EXCLUSIVE: US spies on Chinese mobile phone companies, steals SMS data: Edward Snowden

The US government is stealing millions of text messages in their hacking attacks on major Chinese mobile phone companies, Edward Snowden has told the Post

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Former NSA contractor claims American agents stole millions of text messages sent by Chinese phone users, who rely heavily on SMS. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:52pm, 22 Jun 2013Updated: 7:20pm, 23 Jun 2013

The US government is hacking Chinese mobile phone companies to steal millions of text messages, Edward Snowden has told the South China Morning Post. And the former National Security Agency contractor claims he has the evidence to prove it.

The former CIA technician and NSA contractor, hiding in Hong Kong after the US sought his arrest, made the claims after revealing to the Post that the NSA had snooped on targets in Hong Kong and on the mainland.

“There’s far more than this,” Snowden said in an interview on June 12. “The NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cell phone companies to steal all of your SMS data.”

Text messaging is the most preferred communication tool in mainland China, used widely by ordinary people and government officials from formal work exchanges to small chats.

Government data show that the Chinese exchanged almost 900 billion text messages in 2012, up 2.1 per cent from the year before. China Mobile is the world’s largest mobile network carrier, with 735 million subscribers by the end of May. China Unicom, the second largest, has 258 million users. China Telecom comes in third with 172 million users.

Snowden’s leaks have rocked the international community for the past two weeks and fired up a debate about US government surveillance of citizens’ phone calls and internet browsing data without due cause.