HKChronicles () is a pro-Hong Kong democracy doxing website which details the personal information of

Hong Kong police officers Hong may refer to: Places *Høng, a town in Denmark *Hong Kong, a city and a special administrative region in China *Hong, Nigeria *Hong River in China and Vietnam *Lake Hong in China Surnames *Hong (Chinese surname) *Hong (Korean surname) O ...

and

pro-Beijing The pro-Beijing camp, pro-establishment camp or pro-China camp is a political alignment in Hong Kong which generally supports the policies of the Beijing central government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) towards Hong Kong. The term " ...

individuals. It was created by Naomi Chan, an 18-year-old high school student who is also the chief editor of the site.

Data

There are various data listed in HKChronicles: *

Pro-democracy Democratization, or democratisation, is the structural government transition from an authoritarian government to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. Whether and to what ...

articles * Documents allegations of excessive

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

force * Personal information of pro-Beijing individuals and police, including mobile phone numbers and pictures (updated regularly) * "Yellow" shops which supported the pro-democracy movement

Blockage in Hong Kong

On January 7, 2021, the website owner, Naomi Chan said she has received reports from users in Hong Kong that the website was inaccessible when using certain local Internet Service Providers (ISP), including

Smartone SmarTone Telecommunications Holdings Limited (0315.HK), listed in Hong Kong since 1996 and a subsidiary of Sun Hung Kai Properties Limited, is a leading telecommunications provider with operating subsidiaries in Hong Kong, offering voice, multi ...

CMHK China Mobile Hong Kong Company Limited or CMHK (), is a wholly owned subsidiary of China Mobile. The company was incepted in January 1997 and was the first PCS operator to launch such services in Hong Kong. CMHK is currently the largest telecom ...

, and

PCCW PCCW Limited (formerly known as Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited) is a Hong Kong–based information and communication technology (ICT) and telecommunications company. The company is the major owner of telecommunications company HKT Limited, ...

. Several local news reporters confirmed that the site couldn't be accessed within the city. The

Hong Kong police The Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) is the primary law enforcement, investigative agency, and largest Hong Kong Disciplined Services, disciplined service under the Security Bureau (Hong Kong), Security Bureau of Hong Kong. Pursuant to the one c ...

refused to comment on the blockage. However, in a statement, they said they "could require service providers to take restrictive actions against messages posted on digital platforms, which likely constitute the offense of endangering national security or incite a national security offense."

Hong Kong Broadband Network HKBN Ltd., commonly known for its subsidiary Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited (), is a Hong Kong–based Internet, communication and telecommunication company. HKBN was established on 23 August 1999, it is one of the largest residential and ...

, one of the biggest mobile telecom companies in Hong Kong, said they have disabled access to the website to comply with the requirement issued under the

Hong Kong National Security Law Hong Kong national security legislation may refer to one of the following laws/bills: Laws in force * Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, 2020 national law of C ...

on 13 January 2021.

South China Morning Post The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remaine ...

reported that the

Hong Kong Police Force The Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) is the primary law enforcement, investigative agency, and largest Hong Kong Disciplined Services, disciplined service under the Security Bureau (Hong Kong), Security Bureau of Hong Kong. Pursuant to the one c ...

has cited Article 43 of the

Hong Kong National Security law Hong Kong national security legislation may refer to one of the following laws/bills: Laws in force * Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, 2020 national law of C ...

to block HKChronicles according to an unnamed source. It is believed that the site has been permanently blocked by citing the article.

Block methods

Most of the ISPs used a method of IP blocking in early January 2021. However, this blocked hundreds of unrelated websites as the website was routing its traffic through CloudFlare, thus sharing the same IP addresses with the affected websites. Later, it was reported that ISPs changed to

DNS poisoning DNS spoofing, also referred to as DNS cache poisoning, is a form of computer security hacking in which corrupt Domain Name System data is introduced into the DNS resolver's cache, causing the name server to return an incorrect result record, e. ...

. HKChronicles said users might be able to circumvent the blockage by changing their DNS addresses to that of

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

's or

Cloudflare Cloudflare, Inc., is an American company that provides content delivery network services, cybersecurity, DDoS mitigation, wide area network services, reverse proxies, Domain Name Service, ICANN-accredited domain registration, and other se ...

's, though it recommends using a

VPN Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not c ...

Blockage in Macau

In March 2021, some

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

citizens reported that the site couldn't be reached.

References

External links