Black Code Page #2

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been working as cyber sleuths

hot on the trail of a massive

electronic spy network.

They say it has taken control of

nearly 1,300 high-level computers

in more than 100 countries.

A discovery that could have

major political implications.

They can extract any

document they wanted.

They could turn on web cameras,

turn on audio devices,

so that they could,

in effect, use the computers

as a listening device

in the offices.

[reporter] The web of intrigue

started with the Dalai Lama

who thought his computer

had been hacked.

Up until about 2007 or 2008, I'd

never really heard of malware.

You know, I'd heard

of viruses, obviously,

but I hadn't really heard

about targeted malware attacks

affecting

the human rights community.

[clicking]

First time I heard about it was

in the context of the Tibetans.

Gradually we started piecing together,

they are under surveillance.

The surveillance comes

from groups within China.

They're using malicious software

and socially-engineered e-mails.

E-mails that are crafted

to get them to open it up

to get inside their devices.

[reporter]

Nart Villeneuve, a computer wiz,

figured out

how the operation worked

by getting the attackers

to hack into his computer.

We're monitoring these groups

for long periods of time,

and you're essentially waiting

for them to screw up, right?

And when they do,

you take advantage of that.

Sometimes it takes a long time.

You could be monitoring a group

for a year and get nothing.

Then one day, they just use a

server that they don't lock down

and all the data's

just sitting there.

I was at home.

It was pretty late.

[typing]

[Deibert]

Nart was scouring through it,

trying to figure out

what actor is responsible

for getting inside

the Dalai Lama's office.

And there was a 22 or 24 character

string that kept coming up

that he couldn't figure out,

"What is the meaning of this?"

So on a whim, he just copied

and pasted it into Google.

One website came up,

and it was Chinese characters.

So he clicked on it.

[mouse clicks]

To my surprise, what came

back was the actual page

that the attackers used to interface

with the compromised systems.

So they set up a website where

they could monitor their victims.

But they didn't

password protect it!

So it was like a window

into everything they were doing.

[electronic music]

[Nart] This wasn't just targeted

at Tibetan organizations

or human rights organizations.

This was global, a pretty

wide range of institutions

that showed that these attackers were...

were quite busy.

There was huge pickup in the media.

It was all over the world.

And it put us on a different kind of

footing in terms of our credibility.

In the cyber security community,

we were novices at that time.

We were kind of outsiders.

[no audible dialogue]

So we were kind of

calling it on the fly.

Like, what do we do?

What's the right thing to do?

Who do we notify?

I knew that publishing it

was important.

We had to redact a lot of the

information to protect people.

Should we notify the government?

Should we notify

the Canadian government?

How do we notify other governments

that are being victimized?

At the time, you know,

we didn't want to completely disclose

everything that we had done,

because we

wanted to do it again.

[Deibert] In some of the communities

I mentioned, they loved it.

But I got the feeling from,

certainly inside my own government,

there was a lot of weirdness.

- [interviewer] Are we allowed to speculate?

- Well, I think now we know

because there's a Snowden disclosure

that explicitly references the fact

that the Canadians

and the Americans,

our signals

intelligence agencies,

were piggybacking

off the GhostNet network.

So, in publishing the report, we

basically broke up their party.

From our initial samples from

the office of the Dalai Lama,

they were actually compromised

by two distinct groups.

The GhostNet group obviously

got the most attention.

But there was another group

that was also active.

The GhostNet group

shut down their operations,

but the other group, um,

they're still going.

[birds tweeting]

[Tibetan horns]

[chattering]

[horns continue]

[gong rings]

[chanting in Tibetan

through megaphone]

[woman speaking Tibetan]

[Golog, in Tibetan]

In our research,

what we see are acts of war

that take place

against citizens,

using these very technologies.

Getting inside the computers of

Tibetans and then arresting them,

and possibly executing them,

is a kind of act of war.

[speaking Tibetan]

[Deibert] We see this sort

of thing every week, right?

Minor to major versions of it.

Everything on the site

is correct except this.

So this... The last log-in on

the C panel was from Korea.

- Mm-hmm.

- Do you guys have any work in Korea?

- Is there any...

- No, no...

So who actually accesses the website to

update it and all that sort of thing?

- It must be somebody unauthorized.

- Yeah.

[bell ringing]

[ringing rapidly]

[stops]

[chanting]

[man, in Tibetan]

[in English] One, two, three,

four, five, six,

seven.

[in Tibetan]

[Tibetan horn]

[horn continues]

[horn resumes]

[man continues, in Tibetan]

[screaming]

- [shout]

- [gunshot]

[screaming continues]

[man shouts]

[screaming continues]

[stops]

- [indistinct]

- Hmm.

[typing]

[talking, quiet]

Not that long ago, the government

of Pakistan put out this tender

for proposals for a nationwide

Internet filtering system.

They wanted to solicit proposals

from companies to build,

effectively,

the Great Firewall of Pakistan.

Today if you visit Pakistan

and you get online

and you try to access YouTube,

this is what you'll see,

a blocked page like this.

I'm in Islamabad,

putting in a SIM card.

First and foremost, I'm really

excited to see Shahzad.

I first met Shahzad and

the organization Bytes for All,

eight years ago, I think?

And he's been involved,

in one way or another,

in Citizen Lab research

ever since.

[mouse clicks]

[chattering]

- Hi, Shahzad.

- Hello!

- So great to see you.

- Here we are. Here we are.

[both chuckling]

[Deibert]

Bytes for All does what they do,

fight for Internet rights and

advocacy-based approach to Internet freedom

under extreme duress.

So they're operating

in a country that,

specifically around media

and free expression,

has got to be one of

the worst places in the world.

Uh, journalists are

routinely kidnapped, murdered,

uh, offices firebombed,

et cetera,

and they've experienced

all of that.

Death threats,

staff members kidnapped,

his own son beat up and

thrown to the side of the road

as a warning to Shahzad

not to do what he's doing.

In my opinion,

Internet has opened up

so many opportunities...

for the people to express,

and that is the sole reason that

we are fighting for open Internet.

They lost their public spaces.

They lost their ability

to go out freely.

So, as they are putting controls

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