News Update – Zero Stars in Wuhan

Speaker 1: The people of Wuhan have officially been under quarantine for almost two months. Just a couple days before the Lunar New Year in January, all transportation in and out of the larger Hubei province was cut off. One day, roadblocks popped up and some 56,000,000 residents were sealed off from the outside world. The government ordered they wear masks, stay inside, and report their body temperature on a daily basis. All at once, a city with the population of New York turned into a ghost town. A response the WHO called unprecedented in public health history. A lot is going to be written about the Chinese response to COVID-nineteen. We're probably not the people to write it, and now probably isn't the time to try. But, there's a hacked story in here. So, the way I see it, you can look at what's happened in Wuhan in two ways. On one hand, the day before I recorded this, the government announced that they were shutting the last of 16 temporary hospitals set up to respond to this crisis. The last residents of a converted indoor sports arena got to go home, in what the state run media network Xinhua called a sign of improving conditions. This is all to say that, yeah, they went big with their response, but, and take this with a grain of Chinese state media sized salt, that response does seem to be working. On the other hand, a government that censors and monitors people doesn't do it less during a crisis. Stuck in the middle of all of this, there are a bunch of people, trapped inside, using the internet to try to make sense of what is going on, to share information, and to try to keep living their lives through the portal of a screen that can go places they can't, which is what we're talking about today. You see, some of those people are kids. Kids who grew up online, kids who know tech, kids who are expected to go to school and do homework remotely online. And it doesn't matter how upside down things seem right now, how uneasy a situation makes you feel, which I say is we're packing up our office to work from home. No matter what happens, kids fucking hate homework. And if you ask them to do that homework remotely via an app, they're going to find a way to hack that system. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about how kids are getting out of online homework, and a little bit about how adults are getting around online censorship, in the heart of Wuhan, on this hacked update. Slight listener warning, we do curse a couple times in this one, and I don't bleep it out from this point onwards. So enjoy us saying some naughty words in what is far and away the weirdest episode of the show.

Speaker 2: My name is Scott. I like to work from home every day. It's so much fun. I sit at my desk. I'm so fucking lonely. Yay. I have my I have my rice. I have my rice. I have so much rice to eat. I have my rice. I have my rice.

Speaker 1: I think we have a new theme song.

Speaker 2: Did you record that, you motherfucker? I did record that. Remote hacked.

Speaker 1: Remote hacked. Hacked remote. Where are you right now, Scott?

Speaker 2: I am sitting at my kitchen table, also known as my new office.

Speaker 1: I am socially isolated. You are socially isolated Let's talk about the o g's of social isolation and all the clever stuff they've been getting up to

Speaker 2: I feel like that's the perfect way to start the episode.

Speaker 1: Perfect.

Speaker 2: We're working from home life's life's gotten very different in the last seventy two hours, and, other people have been living this life for, like, a month or two.

Speaker 1: Mhmm. So People just listen to an opening story where I say as we pack up our office right now, and that even seems like it was a while ago. Because that was seventy two hours from right this moment that I'm sitting here talking to you, when now our office is actually empty. So we're we're going through with some people who've been in in for a couple months now.

Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah. And those people, you know, to bring a light story in such a time, those people have done some incredibly creative hacky things, which I think we should talk about today.

Speaker 1: 11,800,000 people live in Wuhan. I don't know what percentage of people are kids.

Speaker 2: That's like a third of Canada, which is where Jordan and I are from.

Speaker 1: So 2,600,000 kids have been locked at home for two months, and the Chinese government, I guess it's not really the Chinese government, but the school system has started using an app owned by Alibaba called DingTalk. DingTalk was like a corporate communications app that was really, really popular and a few months prior to all of this, they rolled out a bunch of education features. Their online education is apparently super duper, popular in China. So you got 2,600,000 new users get flooded into this thing called DingTalk. And then, and then and then what happens, Scott?

Speaker 2: The brilliancy of the youth and future leaders of tomorrow. They realize that the algorithms for the app stores delist things that see a wave of negative voting or have enough negative voting. You know, just like Uber does with drivers, if you get below x stars, they delist you or don't let you drive anymore. So all of the children collectively got together and started downvoting the app in an attempt to have it removed from the App Store so that they didn't have to submit their homework.

Speaker 1: There's no dog to eat your homework. You know, modern problems, modern solutions.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the like, we should just talk about how smart this is. Like, you know, this isn't really a hacked topic, but it is because, you know, these kids found a flaw in a system, figured out a loophole that they could exploit to get something that they wanted, and I think it's pretty brilliant. You know? I think that there's nothing more hacked or hacker ish than, what some of these young kids figured out. So I think there's probably a wave of amazing future Infosec employees in this grouping of children.

Speaker 1: Seriously, clever. Talk to me a little bit about this larger culture of, like, workarounds online in China. Because it's like it's not just the kids finding these exploits. There was 516 new words added to the WeChat banned words list in the last two months. Most of them surrounding COVID nineteen. Kids are finding workarounds, but so are adults.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you gotta resort to speaking in codes when, when the government, you know, like we've seen in China, has such direct control over the technology companies, like, you know, WeChat and so many of these other platforms that, like, we don't even really know about or have here in North America. They're very, you know, like, China has one point whatever billion people that they can have their own kind of major tech companies. That's not an issue. So, you know, WeChat, what they do is they've, this group was looking into it the other day, and they found out that every time you open it, actually, it reaches out to the government servers and says, hey. What keywords are banned? And refresh is kind of like a blacklist that the app messaging app uses. So when you send a message with any of these keywords in it, like COVID or corona, that message never gets to the recipient. So they've had to create kind of their own lexicon of code words to kind of bypass these security controls.

Speaker 1: They had to find a solution that allowed them to get around, a certain system almost like a bunch of kids downvoting a homework app.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Almost exactly the same. So, you know, it turns out that creative young minds turn into creative, you know, more mature minds. I won't say old minds.

Speaker 1: Starting some new isn't just hard. It can be downright terrifying. You put a lot of work into a thing. You're not entirely sure it's gonna work out. You're taking a huge leap of faith. I've started a few things. Now I know I was right for believing in, you know, the idea, the product, despite all of those fears and hesitations. But boy, does it sure help when you have a partner like Shopify on your side. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 of all e commerce in The US. From household names like, well, hacked podcasts merch, to brands just getting started, you can get started with your own design studio with hundreds of ready to use templates. Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. Did I mention that that iconic purple shop pay button that's used by millions of businesses around the world? I don't know why I wouldn't. I should. It's why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet. It also helps boost conversions, meaning less carts, sort of getting abandoned in the parking lot, and more sales for you. It's time to turn those what ifs into sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com/hacked. Go to shopify.com/hacked. One more time, that's shopify.com/hacked.

Speaker 3: Thinking about refreshing the carpet in your home? Now's the time to do it. For a limited time at the Home Depot, get 10% off installed carpet projects on trusted trusted brands like Lifeproof, Lifeproof with PetProof Technology, Home Decorators Collection, and Traffic Master. Plus, with installation starting at just 49¢ per square foot, upgrading your space is more affordable than ever at The Home Depot. Offer valid, 06/11/2026 through 06/28/2026. Exclusions apply. For licenses, see homedepot.com/ license numbers.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So did you hear about what happened in Iran?

Speaker 1: Hit me.

Speaker 2: They created an app, and they, you know, send it out to tens of millions of Iranians, through kind of, I think, a notification system. And the app was supposed to be able to diagnose whether you had COVID or corona or not. But in reality, all it did was immediately send your location to the government.

Speaker 1: You've got to be kidding me.

Speaker 2: Apparent apparently. And they literally use their, like, national broadcast system to notify everybody To say, hey. Go download this.

Speaker 1: Why would the Iranian government want to know people's location? I mean, I in general and specifically when it comes to coronavirus, that doesn't seem like that doesn't seem like the most useful data point for the government to have.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I have no idea what their end goal was, but, apparently, that's what it did.

Speaker 1: Maybe they're just thinking ahead. Maybe they're not on the other side of this. It sure would be great to have some malware on everybody's phone, and this seems like a great opportunity to do it.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Let's let's take this opportunity that's been given to us in this crisis and leverage it to just deploy massive amounts of malware.

Speaker 1: So on one hand, you've got, a government that is actively distributing malware. On the other hand, you have a government that, I mean, China, like, credit where credit is due, their response in Wuhan has been, massive and historic, and it seems to be actually working. But they're still kinda on their same old, you know, same old bullshit, unnecessarily censoring and monitoring a whole whack of people. So what does this tell us about our relationship with the Internet? When something like this goes down, does it really reinforce this idea that this is a utility, and it needs to be reliable and trustworthy?

Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, it's it's become our medium for communication.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Like, look at what we're doing right now. We're making this podcast over the Internet, which is for at first for us, but I know many podcasts record like this. But, you know, it's it's our access to information. It's our access to data. It's our access to entertainment. It's our access to food ordering. It's our access to news and update. It's I don't know. It's our access to everything at this point. You know, our devices aren't the Internet. They're just ways to access the Internet. You know, our TVs are on it. Our fridges are not. Our phones are not. Our computers are on it. The Internet is just the the glue that connects us all at this point, I feel, and it's like, that's just showing how much of a necessity it is. Mhmm. So now I think we're we're getting into the shelter, food, water, and Internet set of Markov's.

Speaker 1: Who's Markov? Is

Speaker 2: that right? Markov's?

Speaker 1: Maslow? You

Speaker 2: should know this. Maslow? Maslow. Marketing, we should know this.

Speaker 1: Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Right?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Maslow's hierarchy of need. Did I get them right? Probably not.

Speaker 1: Oh, man. You were cruising into such a nice ending of the episode. Like, you you were like Usain Bolting across the finish line, and then someone just, like, just tied your shoelaces together.

Speaker 2: Yeah. It's called me not knowing what I was talking about. It's what tied my shoelaces together.

Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, everybody. Keen eared listeners might have noticed, didn't put any spooky music kinda in the background because the whole world feels like it has spooky background music. Next week, we're gonna be back on our typical cybercrime beat. Check us out on Twitter at hacked podcast. And if you like the show, find us on Patreon, patreon.com/hackedpodcast.

Speaker 4: Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. You get unlimited five g data and hotspot designed to keep you connected. All powered by Verizon's five g network. Plans start at $25 a month or get the premium Visible plus pro plan and save $10 on your first month with promo code hack. Tap the banner to switch today. Terms apply. See visible.com for plan features and network management details.

Speaker 5: When he was at the other schools, they didn't understand him. He seemed checked out. After switching to Connections Academy, he's back to being Ryan. I'm just so grateful to have my son back.

Speaker 1: Learn more about Connections Academy online public school at connectionsacademy.com.

Speaker 6: Have no fear. Chosen Foods is here to defend your favorite foods from the forces of seedy oils and sketchy ingredients. With cooking oils, salad dressings, and mayo, all powered by the good fats from 100% pure avocado oil and simple delicious ingredients. Chosen Foods.