Tencent requests GitHub to take down certain open-source projects related to exporting WeChat chat records, citing concerns over cracking and privacy risks

PANews, January 22 – According to The Paper, recent reports indicate that Tencent has officially sent a complaint letter to GitHub (the world's largest code hosting and collaboration platform), requesting the removal of a batch of open-source projects that "allow users to export or analyze their own WeChat chat records." Some project leaders of the more prominent projects have publicly stated that, under legal pressure, the projects have been forced to cease maintenance. On January 22, Tencent responded that some open-source projects that read WeChat chat records use reverse engineering and other methods to crack the local database keys of the WeChat client, bypassing the client's encryption measures. This threatens the data privacy and client security of users and third parties, and is highly susceptible to exploitation by malicious actors.