Toxic Positivity (2023)
有毒正能量

When learning about the communication and networking technologies with media artist Sarah Grant and Danja Vasiliev during my visit at Studio Weise7 in Berlin, I was faciniated by a lot of fun works The Critical Engineering Working Group has done in the past, such as the Men In Grey (2009-2014), and the Newstweek (2011).

此項目為在柏林參訪前衛藝術家團體所經營的 Studio Weise7 時，在藝術家夫妻Sarah Grant 與 Danja Vasiliev 的技術協助下所完成的一件作品。




My interest lies in the potential manipulation of information transmitted over insecure network connections. While the switch from "http" to "https" has made data manipulation more challenging in recent years, certain loopholes remain. Surprisingly, upon conducting a Google search, I discovered that many of the top 100 unsecured websites are linked to the Chinese Communist Party - including the official government site, the People's Daily, and Baidu, China's equivalent of Google. The reasons behind this trend remain unclear.

身為一個千禧世代，我對於駭入不安全網絡連接中來傳輸信息一直都抱有幻想。雖然近年大部分網頁都從「http」升級到了「https」讓駭進系統進行數據操縱變得更具挑戰性。令人驚訝的是，在進行一陣Google搜尋後，我發現世界排名前100的不安全網站有過半都與中國共產黨有關，其中包括官方政府網站《人民日報》和中國的Google：百度。這一趨勢背後的原因不明。 

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With the help from Studio Weise7, I learned to utilize Raspberry Pi as a Wi-Fi antenna, and using Squid and Privoxy to filter words and links people can access on the Wi-Fi connection.

在 Studio Weise7 的幫助下，我學會了利用 Raspberry Pi 作為 Wi-Fi天線，並使用 Squid 和 Privoxy 來過濾人們在 Wi-Fi連接上的網站並對內容操作後台竄改。

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Despite functioning as a regular free Wi-Fi, this network alters user data when accessing unsecured websites, such as the People's Daily - the principal news media outlet controlled by the Chinese government. My initial steps involved redirecting hyperlinks on the People's Daily front page, ones lauding Xi Jinping's achievements, towards the Human Rights Watch's online report detailing Xi's human rights violations over the past year.

儘管我所架設的這個公共網絡像普通免費Wi-Fi一樣運行，但在訪問不安全網站（http）時會在後台改變用戶數據。在這裡舉個例子，若是使用我所架設的公共Wifi連上《人民日報》官網，當點擊官網上任何讚揚習近平的成就超鏈結時，訪問者將被重定向到人權觀察組織的在線報告，該報告詳細介紹了習近平在過去一年中的人權侵犯行為。


Upon noticing the disproportionately high mentions of "China" and "U.S." on Chinese government-controlled websites, I decided to subtly manipulate the narrative. Simply by swapping all mentions of "China" with "Taiwan" and "U.S." with "China", I completely transformed the news context. This marked my first successful venture into the spread of fabricated news. Consequently, site visitors will not see the original text, but my modified version as illustrated below.

除此之外，在注意到中國政府控制的網站上提到「中國」和「美國」的比例異常高後，我決定悄悄「修改」敘事。好比說，通過簡單的將所有網站所提到的「中國」換成「台灣」，且將「美國」換成「中國」，我徹底改變了新聞的語境，進而成功進行假新聞的傳播。使用我所提供的免費Wifi使用者在訪問這些網站時將不會看到原始文本，而是看到如下所示的修改過後的版本。

原始新聞： 「中國在國際舞台上扮演著越來越重要的角色，美國的政策需要加強對中國的關注。」

透過我所架設Wifi所看到的新聞： 「台灣在國際舞台上扮演著越來越重要的角色，中國的政策需要加強對台灣的關注。」

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Conceptually, I was pleased with the outcome, demonstrating the ease with which the news and information we receive can be altered seamlessly. Yet, for a touch of whimsy and exhibition purposes, I introduced a harmless but noticeable modification: transforming all instances of "Xi" into "Winnie-the-Pooh."

在概念上，我對上述的結果感到滿意，它展示了我們接收到的新聞和信息可以輕易地被無縫修改。然而，為了增加趣味性和展示的目的，在公開的展覽中，我引入了另一個無害但明顯的修改：我的Wifi將所有提到「習近平」的地方改成「小熊維尼」。範例請看下圖。
*Winnie-the-Pooh was famously being soft-banned in China after Xi was memed into Pooh in 2017. There are several famous cases of people and companies got into serious troubled after poking this harmelss joke. It is unclear to me why, as Pooh is a well-loved character, and Xi wants to be loved, too.

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The creation and user interaction with this project brought me great amusement. It's curious how many Chinese government sites remain unencrypted, particularly when I discovered a 2014 article on one such site extolling the virtues of encryption. The situation remains a mystery.

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