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Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

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131–140 of 202 posts

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#131

Not that there's any moral equivalence, but when I'm in Australia visiting in-laws, I have to provide my passport or similar ID to get my PAYG SIM activated. I just have them swipe it at the airport and my SIM is on in 10 minutes. My wife admits it's a lot easier in the States to get a PAYG SIM; AT&T doesn't care who she is as long as there's money in the account. I'm not sure why Australia does that, but it's really…

Showing a password vs getting your face scans taken and stored in a gigantic face recognition library is a gigantic difference. Once the state has your biometrics stored, you can be ID'ed without you noticing , e. g. as you walk around the city.

Australia - like many countries - collects fingerprints and photographs from certain groups either when you get your visa or when you enter the country. And I’d be shocked if their entry systems don’t capture 100% of passport photos at the border. I’d be slightly surprised if they don’t additionally correlate passport scans to security photos at the border to further enrich their dataset.

Showing your passport is functionally equivalent to getting your picture taken. It ends up as a record in their databases that says John Smith, with these biometrics, purchased a SIM with this number.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#132
China's decisions are easy to understand if you grok the underlying motives. HN should know better than most how things become more difficult at scale. Governance at China's scale is a different beast. Clearly the way the CCP is tackling it is by prioritizing efficiency and the good of the whole, over individuals and personal liberties. If you want to effect change then think about how you might make a case against that philosophy. The west certainly isn't doing a good job right now. Not sure if democracy has ever looked worse than it does today.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#133
post #132

China's decisions are easy to understand if you grok the underlying motives. HN should know better than most how things become more difficult at scale. Governance at China's scale is a different beast. Clearly the way the CCP is tackling it is by prioritizing efficiency and the good of the whole, over individuals and personal liberties. If you want to effect change then think about how you might make a case against t…

Tiananmen Square 1989, comrade

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think comparisons like this ignore something fundamental, which is the values that both countries champion. The USA is a democracy and has by and large championed democracy around the world. China is ruled by a 1974 style dictatorship, a country ruled by a single Party not the rule of law. Comparisons between the US and the CCP conveniently ignore this, yet it is what really matters. Law enforcement will always exi…

> The USA is a democracy and has by and large championed democracy around the world. Citation needed. The counter-argument is that USA has subverted democracies in its sphere of influence and backed harsh, authoritarian regimes when it suited its interests, just like all other Superpowers to date. It’s not even clear that the US champions democracies within its own borders these days, what with all the gerrymandering…

A lot of the aspects of American law that are viewed as non-democratic were put in place specifically because of the balance between the power of the central US government vs. the governments of the individual member states.

Something most Americans, let alone non-Americans, don't understand is that the Federal government was a creation of the member states, not vice versa. Perhaps the best example of this aspect driving what currently appears to be non-democratic traits is the composition of the US Senate.

Every single member state, no matter how big or large its population, gets 2 senators. Most American voters (it happens to be left of center voters right now, but if it favored left-wing candidates, right of center voters would flip out) feel like this is unfair, and question why it was put in place.

The reasons hearken back to the creation of the Federal government. The individual states that had to cede their own power for a federal government refused to join the union unless the Senate was created, with equal representation for all member states, regardless of population. Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and other states which are now ironically all left leaning politically, were concerned that the states with large populations, such as Virginia and Pennsylvania, would obliterate the concerns of their citizens in a purely democratic system. Hence the Senate, and as a side-effect, the electoral college system. Think of them as a geographic weighting, where each member state's power by population is limited or expanded to create a more balanced power structure.

Regarding the "USA has subverted democracies in its sphere of influence", while this has been true with certain nations (Shah in Iran, Saudi, Guatamala, etc) it has also not been the case with others, such as all of Western Europe post WW2. Nations liberated by the Soviets weren't actually allowed to dictate their own futures, unlike those liberated by the US.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#135
post #110

Just offering another perspective than most others had done here: I grew up in China and have been in China a few times in the past 10 years - the amount of Robocalls and phone scams was overwhelming (in fact, it was so bad that dual SIM mobile phones became popular because you can have a disposable SIM card for non-essential website registrations and one for family members that you keep private use). I had my identi…

I think you gave too much benefit of doubt to the CCP. The CCP can't care less about phone scams and frauds. As a totalitarian state having total control of the society, the government can track down the scammers anytime they want to.

There is no reason to believe the CCP does this to solve the robocalls or phone scams. It would be laughable to think XiJinping and his gangs put this issue on his priority list. The only reason is to locate every individual has a different thought against the government.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#136
post #110

Just offering another perspective than most others had done here: I grew up in China and have been in China a few times in the past 10 years - the amount of Robocalls and phone scams was overwhelming (in fact, it was so bad that dual SIM mobile phones became popular because you can have a disposable SIM card for non-essential website registrations and one for family members that you keep private use). I had my identi…

Scammers and spammers aren't using cell phones to make their calls, they abuse VoIP services to do so.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will fail, but not without lots of damage to the world and themselves. All thanks to Xi Jinping's expansionist ambition.

Why will they fail? So far they’ve been executing pretty well for the past 20-30 years...

Past 20-30 years as you said. Past performance is not a guarantee of future success. They don't have the same officials now as they did for the past few decades. Check out who the current ruler is and its background. This guy is a hardcore dictator who doesn't want to listen to any idea beside his own. And he's only got an elementary education. That's a recipe for failure.

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#138
post #110

Just offering another perspective than most others had done here: I grew up in China and have been in China a few times in the past 10 years - the amount of Robocalls and phone scams was overwhelming (in fact, it was so bad that dual SIM mobile phones became popular because you can have a disposable SIM card for non-essential website registrations and one for family members that you keep private use). I had my identi…

I think you gave too much benefit of doubt to the CCP. The CCP can't care less about phone scams and frauds. As a totalitarian state having total control of the society, the government can track down the scammers anytime they want to. There is no reason to believe the CCP does this to solve the robocalls or phone scams. It would be laughable to think XiJinping and his gangs put this issue on his priority list. The on…

I’m curious about one thing here. And maybe someone has ideas.

Both China and Soviet Union (probably others too but I don’t know), pre-liberalization were your typical socialist state with lots of means to control people, so they did but... but people didn’t engage in much petty crime or gang crime.

Those types of crimes were more or less very unusual. But in those same states today with more tools to control people, petty crime and gang-related crime (as well as corruption but that kind of always existed), are through the roof.

And it’s not like either are soft on crime.

So what has given a rise to that criminal activity which for practical purposes didn’t exist before. Is it opportunity? That is there was nothing to gain from it before?

Re: Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users

#140

They are already monitoring the chat apps. If you say unseemly things, expect this: https://twitter.com/intypython/status/1200466904734785536?s=... Edit: changed link to original source

From that twitter account, a Xinjiang related bill is up for vote this week (https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/178)

https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20191202/BILLS-116s178-...

With all this laser focus on HK / Xinjiang / Tibet something is bound to come up. If they cut the losses by giving independence, maybe leaders would avoid ICC-esque indictments from all this mess.

Maybe it'd be worth allowing anonymous mandatory polling on policies, that way it's not capitulating to external influences and getting a handle of what people are thinking.

But then maybe it's just better to monitor wechat and QQ. But since people feel their stuffs being read, they'll tone down the rhetoric and "behave good" and feign ignorance. A meaningful way of gauging public opinion is now tainted, so much for that. Now there will pockets of people silently stirring in contempt. The usual suspects and instigators won't be the ones to worry about. It's just too much to handle.

And besides all the while we're daydreaming scenarios China can remain unified, people would feel very strained and be suffering. Where do we draw the line between people's feelings and stubborn pride trying to force far flung regions into submission? Maybe it's best to reframe things into what makes society happiest, easiest to manage, and invent a leadership and organizational structure based on those premises. That'd be the most Chinese thing to do.

If China ever has a prolonged economic downturn and stricter sanctions, what happens then? What moves are left?

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