41–50 of 202 posts
I'm confused about the enforcement here. I just bought a temporary sim from https://www.3gsolutions.com.cn (which I've used multiple times before when visiting) and didn't provide any id.
Please don't link to tweets by fascists. The information is valuable so you can link to the original source instead of the tweetspam that gives this shithead exposure.
Registering a sim card in Vietnam also requires your photo to be taken. Is this an Asia thing ?
Does this affect foreigners? If I have a AT&T plan, it should work out-of-box in China via roaming? Hope that is the case...
Does this affect foreigners? If I have a AT&T plan, it should work out-of-box in China via roaming? Hope that is the case...
Always roam when in China for short trips. The way cellular networks work is that roaming plans tend to route back home, so that your access is unfiltered. The plan could affect foreigners but it was hard for years already, in that most cellular stores require a Chinese ID to register monthly service (not all take passports). I used to get the salesperson or security guard to lend their ID in my stead, and this is ex…
I’ve only successfully roamed with T-mobile on WiFi. Maybe its better now?
Traveling to Germany I had to provide my passport to get a SIM card. When I was going through customs stateside I had a photo taken with my passport. Not sure if this is the new standard but other countries are implementing the same laws/procedures and while I disagree with china we shouldn't hold them to a different standard than other nations.
The irony is that the people complaining about this are the same ones who are gleefully sharing their personal details and narrative on social media, and Facebook in particular. The only difference between mass surveillance in the US and China is that 99% of the US population happily opts in or doesn't care.
The bigger context is that in the US, there is SUPPOSED to be a system in which companies can successfully resist government demands (remember that Apple did this to the FBI when they wanted to crack a criminal's phone passcode), whereas in China, that cannot happen. So yes, people give away their data for stupid conveniences, but Facebook/Google etc aren't supposed to share the data with the government. They have done so, as Snowden revealed, so this is by no means a perfect system.
What really upsets me about China's system is the bigger system of social credit this ties into. You can't get on flights want your score gets too low. The guy exposing fake martial arts masters isn't allowed to leave the country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without agreeing or disagreeing with them, we should accept that people have said exactly the same things about the USA, about the Soviet Union, about Russia, about Britain... And on and on. I am not trying to play “whatabout,” but I do ask: Is there anything different about China’s behaviour as a superpower? Or are we just seeing a shift in which superpowers have world influence? At the moment I write this, the fron…
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…
Words are meaningless if not backed up by action.
Which isn't much different from having your photo taken for your driver's license, passport, or at the border, all of which the US does.
Burner phones are mostly associated with criminal activity, so tying phones to identities feels like a legitimate function -- which many countries do. And if criminals are trying to register phones through identity theft, this seems like it would be an additional protection.
If you're concerned with privacy, that's what encrypted communications are for, and if you don't want to be tracked by radio, then don't take any phone with you.