Click Here Erased: The curious case of UyghurEdit++
6 snips
Dec 26, 2025 Rebecca Brown, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab specializing in digital surveillance, dives into China's relentless campaign against Uyghur identity. She details how surveillance tools have transitioned from physical QR codes to digital malware infiltrating software updates. The conversation explores the alarming Uyghur Edit++ phishing attack and the malware's capabilities, illustrating how cultural tools are weaponized to erase a community's heritage. Brown's insights reveal the bravery of activists fighting against an authoritarian regime's digital erasure of culture.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Culture Tools As Surveillance Vectors
- Beijing weaponizes cultural and everyday digital tools to extend surveillance beyond Xinjiang into the diaspora.
- Targeting apps, websites, and language tools turns cultural lifelines into vectors for monitoring and erasure.
Gifted Tool Turned Trojan Horse
- A World Uyghur Congress member received an email offering a helpful Uyghur typing tool that included a download link.
- The attachment triggered Google warnings and led activists to call Citizen Lab, uncovering a malicious Trojan horse in the offered file.
Verify Before Installing Software
- Verify suspicious offers with known contacts and security groups like Citizen Lab before installing software.
- Avoid running unknown installers; recon malware can confirm targets and a second payload can give full remote access.