Chinese authorities claim they can read deleted WeChat messages

China is clearly fond of its far-reaching surveillance, but it’s making some particularly boastful claims. An anti-corruption watchdog in Hefei claimed that a division in a nearby city managed to obtain a “series of deleted WeChat conversations” fro…

Deleted WeChat Messages Can Be Recovered By The Chinese Government


WeChat is a messaging app that’s almost universally used by people in China and countless users abroad. It has been revealed over the weekend that the Chinese government is capable of recovering deleted WeChat messages. While this won’t really come as a surprise to many since they have already suspected that the authorities had this type of capabilities, it’s the public acknowledgment of the capability that’s going to surprise people.

The South China Morning Post reported today that an anti-corruption commission in China’s Hefei province revealed on social media that as part of an investigation it “retrieved a series of deleted WeChat conversations from a subject.”

The post was deleted the next day but it had already been viewed by countless people by then who fully understood what it meant as well. The commission didn’t disclose how it was able to retrieve the deleted WeChat messages so there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered, such as whether there’s a backdoor or a master key that the authorities can use to access deleted messages or whether or not the encryption is strong enough.

Tencent, the company that operates WeChat, said in a statement that “WeChat does not store any chat histories — they are only stored on users’ phones and computers.”

Deleted WeChat Messages Can Be Recovered By The Chinese Government , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

10 Signs You’ve Met Your Soulmate, According To People Who Found Theirs

Don’t roll your eyes just yet.

Kathy Griffin Drops F-Bomb While Taking Back Her Apology To Trump

“This president is different and I have been through the mill and so now I’m back on the road.”

Marvel Lied To Us About ‘Avengers: Infinity War’

The “Infinity War” creators promised a “final chapter” and “permanent” deaths. That’s not what happened.

Opinion | Ada Vox Lost ‘Idol’ Because She Wasn’t The Best Singer. Period.

She wasn’t voted off because she’s a drag queen. She was voted off because she wasn’t the best voice on the show.

White House: John Kelly Is Great To Women Because He Hates Cursing Around Them

The White House said that’s evidence the chief of staff actually treats women really well.

Facebook’s new dislike button (upvote and downvote)

So Facebook has a dislike button now – only it’s shaped like an arrow. There’s one up arrow and one down arrow, and both arrows sit below comments in several areas of Facebook. Much like Reddit, comments are upvoted or downvoted, and rise or fall in large threads as such. Basically Facebook copied Reddit. I don’t think copying Reddit’s voting … Continue reading

Google Home adds Starz support, Play Movies is still absent

Starz, the network you turn to after depleting HBO’s and Showtime’s libraries, is now supported by Google Home. Thanks to this new support, Google Home owners can use Assistant to control the app, eliminating the need to manually launch the service and then navigate to the desired show. This makes Starz the seventh video service supported by Google’s home speaker, … Continue reading