Five electronic devices presented as gifts to Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng by purported US supporters were secretly loaded with software intended to spy on the blind dissident, according to Jerome Cohen, an NYU professor who has been his mentor.
Chen — who got an NYU fellowship when he arrived in May 2012, only to see it ended by the school last week — received an iPad and at least one smartphone with secret programs to track his movements and communications, Cohen said.
NYU technicians found the spyware.
Among Chen's first visitors to his Greenwich Village apartment was Heidi Cai, the wife of activist Bob Fu. She brought an iPad and an iPhone as gifts.
AFP/Getty Images
INTRIGUE: Chen Guangcheng, who fled to New York from China, received the spyware-laden gifts from purported supporters, his mentor says.
The devices were screened by the NYU techs within a few days and were found to have been loaded with spyware.
"These people supposedly were out to help him and they give him a kind of Trojan horse that would have enabled them to monitor his communications secretly," said Cohen.
The iPad was cleaned up and returned to Chen at his request.
"This is the first time I've heard of spyware," said Fu, who called the allegations "ridiculous" and "like an 007 thing."
"We knew that the first thing after they arrived, they'd want to call their family members, so we wanted to provide communication devices, iPhone and iPad," Fu said.
Later, surveillance programs were found on three additional devices given to Chen, a second source said.
Both Cohen and the source believe the spyware was deliberately installed.
The snooping programs allowed a third party to secretly connect to an internal GPS — turning a gadget into a tracking device.
There was also hidden, password-protected software that backed up the contents to a remote server, the source added.
Cohen and the second source said that when Chen was told that people he believed to be his supporters were very likely spying on him, the dissident became "furious" and "very upset."
Chen came to New York after making a dramatic escape from house arrest to the US Embassy in China.
Last week, Chen said that NYU bowed to China by ending the fellowship.
His supporters suggested that the university was wary of displeasing the Chinese authorities because of its plans for a campus in Shanghai.
The school strongly denied the allegations, and said the fellowship had always been intended last only a year.
NYU also declined to discuss specifics of the spyware.
"I do remember hearing about it," said spokesman John Beckman.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click For Restrictions
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