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Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

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11–20 of 139 posts

Re: Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

#11

The same thing is happening in the US. The difference is that the authorities here use much more subtle methods so it doesn’t appear pervasive. It is known that use and abuse of stingrays is rife in our cities and gag orders allow even wider silent collection of data we give up willingly to tech companies because we can’t see what’s done with it.

Well, at least you can protest about it.

In China, collecting your bio data is more like a procedure than a choose.

For example, I renewed my citizen ID card few weeks ago, and got my facial and fingerprint collected.

Also, some companies like Alibaba are helping the data collection: https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/03/alipay-facial-recognitio... and http://www.solidot.org/story?sid=47235 (In Chinese)

I believe all those data will be used to help tracking people.

Re: Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

#12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether your wallet or your privacy, you are being robbed regardless.

When someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet, you will reconsider this equivocation.

exactly.. i've been robbed a few times with knifes etc but never guns in countries not discussed here. i really hoped there were cams

Re: Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

#13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether your wallet or your privacy, you are being robbed regardless.

When someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet, you will reconsider this equivocation.

This can happen even with cameras being there, no? In which case, you've lost both

Re: Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

#14
post #11

The same thing is happening in the US. The difference is that the authorities here use much more subtle methods so it doesn’t appear pervasive. It is known that use and abuse of stingrays is rife in our cities and gag orders allow even wider silent collection of data we give up willingly to tech companies because we can’t see what’s done with it.

Well, at least you can protest about it. In China, collecting your bio data is more like a procedure than a choose. For example, I renewed my citizen ID card few weeks ago, and got my facial and fingerprint collected. Also, some companies like Alibaba are helping the data collection: https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/03/alipay-facial-recognitio... and http://www.solidot.org/story?sid=47235 (In Chinese) I believe all t…

it's bad for humanity but seems like most countries capable of doing this are following this trend now. any possible way to avoid this path? i doubt.

btw, your example is pretty weak. my facial features were collected many times in the last two weeks in US in airports and companies i visited

Re: Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

#15

The same thing is happening in the US. The difference is that the authorities here use much more subtle methods so it doesn’t appear pervasive. It is known that use and abuse of stingrays is rife in our cities and gag orders allow even wider silent collection of data we give up willingly to tech companies because we can’t see what’s done with it.

In the US, law enforcement is split among too many organizations to implement a Big Brother system competently. Every little police department has their own system, and private sector systems aren't integrated with government systems. Look at the mess in DC - their camera system was taken over by a botnet. Not even to use the camera data, just to mooch network resources.

There's an business opportunity here. There's an outsourced surveillance industry, but it's small.[1] One of the big players has only 9,000 cameras. Nobody has scaled this yet.

Amazon might. They've already convinced millions of people to put a microphone in every room, reporting to Amazon HQ. Now they're getting into cameras and door locks.

Google, probably not. Their Nest unit makes stuff that looks good, but doesn't work well.

[1] http://stealthmonitoring.com/

Re: Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

#16

Original WSJ article: "Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life" https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chi... If you don't have WSJ subscription, paste the title into FB's search bar, and open the link via search results to bypass the paywall.

Thanks, we've changed the url to that from http://www.wsj.com/video/life-inside-chinas-total-surveillan.... It's generally better to post a link to the host article. WSJ is an edge case, but paywalls with workarounds are ok (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) and users almost always usually post workarounds in the thread.

Re: Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

#18
post #15

The same thing is happening in the US. The difference is that the authorities here use much more subtle methods so it doesn’t appear pervasive. It is known that use and abuse of stingrays is rife in our cities and gag orders allow even wider silent collection of data we give up willingly to tech companies because we can’t see what’s done with it.

In the US, law enforcement is split among too many organizations to implement a Big Brother system competently. Every little police department has their own system, and private sector systems aren't integrated with government systems. Look at the mess in DC - their camera system was taken over by a botnet. Not even to use the camera data, just to mooch network resources. There's an business opportunity here. There's…

I recommend against purchasing surveillance services from a company that does not have HTTPS on their landing page.

Re: Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

#20
post #5

I think one of the few really, really good things we have left in the US is that I _feel_ that I am trusted to do the right thing. I was in Singapore, a rich, orderly state for an internship a couple of years ago. There were cameras everywhere: Cameras on the sidewalks, cameras on the staircases, cameras in residential apartments, cameras in the subway, cameras at the workplace. There were very few places I feel not…

lol, haven't you heard of Snowden?
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