, that's a more nuanced reading of the situation.
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Shut up China. We don't buy your paid propaganda here. Go bother less informed of observant folk, we know what you are.
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"documents recently released by the National Archives in Britain suggest that beginning in the 1950s, the colonial governors who ran Hong Kong repeatedly sought to introduce popular elections but abandoned those efforts in the face of pressure by Communist Party leaders in Beijing."
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/1... [nytimes.com]
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And it was the Commies who caused this, not the British.
Re: The evidence is now real (Score:2)
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Nothing in TFS or the article suggests that either Hunt or Birmingham did have such detail. From TFS:
The Australian newspaper reported late Wednesday that the details of pro-democracy Hong Kongers were provided to someone impersonating Birmingham, with one of the recipients being asked: "Do you have any contacts in Hong Kong?"
That is, someone impersonating Birmingham in some unspecified way asked an unnamed party for details and got them. The article claims the unnamed party was in the Minister of Finance's contact list and that a fake Telegram account was used. It does not seem far fetched to think there would be quite a few businesspeople/diplomats with Hong Kong connections and the Finance Minister's ear.
From the article:
Hunt’s office said in an emailed statement on Thursday that “a cyber security attempt to impersonate the minister has been referred to the Australian Federal Police and investigations are underway.”
..
Why is an Australian minister ... (Score:2)
using the Telegram app ? Have they not been saying that it is evil as: it encrypts messages; can delete them after they are read and generally makes it hard for law enforcement read them ?
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He got phished, if I read TFA correctly, via Telegram. Could've been done using nearly any messaging app.
Bloomberg is not trustworthy. (Score:2)
It's the propaganda mouthpiece of the US Elite.
This is just more of the same bullshit we've been fed to justify tax dollars going to arms manufacturers and their associates. Business as usual.