Chinese National Security law

[PrimeNumber7]

With the passage of the “National Security” law in China relating to Hong Kong, China appears to have passed a worldwide ban on calling for democracy in Hong Kong, with punishments as harsh as life in prison for violating the law. I understand violating the law, and subsequently traveling to Hong Kong may result in your arrest.

In response many tech companies have decided to stop Responding to government requests from the Hong Kong government/police. These companies are banned in China, and as such have no Chinese customers.

The law of course has nothing to do with National Security, but rather is intended to stifle dissent.

My question is, how will the forum respond to requests for information from the governments of Hong Kong and/or China?

There is always the risk of a state sponsored hack to obtain personal information of users. As such, precautions should always be taken if you are at risk of prosecution resulting from criticizing your government on the forum.

[1715449551]

1715449551

[1715449551]

1715449551

[1715449551]

1715449551

[LoyceV]

My question is, how will the forum respond to requests for information from the governments of Hong Kong and/or China?

I expect the same as this:

I intend to ignore all stupidity coming out of the EUSSR.

There is always the risk of a state sponsored hack to obtain personal information of users. As such, precautions should always be taken if you are at risk of prosecution resulting from criticizing your government on the forum.

This is a concern indeed.

[PrimeNumber7]

My question is, how will the forum respond to requests for information from the governments of Hong Kong and/or China?

I expect the same as this:

I intend to ignore all stupidity coming out of the EUSSR.

Lets hope so.

However the situation is far more serious in HK than it is in Europe. Europe is threatening fines and regulations for non-compliance with stupid laws. China is threatening life in jail (and possible torture) for criticizing China or the CCP, or for calling for democracy in Hong Kong, in the name of “national security” which to an uninformed person, sounds like the person is doing something very harmful. 

[Harlot]

Since the forum is not implementing any kind of KYC or requesting any kind of personal information from its users I doubt that they would get anything from the admins here in the forum. If they threaten to have some kind of IP ban for the forum in their country then I don't think it would be any kind of lost to us since everything can be bypass easily with VPN on the users' side, similar to what our Russian members are doing right now where they are using VPN for them to be able to access the website. In short I don't think this new national security law will affect on how the forum will run since the forum itself doesn't carry out any personal info from their members.

[PrimeNumber7]

Since the forum is not implementing any kind of KYC or requesting any kind of personal information from its users I doubt that they would get anything from the admins here in the forum. 

Email addresses and IP addresses used to access the forum can be used to find a person's IRL identity, especially if other companies are willing to provide the Chinese government information.

[taufik123]

-snip-

That is why this forum does not implement KYC on this forum. because to prevent the spread of personal information of members in this forum. This forum is a forum that gives freedom to its members, freedom to give opinions, freedom to hide personal information and others. Most people in this forum hide their real identities with pseudonyms. Forum founder Satoshi Nakamoto alone until now no one knows who he really is. The national security law really will not affect this forum, because they will not get anything from this forum, except important information about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

The issue of blocking IP is very common and very easy to overcome, as you mean by using VPN, everything can be overcome. in my country Indonesia bitcointalk can still be accessed properly without having to use a VPN.

[JeromeTash]

The national security law really will not affect this forum, because they will not get anything from this forum, except important information about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

They can get some personal information just like @PrimeNumber7 pointed out in a reply above yours should @Theymos decide to cooperate with them or through third party services like Amazon Web Services, Cloudflare etc. Personal information that could be requested can vary from Email addresses, Private messages, User IP logs to Log of all viewed topics etc Such information is more than enough to track some people who are not privacy conscious by trying to use Tor, encrypting sensitive PMs and so on.

[UserU]

That is why this forum does not implement KYC on this forum.

There's no reason for a forum to actually implement KYC when basic data is already sufficient.

It's not a business after all.

[theymos]

Bitcointalk.org is not subject to Hong Kong / China jurisdiction, so would not be required to produce data in any case. If some police wants data without a subpoena, they have to convince me that a serious non-victimless crime (eg. scamming) probably occurred. I certainly wouldn't help them if it looks like they're going after political enemies.

But if you're in Hong Kong or other dangerous places and you're worried about this, then you shouldn't trust anyone to protect you: not me, not anyone. Use Tor everywhere, and on bitcointalk.org practice the privacy-enhancing measures mentioned on the privacy page.

[PrimeNumber7]

Bitcointalk.org is not subject to Hong Kong / China jurisdiction, so would not be required to produce data in any case. If some police wants data without a subpoena, they have to convince me that a serious non-victimless crime (eg. scamming) probably occurred. I certainly wouldn't help them if it looks like they're going after political enemies.

Most ideally, requests for information from China/Hong Kong would be ignored, but I suppose the procedure you describe is sufficiently close.

But if you're in Hong Kong or other dangerous places and you're worried about this, then you shouldn't trust anyone to protect you: not me, not anyone. Use Tor everywhere, and on bitcointalk.org practice the privacy-enhancing measures mentioned on the privacy page.

My understanding is the national security law bans calling for democracy in Hong Kong worldwide. This means being outside of Hong Kong will not protect you if you later travel to Hong Kong. I understand someone calling for democracy in Hong Kong while in the United States, Europe, Africa, or anywhere else would be subject to arrest if they later traveled to Hong Kong.

[UserU]

My understanding is the national security law bans calling for democracy in Hong Kong worldwide. This means being outside of Hong Kong will not protect you if you later travel to Hong Kong. I understand someone calling for democracy in Hong Kong while in the United States, Europe, Africa, or anywhere else would be subject to arrest if they later traveled to Hong Kong.

Yup, especially for those extremely dissident towards the CCP. China would still try to extradite them from neutral or China-friendly nations so that's another thing to be concerned about.

Still, this forum hasn't been used as a mouthpiece yet[i/]; nobody knows how safe this forum would be in the future.

[ABCbits]

Since this forum uses CloudFlare to prevent DDoS, i think OP's question also applies to CloudFlare as well.

[Harlot]

-snip-

That is why this forum does not implement KYC on this forum. because to prevent the spread of personal information of members in this forum. This forum is a forum that gives freedom to its members, freedom to give opinions, freedom to hide personal information and others. Most people in this forum hide their real identities with pseudonyms. Forum founder Satoshi Nakamoto alone until now no one knows who he really is. The national security law really will not affect this forum, because they will not get anything from this forum, except important information about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

You are just basically talking about what a forum should be. We really don't have this "freedom to hide our personal information" but a forum doesn't necessarily need our personal info to talk about one topic which in BCT's case is cryptocurrencies. So basically since we aren't sharing sensitive information here whatsoever and is just talking about crypto topics I doubt that the Chinese authorities will also put us under surveillance because of their new law.

[squatz1]

Bitcointalk.org is not subject to Hong Kong / China jurisdiction, so would not be required to produce data in any case. If some police wants data without a subpoena, they have to convince me that a serious non-victimless crime (eg. scamming) probably occurred. I certainly wouldn't help them if it looks like they're going after political enemies.

But if you're in Hong Kong or other dangerous places and you're worried about this, then you shouldn't trust anyone to protect you: not me, not anyone. Use Tor everywhere, and on bitcointalk.org practice the privacy-enhancing measures mentioned on the privacy page.

Serious question here, and this may be something that has been discussed at somepoint.

What jurisdiction is the forum under and under what circumstances could you be forced into providing information relating to a forum user? Like if you were living in the US and then a subpoena came by forcing you to provide the information, I'm not sure there is much way to avoid it.

Different story though if you're in a country that doesn't listen so nicely. That's not me saying to tell everyone on the forum exactly where you live or anything like that, just want to know how this would normally work.

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

What jurisdiction is the forum under

The forum is under US jurisdiction and it is indeed subjected to US subpoenas. This information can be viewed in the Privacy page of the forum.

under what circumstances could you be forced into providing information relating to a forum user?

When theymos receives a US subpoena, I don't think it is possible to ignore it completely as the forum works under the US laws. But, theymos on instances such as the BFL case has tried to limit the private information as much as possible. If on other scenarios such as other country police contacts theymos for certain private information on the forum user (who have been found guilty) and if he is aware of the issue he might help the police with investigation.

Meanwhile in the BFL subpoena, the government demanded the PMs of all the users who mentioned BFL but this has been lowered down.

See this :

I had to release all database info on a few employees/ex-employees of BFL (including their PMs), plus a complete copy of every thread in which anyone mentioned BFL or in which a BFL employee participated. (It was a huge hassle to put all of this info together.) The subpoena originally demanded all PMs that even mentioned BFL, which is ridiculous, but I managed to get this part eliminated.

[PrimeNumber7]

What jurisdiction is the forum under and under what circumstances could you be forced into providing information relating to a forum user? Like if you were living in the US and then a subpoena came by forcing you to provide the information, I'm not sure there is much way to avoid it.

I believe the forum owners and server(s) are located in the United States, and cannot avoid being subject to US jurisdiction.

If theymos were to travel internationally, he would be subject to that country's laws. I don't see Europe (or most other countries) subjecting theymos to their data laws if he were to go on vacation for a few weeks.  

If the forum has any employees (or moderator 'volenteers') who live overseas, their governments could arrest the moderator and hold them hostage until theymos complies with their requests. I would consider this unlikely in western countries, however I cannot rule this out with regards to China. If the moderator of the Chinese local sub (or any other mod) is based in China, theymos should consider terminating the moderator relationship, or at least have a conversation with the moderator to make sure they are aware the forum has no intention of complying with requests for information on political enemies of the CCP.

The moderators should also be made aware of the above policy, and the risks associated with traveling to Hong Kong should be highlighted to the forum's moderators.The CCP has a history of "hostage diplomacy" as they arrested Canidian businessmen (on bogus charges) after Canada arrested a Huawei employee at the request of the US government.

Since this forum uses CloudFlare to prevent DDoS, i think OP's question also applies to CloudFlare as well.

CF appears to do business in China, and this should answer your question. They may not have collected information on specific users, but may start if the CCP requests they do so.

I believe google cloud services has a DDoS protection product, and google is unable to do business in China (and importantly, are not responding to requests for information from the HK government).

Someone who has criticized the CCP, or has worked towards bringing Democracy in Hong Kong may be subject to life in prison, or possible torture. This fact should be carefully considered before handing information over to the Hong Kong or Chinese government willingly, even if they are possibly guilty of other non-victimless crimes.