China's All-Seeing Eye 213
Greg Walton brings us a lengthy story from Rolling Stone which describes China's comprehensive surveillance project, dubbed Golden Shield. The 'Great Firewall of China,' which we've discussed in the past, is but one aspect of Golden Shield. It also includes national ID cards, CCTV networks, and face-recognition software. This investigation showcases just how massive an undertaking it truly is. When finished, it will dwarf London's surveillance system. Quoting:
"Over the past two years, some 200,000 surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the city. Many are in public spaces, disguised as lampposts. The closed-circuit TV cameras will soon be connected to a single, nationwide network, an all-seeing system that will be capable of tracking and identifying anyone who comes within its range -- a project driven in part by U.S. technology and investment. Over the next three years, Chinese security executives predict they will install as many as 2 million CCTVs in Shenzhen, which would make it the most watched city in the world. (Security-crazy London boasts only half a million surveillance cameras.) ... This is the most important element of all: linking all these tools together in a massive, searchable database of names, photos, residency information, work history and biometric data. When Golden Shield is finished, there will be a photo in those databases for every person in China: 1.3 billion faces."
goose, gander, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
Whats more concerning (Score:4, Interesting)
And the most important point is.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Consider all the issues coming to light in pre-Olympic China, regarding human rights....
openness is privacy (Score:5, Interesting)
If he is, he's dead wrong. Law enforcement and the military at the top levels are operating more like totalitarian enforcers rather than protecting and serving. The operating mentality is that privacy rights of citizens only serve to impede these neo-totalitarian goals of law enforcement.
In other words, law enforcement whether it's the FBI, Chinese government, or the City of Chicago, will ALWAYS take as many rights as they can in the name of providing security. They actually think that if they can only gain a certain level of knowledge, then they will be able to control practically everything, and thereby provide "security".
These ideas must be fought on two fronts: 1. fighting for privacy in all forms. 2. seeking to change way people view what law enforcement can do.
As for what a person in the US, like me, can do for China...well, that's easy, we must be outspoken in our rejection of American companies that are making money by helping the Chinese abuse its citizens.
more anti-Chinese hysteria (Score:5, Interesting)
But the days of Mao are long gone. There was a time not so long ago when parents everywhere encouraged their children to pursue a career in the state, as a policeman or soldier or political cadre. In the socialist days, that was how you advanced, how you got a good life. The promise of wealth, power, but most of all prestige could be found in those careers. Not surprisingly, there were a lot of police and military folks in those days.
Now, though, the situation has changed. True wealth and prestige come from the market, from private enterprise, and this simple fact is not lost on anyone in China. Parents are realistic about this. They don't encourage their children to enter the police or military anymore -- and if you are Chinese or even Chinese American you know well what "encourage" means when it's being done by a Chinese parent. The policeman and soldier's life is no longer stable or guaranteed, and besides being dangerous it generates far less income for the family than an office job (or, truth be told, even one selling fruit.)
Because of this, there are not enough young Chinese entering the police force.
To put this in perspective, Beijing has 10 million residents, around 4 million migrant workers, and a likely 2 or 3 million undocumented (illegal) residents. In a city this size, a small police force simply doesn't cut it.
It's not for lack of trying, but mainland China simply does not have the infrastructure necessary to be the police state it wants to be and that the west fears it is. As Beijingers say, "guan bu zhao", there are too many people and not enough cops.
So it's not the least bit surprising that this golden shield idea is the goverment's latest fantasy, a way to keep tabs on the populace all while circumventing the increasing human resources shortage that is crippling their once formidable security force.
But that's all it is -- a fantasy.
Sure, they'll put up cameras and buy high-tech imaging software, and maybe they'll be able to maintain that infrastructure in Wang Fu Jing, Xin Tian Di, and downtown Shen Zhen. But in the rest of China -- where the bulk of the population lives -- the notion is simply untenable.
China has more than a billion people, and most of them live in small rural villages that lack sewage infrastructure and running water. The idea that the government would prioritize CCTV surveillance systems in these areas is laughable. They simply don't have the money, the experts necessary to put it up, or any of the other basic requirements for a system that size.
You simply cannot govern a billion people by force alone. Nationalist propaganda can help get people to give you the benefit of the doubt, but once people are suffering the government gets the blame whether it deserves it or not. If you don't believe me, have a chat with a Beijing taxi driver about their wages, which are set by the government. They'll give you an earful. And that's in the capital. It's worse in the provinces.
The Chinese government knows this, and they aren't fools. The polarization of wealth is a much more pressing problem on their agenda than putting up cameras, because they remember that it was precisely a wealthy upper class stomping on the rural poor that put them into power in the first place.
The Awful Burden of Overcapacity (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, who can blame them really? They've got to be preparing to do something with all that high tech manufacturing capacity they've got once the economic bottom falls out of the US purchasing market.
I can hardly wait to find out how the analogous situation in the robot manufacturing area plays out. Fortunately, with all those 200,000 cameras, I should have no trouble sitting back and watching it on TV. Robots can't move across water can they? No, probably only in science fiction [slashdot.org].
Ok, that's silly. No one would ever do anything bad with robots. Let's just stick to the issue of cameras and overcapacity...
Is this project at least "green"? Have they at least planned for environmentally friendly ways of disposing of this many cameras when version 2.0 comes along? Well, maybe the US can by them second-hand as part of some sort of secret arms deal when it hasn't the money to buy them nor the factories to make them. Reduce, reuse, recycle... It's a grand tradition in the international weapons market, which in some ways seems to have pioneered the whole "green" movement now that I think about it. But, oh, that's right. Cameras aren't weapons. Never mind.
Convert any society into a tool. 5 Easy Steps! (Score:2, Interesting)
2. Implement a system to track the populations activities and communications, automatically approximating individual allegiances and beliefs.
4. Obfuscate justice process, then gradually and subtly modify it in such a way as to discourage dissent, and encourage blind allegiance. Making use of information gleaned from step two justify all changes using system implemented in step one
5. use your new self-subjugating population as a tool to do your bidding
Re:more anti-Chinese hysteria (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.anti-cnn.com/
http://www.dalai-liar.com/
For Chinese nationalism see the (L) China MSN messenger phenomena or read some of the responses from Chinese people at sites like:
http://posts.people.com.cn/bbs_new/filepool/htdoc/html/d0ed2c5a86b8b5e934d38248df9110b8dc53815a/b3312173/l_3312173_1.html
Also see incidents like:
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6552508.html
For China's 'openness' in Tibet to reporters see:
http://shanghaiist.com/2008/03/28/young_tibetan_m.php
Re:openness is privacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe just a census tool? (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I don't mind the accumulation of data. I don't even mind that there is some organization watching my every move.
This type of surveillance isn't about individuals however. It's about population analysis... cultural trends, etc. It's certainly not about policing... there is ample evidence that widespread surveillance doesn't work against criminals who are aware of it.