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China's All-Seeing Eye
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun May 18, 2008 01:22 PM
from the who-watches-the-watchers dept.
from the who-watches-the-watchers dept.
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."
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face-recognition software (Score:5, Funny)
Without a doubt, a face-recognition software in China is an incredible hi tech piece of software.
goose, gander, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:goose, gander, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:goose, gander, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
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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....
Reverse Surveillance? (Score:3, Insightful)
(Personally I would have loved to have the online Clintoncam available a few years back.)
This falls right into the same category which results in that strange coincidence whereby the people who decide who gets paid how much just coincidentally always happen to be worth the very most themselves.
Anyway. Bring on the revolution. It's starting soon I just know it...any day now...
At last! The eternal question: (Score:3, Funny)
The Brits are going to have to get serious if they want to compete on canine hygiene enforcement.
I think that it's great (Score:5, Insightful)
Either the anarchist kids who do their best to undermine society will wake up to the threat...
Lenin used the term "useful idiots" to describe the nattering spoiled brat self-proclaimed "intellectual elite" of Russia that cried for anarchism. Anarchists were quite successful in destroying Russian civil society, first attacking the wealthy capitalists, then the bourgeoisie, then the petty-bourgeoisie, and finally turning on the well-meaning social democrats.
With all opposition swept aside, Lenin took over. His first act was to line all the useful idiots against the wall.
Unfortunately for us... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:more anti-Chinese hysteria (Score:4, Insightful)
Way to show your biases, and the fact that you seemingly have never spoken to a real Chinese person.
People do not support the communist regime, and certainly do not support the tyrannical aspects of it. They do not support shooting Tibetan monks, nor do they support jailing political prisoners. People don't cheer when another freedom-fighting troublemaker is arrested, they simply accept it as a fact of life, and move on. In your twisted reality you might call that supporting the tyranny by refusing to fight back, but that's far from the truth.
Similarly, people do not generally see the Communist regime as tyrannical. After all, this is the regime that has turned China from backwater agrarian wasteland into THE industrial power of the world. It has lifted tens of millions of people out of poverty, and modernized a country that was ridiculously behind, even just two decades ago. The people have seen explosive economic growth, and the indescribable improvement in their quality of life. This is hardly tyrannical. Most everyone I know accepts that some collateral damage must be done (e.g. political prisoners, putting down unrest in brutal ways) in order for the whole to benefit.
Do you assume the Chinese are stupid, you racist fuck? My God, if we all thought like you we'd still think Blacks can't vote, and are subhuman, or some other nonsense like that. The Chinese know full well that their government lies to them every single day. They know that the state media twists everything, and most don't believe in it more than they do fairy tales. I have no doubt *some* of the state media's lies sneak through as truth, but seriously, the state media is NOT a trusted news source in China.
Your attitude sickens me. This whole "America is so superior, we can see right through obvious propaganda, but surely the simple-minded, backwards, uneducated masses in China cannot!" It reeks of the superiority complex that Western media has constantly demonstrated towards Asia.
You want to have a positive influence on Chinese people? Stop publishing ludicrously biased news. I've had the unique opportunity to look at news of the Tibetan uprising from both sides of the media, and I have to say that both sides are *equally* guilty of publishing pure bullshit. China claims that the Dalai Lama is a terrorist inciting war inside Tibet's borders, a ludicrous claim. American papers on the other hand, published a picture of "Chinese" military police brutally suppressing monks in Tibet, when it turns out that the "police" were actually Nepalese, the picture was taken in Nepal, and the Chinese had nothing to do with it. Media bias much?
Give it up, your news media is every bit as "fair and balanced" as the state news in China, and we all manufacture the same propaganda bullshit. Get off your high horse and stop assuming that your media is the paragon of unbiased truth.
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Nothng New for China (Score:3, Informative)
My point here obviously isn't to justify it but to point out that an "all seeing eye" at the very least serves the purpose of stamping out opposition to the government. Just good record keeping and census as in the case of 18th century China was enough to track down a dissenting voice.
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.
Re:Kids stuff.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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.
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Re:openness is privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
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nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
As for Schneier's criticism, first, I think his arguments is full of holes, and second, he fails to come up with a better alternative. Surveillance is happening. What are you going to do about it?
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Not all-seeing eye to eye (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I absolutely understand that. I saw him at a Computers, Freedom and Privacy [cfp.org] conference a few years back and chatted with him a little about this in the after-talk mingle, so I don't think I'm too confused about what his position is. At least I had a chance, while standing there incredulous, to ask him if he really believed that. (Those are great conferences, by the way, and there's one coming up in New Haven next week [cfp2008.org]. I don't have any clue if Brin will go, and don't much care, but there's always something good on the agenda in my experience, and I wanted to slip in a plug.)
But my point is that it has to be at least a presupposition of his (or anyone's) if you're going to entertain this as other than a philosophical exercise to say that you have to "get there from here". So they've done part of Brin's vision--my point is: How do we get them to do the rest? Because I think the problem with Brin's vision is that you can't ever under any forseeable circumstances get everyone to do the rest. The world is always going to be full of power imbalances, and there will always be someone wanting to keep it that way. So it's just a fantasy to say it could be done. That's why I pointed to this article [slashdot.org] in my prior post.
If Brin believes it's possible to motivate people to all at the same time do something in the public interest that way, first of all, his energy is better spent on getting people to all believe in Global Climate Change, because that's a much more pressing problem and affects us all and yet we can't get people to agree on that either. But either way, it's time for him to put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, and say what the next step is toward Utopia because I'm as tired of his proposed non-solution as I am of some of hearing of some of the non-solutions being pursued for Climate Change.
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Re:Not all-seeing eye to eye (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if you "absolutely understand that", then statements like "David Brin should be thrilled [about China's surveillance society]" are either deliberate misrepresentation or unacceptable carelessness.
If Brin believes it's possible to motivate people to all at the same time do something in the public interest that way
What makes you think Brin believes that? Maybe he merely believes that it is already useful to point out that there is a possibility for a solution that people hadn't considered before.
his energy is better spent on getting people to all believe in Global Climate Change, because that's a much more pressing problem and affects us all and yet we can't get people to agree on that either
Perhaps if you stuck to one big topic at a time and organized your thoughts and arguments around that, you, too, could make a contribution to the debate that is as valuable as Brin's. For even if Brin's solution turns out not to work or to be unattainable, it at least got people thinking about the subject in new ways. I don't see any contribution in your writings so far.
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Re:Not all-seeing eye to eye (Score:5, Insightful)
You leave out literary devices like sarcasm, hyperbole, and irony which require neither of those.
I didn't misrepresent what Brin says, I didn't say that much about it, other than that I don't think it's a practical situation one can get to. And if he thinks otherwise, I was suggesting the burden is on him to show why.
Well, of course, the question of whether others had considered and merely discarded it is hard to measure. But more than that, he seems to be advocating at level that says more than "this is an idea" but more at the level of "this is a good idea". I happen to have an aversion to ideas that are potentially good if implemented completely and almost certainly bad right up until the moment of total completion...especially if failing to finish completely is what I percieve as the most likely outcome.
I think this is what's behind people's clinging to the US Second Amendment, by the way. Giving away your gun if you knew for sure everyone else was going to might almost make sense, but if you thought anyone would be left who didn't, it explains why you'd be nervous. But cameras and guns are a lot similar in this regard.
To some degree, the US Second Amendment protects the right of the people to maintain enough power that if a government ran out of control, the people could fix it. But no one talks about that any more because that would mean admitting private citizens have a constitutional right to own nuclear weapons, for parity. So now citizens can own deer hunting rifles and the government can own nukes. That doesn't achieve parity. Likewise with cameras, we're all allowed a pocket camera and the government is allowed a ubiquitous network of surveillance cameras. That's not the vision Brin is offering, but it is the more likely practical effect if you roll this out. Even if the government promised to allow parity, it wouldn't happen. Exceptions would be made and anyone who tried to find those exceptions would be rounded up more quickly than they could rouse rabble.
Just saying it should happen right on its own and it's people's own fault if they don't just all decide to do it is vacuous. Like saying that the problem with crime prevention is that people don't all decide one day to be on the same side of the law.
The beauty of language, and the joy of books of fantasy, is that it's possible to construct descriptions of things that cannot be. The burden of the citizenry in a democracy is to somehow discern plans for what can be from those that cannot. I'm not criticizing Brin's ability to spin a good yarn, I'm suggesting he isn't the right person to lead the real world to Utopia.
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"they" won't do it (Score:4, Insightful)
Brin's idea is interesting in theory, but that's it. It has a major flaw:
The government will never be 100% open to its citizens. Sure, as some sort of purely philosophical thought experiment, the idea is interesting to ponder, but it has no relevance when discussing actual policy. Let me break it down further:
1. Brin is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If everyone just gave up privacy rights en masse in some Faustian bargain with the government agreeing to do the same it would be a tragic loss for the idea of liberty. To me, this is akin to the US surrendering to the USSR at the height of the Cold War.
2. Even the whole of the US would not be able to watch the government close enough all the time to check its power and ensure it was not keeping secrets or having 'private' information in some way. This incorrect assumption is at the heart of those who support CCS cameras and other privacy invading tactics: no matter how much information you have, you cannot provide total security. It works both ways...citizenry to government and government to citizenry.
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Economics of Crime Prevention (Score:5, Insightful)
Governments, including ours, "sell" these societal strategies to their citizens as crime-fighting tools. The citizens like low-cost tools because they have fantasies about their taxes going down, etc. But also, J.Q.Public probably often assumes crimes are things like stolen purses or muggers. But such uses are very "small fry" and no serious government is going to build a whole societal surveillance system for so limited a purpose.
Long ago, I had my car broken into in a major US city. When the police arrived, I asked them if they were going to fingerprint it, etc. It seemed plausible they would get some good prints. They just laughed. Only for capital crimes, they explained. It just isn't worth the time and trouble otherwise.
And probably it's only used for capital crimes because they get public exposure. That probably accounts for why there are racial disparities in which capital crimes get followed up. Even there, it is (sadly) probably not really about the severity of the crime, it is more likely about its political impact.
The real crimes, the ones that motivate a government, are those of disagreeing with who's in power in that government or what that power is being used for.
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