How China's Expanding Surveillance Allows the State to Tighten Its Grip (buffalonews.com) 94
"China's ambition to collect a staggering amount of personal data from everyday citizens is more expansive than previously known," reports the New York Times, after their Visual Investigations team with reporters in Asia "spent more than a year analyzing more than 100,000 government bidding documents."
The Chinese government's goal is clear: designing a system to maximize what the state can find out about a person's identity, activities and social connections.... The Times analysis found that the police strategically chose locations to maximize the amount of data their facial recognition cameras could collect.... The police also wanted to install facial recognition cameras inside private spaces, like residential buildings, karaoke lounges and hotels. In the police's own words, the strategy to upgrade their video surveillance system was to achieve the ultimate goal of "controlling and managing people."
Authorities are using phone trackers to link people's digital lives to their physical movements. Devices known as Wi-Fi sniffers and IMSI catchers can glean information from phones in their vicinity, which allow the police to track a target's movements... In a 2017 bidding document from Beijing, the police wrote that they wanted the trackers to collect phone owners' usernames on popular Chinese social media apps.... As of today, all 31 of mainland China's provinces and regions use phone trackers.
DNA, iris scan samples and voice prints are being collected indiscriminately from people with no connection to crime. The police in China are starting to collect voice prints using sound recorders attached to their facial recognition cameras. In the southeast city of Zhongshan, the police wrote in a bidding document that they wanted devices that could record audio from at least a 300-foot radius around cameras. Software would then analyze the voice prints and add them to a database. Police boasted that when combined with facial analysis, they could help pinpoint suspects faster.
The Times also created a separate video summarizing the results of their investigation.
And their article notes estimates that more than half the world's 1 billion surveillance cameras are already in China — but there's more information to be gathered. One of China's largest surveillance contractors also pitched software that to the government displays a person's "movements, clothing, vehicles, mobile device information and social connections," according to the Times. "The Times investigation found that this product was already being used by Chinese police."
Thanks to Slashdot reader nray for sharing the story.
Authorities are using phone trackers to link people's digital lives to their physical movements. Devices known as Wi-Fi sniffers and IMSI catchers can glean information from phones in their vicinity, which allow the police to track a target's movements... In a 2017 bidding document from Beijing, the police wrote that they wanted the trackers to collect phone owners' usernames on popular Chinese social media apps.... As of today, all 31 of mainland China's provinces and regions use phone trackers.
DNA, iris scan samples and voice prints are being collected indiscriminately from people with no connection to crime. The police in China are starting to collect voice prints using sound recorders attached to their facial recognition cameras. In the southeast city of Zhongshan, the police wrote in a bidding document that they wanted devices that could record audio from at least a 300-foot radius around cameras. Software would then analyze the voice prints and add them to a database. Police boasted that when combined with facial analysis, they could help pinpoint suspects faster.
The Times also created a separate video summarizing the results of their investigation.
And their article notes estimates that more than half the world's 1 billion surveillance cameras are already in China — but there's more information to be gathered. One of China's largest surveillance contractors also pitched software that to the government displays a person's "movements, clothing, vehicles, mobile device information and social connections," according to the Times. "The Times investigation found that this product was already being used by Chinese police."
Thanks to Slashdot reader nray for sharing the story.
No Worries! (Score:5, Funny)
Ours is properly done, not by government but by good companies like Facebook and Microsoft.
So we don't have to worry about anything!
(That's sarcasm for who didn't get that...)
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That's surveillance capitalism, "centered around the capture and commodification of personal data for the core purpose of profit-making". Obviously bad for most of us, but not the same as the motivation of the Chinese government.
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Long as you leave out the "I'm getting something for free" then yeah social media are the bad guys. What are the Chinese people getting from their government for all the collecting done?
Re: No Worries! (Score:2)
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If you already have all the data, and a legal system that doesn't restrict its use, it's much easier to stamp out petty crime. I wouldn't exactly call it a fair trade, but there are some things authoritarianism does well.
It's important to recognize the legitimate benefits of a surveillance state so we can recognize when they're being used to sell the public more than they bargained for.
There are two huge problems with this line of thinking: First, all governments, but arguably more so with authoritarian ones, struggle with fairness. There is corruption in Western governments, and arguably more corruption in authoritarian ones because there are fewer structural restraints. It's not inconceivable that authoritarian governments with perfect observability into crime will pick and choose the perceived enemies to punish and the perceived friends to reward/shield. Second, perfectly accurate
Re: No Worries! (Score:1)
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"There is corruption in Western governments, and arguably more corruption in authoritarian ones because there are fewer structural restraints."
I take issue with that. What are the 'structural restraints' in an authoritarian system? Do you claim there is some kind of code of conduct that can be enforced? It seems like the opposite to me. In democracies there is at least a putative rule of law.
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Did you mentally add a "than" to GP's post? They are saying corruption in Western governments is nonzero. And that corruption in authoritarian governments is "arguably more" than that "because there are fewer structural restraints."
Unless your complaint is that authoritarian systems have no structural restraints (versus "fewer"), I think you're saying the same thing.
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I think you are correct, I misread the statement.
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Fair trade, I think.
Re: No Worries! (Score:3)
Re: No Worries! (Score:3)
Of course things are going to be slanted. We're talking about the Chinese!
Re: No Worries! (Score:3)
Yeah, safe as long as you don't piss off the govt, search for things they don't like, say anything they don't like, etc.
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You don't think that our TLAs won't buy a copy of that data from Google/Microsoft/Facebook? And these companies won't happily sell it (that good old profit motivation)? Or maybe not so happily, but if they know what's good for them?
not the same as the motivation of the Chinese government
So far.
To date, most of the surveillance our government does of its own citizens is for the purpose of counterintelligence. And in these cases, they are quite thorough. But many of the subjects of this will never know*. Most are unwitting participants in foreign espionage and/or
Re: No Worries! (Score:2)
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It is meaningfully different from the pervasive face recognition, cellphone tracking, DNA, iris scan samples and voice prints happening in China. Not to say none of that is being done in the US, but it is limited and there is pushback.
"more than half the world's 1 billion surveillance cameras are already in China".
Re:No Worries! (Score:4, Interesting)
Ours is properly done, not by government but by good companies like Facebook and Microsoft.
While I appreciate the humour and the truth in that, the level of state surveillance in the PRC is stunning. Facebook and Microsoft are pathetic amateurs.
What ever happened to China's (via Huawei) proposed upgrades to the internet which would ensure every packet is traceable to its origin, and that every individual's access is centrally controlled by the government? [justsecurity.org]
Re:No Worries! (Score:5, Informative)
the level of state surveillance in the PRC is stunning. Facebook and Microsoft are pathetic amateurs.
Microsoft's spyware is just as good as China's. The difference is that in this country the government tries to hide spying behind parallel construction, while in China they give no fucks.
What ever happened to China's (via Huawei) proposed upgrades to the internet which would ensure every packet is traceable to its origin, and that every individual's access is centrally controlled by the government?
It's right here [huawei.com]. They are calling it IPv6+ even though it is just IPv6 with more spying, and zero protocol enhancements...
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AFAIK, IPv6+ is one part of a more comprehensive "New IP" plan which I can't find on the Huawei site any more.
As reprehensible as the activities of FB and MS may be, they don't have ubiquitous access to everyone's lives and they don't use digital social scorecards to control individuals' ability to travel, communicate, and maintain the necessities of life.
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Right, you need to add in Apple and Google for that, and they are both known to be participants (willing or otherwise) in the PRISM program. Between these three companies and Amazon you have literally all of most people's computing activity.
Re:No Worries! (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that corporate privacy violations are real and a huge concern but the PRC surveillance and control is on another level completely. I don't lose my ability to travel, rent an apartment, or get a job if I go around muttering "Biden is senile" or "Trump is a con man".
Usual worst case is I get modded 'troll' on /., and I get some flame responses in my mail.
And yes, we have companies that gather and correlate information in astounding ways but we have some ability to shine a light in the dark corners and we are able to debate the issues largely without fear of state sanctioned reprisal.
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The PRC's level of control is much higher, yes. But surveillance? Not so much. The USA has more cameras per capita than China does, and we absolutely, positively have a mass warrantless citizen spying system that covers essentially all phone calls, emails, and frankly literally anything you're doing on at least a Windows PC if they decide to target you... which is easier than ever before since it's so difficult to avoid having a Microsoft account.
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Not just higher control; magnitudes higher control. Not just digital surveillance but complete and total intrusion into each and every individual person's life with evil intent towards anyone who expresses incorrect thoughts.
We aren't there, not even close, but we could be.
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We're hauling ass in that direction right now.
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You can't seriously compare the freedom of speech that exists in the world's democratic nations to what exists in the PRC or other single party/single ruler states.
Individual cases of discrimination vs state thought control. Give your balls a tug.
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Right you are there Xi J.
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I always assume that the US and China are trading data, too. Whether directly or not, the majority of data the Chinese have on us and the data we have on Chinese nationals is assuredly making it across the great firewall — because there are ready customers for both, not least the government agencies themselves.
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the Chinese have been very busy over the years probing & hacking US & EU data farms to get useful information about how our economic & political systems are actually run, i.e. Who they need to target & how in order to get what they want.
They must be spectacular idiots then, because you can just read the news to figure out who the principals are, then look all that shit up in public records.
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Fascism involves blending (Score:3)
Re:Fascism involves blending (Score:5, Interesting)
Fascism involves blending State and corporate interests. As our country is allowed to become more fascist you'll see more and more overlap between the two.
Like how the USDoJ had Microsoft over a barrel and then Bush's AG John Ashcroft declared that it wasn't in our best interest to prosecute them? And then Gates got to put his ill-gotten gains into his bogus foundation, and Windows became the worst spyware of all time?
And they wonder (Score:2)
I bet their crime levels are pretty low (Score:2)
or their crooks are world leaders in what they do.
Aided by US Tech companies (Score:4, Informative)
The Chinese government would like to thank all of the American tech companies that helped build those surveillance capabilities.
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Here in America we just overturned Roe v Wade (Score:1, Insightful)
If you do a Google search for abortion and cryptography you'll find articles expl
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We know it has been today, but we would like to know the precise time. Was it before or after noon ?
It wasn't mine (Score:3)
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Yeah, apparently a lot of people in the US really want to go back to the dark ages. Because things were going so well back then.
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The Mississippi abortion law is 15 weeks, which is less strict than most European countries [infogram.com]
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And Missouri just banned almost all abortions under any circumstances via a trigger law which is more restrictive than 95% of Europe so it's a bit more nuanced.
If the matter was just "what's the time cutoff" this would be a much different debate in the US as that's pretty much what we already had under Roe/Casey which set the law at around 22 weeks and a large majority happen within 14 weeks and something like 70% of those are even earlier being performed with just a pharmaceutical.
Nobody is up in arms righ
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That page is essentially false though. There is an exemption, in most of the countries classified as strict, for safeguarding the mental health of the mother. In fact Roe v. Wade was structured like that too. You have to look at strictness of enforcement.
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This meant that we created our Senate specifically to Grant excessive voting power to rural voters with the excuse that it would protect minori
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If our country survives what's actually going to happen is the rural communities are going to empty out because there's no jobs there and the problem will solve itself through demographics.
That doesn't solve the problem, though, because of that same system. If people leave those states, more leavers than stayers will likely be blue voters, and the main result is that the people who stay will get even more voting power — they might lose house seats, but they won't lose any in the senate obviously.
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If people leave those states, more leavers than stayers will likely be blue voters, and the main result is that the people who stay will get even more voting power â" they might lose house seats, but they won't lose any in the senate obviously.
House votes are commensurate with electoral votes.
I.e. Low-pop states will in the long run become irrelevant as far as presidential elections are concerned and less money will be spent on those states in general.
So, again in the log run, Senate itself will become irrelevant as senators will be cheap to buy with laws or subsidies, while more power will be given to the House and the President.
But that's an "at least" a two-generation thing.
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They will still get outsized representation because that's how the system is designed. I forget the numbers, but if the smallest state had 1 rep and the relationship was meant to be fair then California would need more than it would get from those states giving them up. You'd have to add a bunch of reps to even have it be proportional. So best case it would only be less unbalanced than it is now.
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I don't see the Senate going away, it's just too baked into our ethos and there are some (not enough imo but some) good reasons it was put there.
However, the fact that small states get both The Senate and the Electoral College at this pint is the bullshit part. That is too much and the electoral college has far shakier ground to stand on. It applies to only one office in the country and if it never existed it would have only changed the outcome of like 6 elections, so let's not act like doing away with i
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If our country survives what's actually going to happen is the rural communities are going to empty out because there's no jobs there and the problem will solve itself through demographics.
With the pandemic, the quality of remote working tools, and the acceptance of remote work, have become commonplace; many people can work from anywhere. If anything, with the growth of renewable energy and the coming of driverless cars, more people are going to move further out for quality of life.
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Marriage equality is going to go right out the door. Right to be gay will be next and sodomy laws will be back on the books.
I will gladly put money down that that won't happen; if you're interested, I'll look into political betting sites and we can figure out the wording.
When that happens we'll have Soviet style food shortages.
These came about from authoritarian control, leaving aside economics. Overturning Roe v. Wade is the opposite; this was the federal government ceding control; the opposite of authoritarianism. This was a bad legal precedent, and it should have been codified into law decades ago, but the blue team got too many votes by threatening people with the current outcome
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The only thing I don't understand is why they're overturning a handgun carry law at the same time. I'd have thought they'd want to separate those things. Weird. Maybe I'm wrong and they go together in some way other than that they are both things that roughly the same groups have wanted for a long time now, or maybe the leak altered their timeline. Although to be frank, I don't believe in a leak, except a deliberate one.
Re: Here in America we just overturned Roe v Wade (Score:2)
Gonna need a bigger closet.
Soo, they want to kill their country then? (Score:3)
Because if they ever get there and use that data, they will loose every independent thinker, everybody with initiative and everybody that has an imagination. That is a death-sentence to the economy.
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They already have done that. That's why China produces more bogus scientific papers than any other nation, and also why China is dependent on industrial espionage for scientific advancement. The shortest distance away they pushed their innovative free thinkers is Taiwan.
USA will loose thinkers too (Score:2)
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If increased China bashing leads to more Asian racism, then Chinese Americans fed up or feeling unsafe will move to China, Taiwan or Singapore.
Regarding China accurately may well lead to more expressions of Asian racism by emboldened racists, and that is unfortunate. It won't change any basic facts about China, though.
However, Chinese Americans feeling unsafe don't seem likely to move back to China. They and/or their family left for a reason, and whatever that reason was, it will still apply today.
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No doubt there will be some who are in exceptional circumstances, and can expect decent treatment. But then again, as your own citation shows, that's only if they're not just special, but beyond reproach.
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If increased China bashing leads to more Asian racism, then Chinese Americans fed up or feeling unsafe will move to China, Taiwan or Singapore.
If people want to bash Chinese Americans simply because of their Chinese origins...what does that say about the poor quality of education held by those bashers?
All of the Chinese Americans that I know (a very large extended family) were either: (1) born in the USA; or, (2) born on the island of Taiwan; or, (3) born in Mainland China.
Regardless of their place of birth...all of the Chinese Americans that I know choose to self-identify with Chinese living in Taiwan, not Mainland China.
Their reason for their se
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There's kinds of analytical, critical & creative thinking other than, "Big gubbermint bad, mmmkay?"
Well, to me that is clear but apparently you feel a need to point pit the obvious. The problem is that most people critical for R&D and getting things done actually see the reality of things and need to in order to do what they do. If that reality is then made taboo, these people run into problems that often get more severe over time. Eventually many of these people leave or fall into disgrace and that is the problem. It manifests itself slowly over time, but eventually it kills most of the economy. The
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The main issue is how this will affect the Chinese political system, rates of corruption, in/efficiency, flexibility/adaptability, & their leaders' ability to introspect & ask difficult questions of themselves. How's that going in the USA?
The USA and China are the biggest contributors to the biggest existential threat. You are headed for destruction, make your time. The USA intelligence/security TLAs are always bitching about how they can't get the best people though, and it's for two reasons. One, shit pay. Two, hard authoritarianism. Consequently you're only going to get the biggest zealots and the biggest idiots, i.e. the people who can't comprehend the ramifications of their actions.
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It's not feudalism yet, but it's on the way. This is still just oligarchy. If the federal government collapses though, then we'll go back to feudalism, and it will be the distributed nations of Nabisco, Exxon, Diversey-Lever and so on. See Also: Snow Crash :D
It will affect more than the thinkers (Score:2)
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You think they need innovators, free thinkers and people with initiative to keep up with us? LOL. All they need is good thieves, and they've got them.
Our governments need to reassess (Score:3)
The popular song by corporations has been, "If Free World governments let us deal with China (and make a ton of money), our democracy-oriented culture will make China more free. Instead, the exact opposite is happening. Corporations and the Free World governments they influence are becoming more intrusive, more contemptuous of the rights of citizens, more inclined to treat us all as merely cogs in their great profit-generating machines.
We need to get back control of our governments, and refuse to let corporations deal with China on its terms. They need us more than we need them.
The new oppression model (Score:2)
The new oppression is better. Less “dissolve dissidents in acid” and more”monitor their internet and control without direct violence”. Russia is sort of straddling the line between old and new models, and
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Sure, China's not dissolving anyone in acid these days. They leave the Bond villain shit up to NK. They are breaking them up for parts [wikipedia.org] instead.
Organlegging [sf-encyclopedia.com] is real, and the Chinese government is doing it.
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US GDP: 6033 giga$
But, in terms of purchasing power parity, China is actually a tad ahead: 1.18x of US.
chinese workforce: 820 million. us workforce: 155 million.
So its even worse than I stated. It takes roughly 5 chinese workers to produce the same amount of stuff that a single US worker does.
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Sorry, these numbers show that a worker in China, on average across the board, is doing the equivalent of 0.2-0.25 American workers. Thats the exact opposite of efficiency. It pr
Sounds familiar (Score:2)
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China has more cameras per capita than the UK, so no. The UK is an also-ran in many ways, and operating a surveillance state is only one of them. The USA is reputed to have more cameras per capita, but 8 out of the top 10 cities in the world with the largest number of surveillance cameras installed are located in China, so one could argue about whether there's more surveillance going on in one or the other.
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Idiot.
China already has more surveillance than East Germany had.
England? Yeah, we have lots of cameras, many are helping keep flow on main roads. Many more are pointed at wildlife. We're probably no different from many other developed countries.
Chinese revolution, when? (Score:2)
Humans shouldn't have to live this way.
As they say (Score:2)