Image: Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
Hacking. Disinformation. Surveillance. CYBER is Motherboard's podcast and reporting on the dark underbelly of the internet.
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Zenz added in a tweet on Tuesday that the files were obtained by someone “hacking into Xinjiang police/re-education camp computers.” The BBC, which was one of the outlets that Zenz shared the data with, wrote in one piece of its own coverage that an anonymous source had claimed to “have hacked, downloaded and decrypted the files from a number of police computer servers in the Xinjiang region.”The files themselves include photos of 2,884 detainees, police training presentations and images of security drills, security directives, and speeches that the researchers say are by leading Chinese officials.The speeches “show that the leadership demanded security forces to open fire on persons seeking to escape detention, or on those who dared to resist the state,” a description on the Xinjiang Police Files website reads.“These findings are significant because they provide us with frank policy implementation directives along with the thought processes and intentions that made them a reality,” Zenz added in a statement issued on Tuesday. “This gives an unprecedented look into the personal attitudes of Chinese authorities and the personal involvement of Xi Jinping. Documents with this kind of insight have never before been published, and their revelations are very disturbing.”The outlets that participated in the collaborative effort including Der Spiegel verified the files by, among other things, geolocating photos included in the dataset.Subscribe to our cybersecurity podcast, CYBER. Subscribe to our new Twitch channel.Do you have any data or documents related to Xinjiang? We'd love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on jfcox@jabber.ccc.de, or email joseph.cox@vice.com.