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China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

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Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#141

Post by smnrchrds »

woodandsteel wrote: post #131
bilbo0s wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...Whether or not those attacks are done by terrorists, or oppressed minorities, I have no comments...." ??? If "...oppressed minorities..." commit acts wherein "...hundreds of innocent people were killed..." aren't they "terrorists"? Or am I thinking about this whole thing wrong?

A more neutral definition of terrorism is that it is organized violence for a political end that is directed largely at the population in order to make them feel fear. This is in contrast to usual military action, which is directed mainly at the military on the other side.

Under this definition, were Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings acts of war or terrorism? I am sure many military actions conducted today, even those by US and allies would fall under your definition of terrorism.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#142

Post by oh_sigh »

gurkendoktor wrote: post #52
stevenjohns wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently traveled to China and went to a fairly remote area dominated by Uyghurs and didn't see anything that would indicate that level of oppression. They seemed quite free to do what they wanted to between themselves (such as buying a knife) although I imagine their political rights wouldn't be very strong.

On a meta-note, this seems to apply to every aspect of Chinese surveillance/repression. Every time someone here reports that a website is blocked in China, someone else will reply that it works for them.

Maybe the great firewall is more akin to WSJs article-viewing mechanism(that was recently featured on HN)?

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#143

Post by librexpr »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #108
pentae wrote: post #99

So can anyone tell me why we should support what China is doing? Why should any entrepreneur or tech worker go there and support this government? How come China seems to get a free pass on human rights issues like this by western society?

Because keeping a large diverse country stable and safe is very difficult, and a failure causes enormous tragedy. The approach that works to keep the US stable does not always work well in other countries. To keep the billion people who live in China safe from civil war and rampant terrorism is already a great achievement -- even it comes at the expense of some nice things such as human rights. In fact, China manages…

What about the families of the 120 000 people in the re-education camp? Or the families of the people who's organs are harvested, or who are imprisoned for being mildly critical of the government? Are they safe?

It's easy to excuse horrible acts by saying it's for the greater good, but it's rarely actually the case. Chinese civilization won't collapse if they stop harvesting organs and imprisoning people who are even mildly critical of the government.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#144

Post by ordinaryradical »

brokenmachine wrote: post #126
ordinaryradical wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me there is a large public relations push to normalize their authoritarianism in the view of Westerners. Then you hear about bloggers being imprisoned for pointing out corruption according to the government’s own definitions. China’s authoritarianism looks attractive when it’s about infrastructure and efficiency, but the underside of it, the collective silencing and destruction of debate, the “blank spots” i…

> China’s existential threat is an opportunity or technology which enhances its ability to control citizens but leads, in the long term, to destabilization of the regime. Could be AI, could be something else. But at some point one of these forbidden fruits will poison and what appears to be a manageable, technical problem will become a societal one that no one can control or censor. I don't understand. Can you explai…

Probably the law of unintended consequences. Imagine now that this makes the surveillance of the bureaucracy itself more or less infallible. Someone, or many people, now know which party officials are meeting with which, know who their mistresses are, know the places they are going to hide assets or crimes, know the people bribing them. Now you have a roadmap for corruption of the state.

If that data leaks, is hacked by a state actor and released, or becomes the tool by which bureaucrats seek to manipulate and blackmail each other, it could destabilize the party itself.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#145

Post by whooshee »

gcb0 wrote: post #75
toephu2 wrote: post #71

On the plus side, I just visited China last month and never felt safer. Before you would wear your backpack on the front of your chest when taking public transportation for fear of thieves. Now, with surveillance everywhere (and random ID checks at subways), you can freely wear your backpack on your back where it belongs without fear of theft.

without fear of theft, political organizational, labour bargaining groups, religious freedom, etc, etc.

Ah, unfortunately, there are many theft and violence in quite a few big Western cities.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#146

Post by oh_sigh »

ghostcluster wrote: post #114
_cs2017_ wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because keeping a large diverse country stable and safe is very difficult, and a failure causes enormous tragedy. The approach that works to keep the US stable does not always work well in other countries. To keep the billion people who live in China safe from civil war and rampant terrorism is already a great achievement -- even it comes at the expense of some nice things such as human rights. In fact, China manages…

The ruling ethnic elite (and fully 91.51% of the population as of 2010) are Han Chinese, and you could say they enforce somewhat of an ethnostate. Foreigners cannot become citizens even if they marry a native Chinese and contribute to their economy.

Is that rule true even if, say, a Han Chinese citizen marries as second generation USAmerican+Han person?

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#147

Post by brokenmachine »

ordinaryradical wrote: post #144
brokenmachine wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China’s existential threat is an opportunity or technology which enhances its ability to control citizens but leads, in the long term, to destabilization of the regime. Could be AI, could be something else. But at some point one of these forbidden fruits will poison and what appears to be a manageable, technical problem will become a societal one that no one can control or censor. I don't understand. Can you explai…

Probably the law of unintended consequences. Imagine now that this makes the surveillance of the bureaucracy itself more or less infallible. Someone, or many people, now know which party officials are meeting with which, know who their mistresses are, know the places they are going to hide assets or crimes, know the people bribing them. Now you have a roadmap for corruption of the state. If that data leaks, is hacked…

Nice example. Interesting, thanks for that.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#148

Post by siruncledrew »

otoburb wrote: post #3

>> For the next 10 months, web access would be almost nonexistent in Xinjiang, a vast region larger than Texas with a population of more than 20 million. It was one of the most widespread, longest internet shutdowns ever. SpaceX's plans to launch their first set of satellites for their Starlink broadband constellation[1]. Uighers may be the first population to sign up for satellite subscriptions, although the Chinese…

750 USD/yr is about 4700 RMB/yr, so that's almost 400 RMB/mo. Just guessing, but that's probably out of reach for most people.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#149

Post by whooshee »

thinkpad20 wrote: post #39
bilbo0s wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...Whether or not those attacks are done by terrorists, or oppressed minorities, I have no comments...." ??? If "...oppressed minorities..." commit acts wherein "...hundreds of innocent people were killed..." aren't they "terrorists"? Or am I thinking about this whole thing wrong?

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. I think the parent post simply meant that they were not passing judgment on the justification of the violence.

If those attackers attacked police or gov't, they may call themselves a freedom figher. But If a guy randomly kills innocent people to show their agendas, he is definitely a terrorist, which was what happened in Xinjiang and other cities in China by some terrorist groups. Unfortunately, there was some western press quoted terrorist when they were covering those attacks.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#150

Post by walrus01 »

otoburb wrote: post #3

>> For the next 10 months, web access would be almost nonexistent in Xinjiang, a vast region larger than Texas with a population of more than 20 million. It was one of the most widespread, longest internet shutdowns ever. SpaceX's plans to launch their first set of satellites for their Starlink broadband constellation[1]. Uighers may be the first population to sign up for satellite subscriptions, although the Chinese…

Former satellite telecom engineer here, have built high capacity two way C, Ku, X and Ka band earth stations. Two big problems with China:

1. Smuggle rooftop CPE into country? Manufacture domestically in grey market factories?

2. Very low cost for Chinese law enforcement, in Xinjiang, to buy and use portable spectrum analyzers to locate the Tx frequencies coming from a 30cm-50cm sized rooftop phase array antenna, aimed at the sky. To be a viable satellite broadband product it has to have a fairly strong Tx (in EIRP). No matter what band it is in from 10.5 up to 70GHz.

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