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China's Surveillance State Should Scare Everyone
- Powerofmene 9y agoThis is scary to think about. Imagine if private companies provided our government information and the totality of our communications and purchases, or even content of private conversations or prescriptions that you filled determined a “trust level” and that this factored into whether we were accepted by a college or determined if we were eligible for loans etc. This would change the course of each life without question.
- analyst74 9y agoYou mean the credit system we have here in US, which allows you to borrow money from banks at a low interest rate, buy a car/house with little down payment, or even rent a place without having to prepay 6 month rent? Yeah, I think every country needs it.
- dredmorbius 9y agoAnd why is it that people need to borrow money for common purchases?
- Powerofmene 9y agoAnd then when we have a change in control in our governments administration the rules also change, as does the formula for calculating this rating. We will have a never ending target you cannot hit regardless of how much you try....just when you think you are getting close to your target score or rating the equation changes.
- jlgaddis 9y agoImagine it? It is already being done, although not to the extent it is being done in .cn.
- geggam 9y agoI think we are closer than you would imagine. Work in the marketing industry then shift over to master data management. There is little companies do not know about you and the govt is 1 of the largest consumers of the data.
- Powerofmene 9y agoI understand but it is not currently used to determine things like who may have a right to attend college or ..... it is the “trust level” determination based on the aggregate information compiled that really scares me.
- hux_ 9y agoYou are talking as if people (whatever their status in the food chain maybe) currently without access to information are making fantastic decisions. What happens in reality is they fill in the blanks of missing info, based on their biases(everyone has them - just take a psyc 101 course), trusting the wrong sources and methods. And all this cascades and chaos of its own. Are the Chinese going to fuck up and make mistakes? Most definitely yes. Are these fuckups going to be greater than what is currently unfolding in self certified "enlightened" democracies? No idea. But it's not as open and shut as people like to think. Just as the negatives will surfaces the positives will too. And those positives won't be discovered in countries without these systems in place.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- throwanywhere8 9y agoThat's why we gotta boycott this future big brother/nazi government. It already has a concentration camp setup for its minorities. "More than 100,000 minority Uighur Muslims are reportedly being indefinitely detained in overcrowded “re-education” camps on China’s western border." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/26/thousand-uighur-muslims-detained-chinese-re-education-camps/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/26/thousand-uighur-m... People, reduce your purchases from China!!! Stop supporting this abomination!
- vfulco 9y agoGiven the amount of fraud and scams which abound, this may be the best system for them. It's the "People's Republic" after all. Let them decide what they want.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vfulco 9y agoHaa, downvoted for speaking the truth. Got to love it. I am the polar opposite to the statement above (as in V for Vendetta) in philosophy but until the people demand change, why should we force western values onto their thing? Let them find the error of their ways in a cataclysmic way if that's what it takes. That's the historical record over millenia.
- est 9y agoThe problem is not how bad things goes on in China, but every other government want it.
- ppbutt 9y agoThat's why we gotta boycott this future big brother/nazi government. It already has a concentration camp setup for its minorities. "More than 100,000 minority Uighur Muslims are reportedly being indefinitely detained in overcrowded “re-education” camps on China’s western border." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/26/thousand-uighur-m.. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/26/thousand-uighur-m.... People, reduce your purchases from China! Stop supporting this abomination!
- dang 9y agoPlease don't use HN for political or national battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ppbutt 9y agoFunny how HackerNews deletes comments that warn against this... what side are the admins on?
- acdha 9y agoCitation needed, especially given the degree to which the moderators give all but the most flagrant trolls multiple chances.
- grzm 9y agoBy "deleted comments", your parent is likely referring to the flagged dead comments in this thread.
- dredmorbius 9y agoI quite honestly doubt that's the case. I'm frequently critical of both tech and HN. My comments survive. Idlewords has done quite a few stripes better than myself on both counts. If you've questions about comments, policy, or rating/voting (there can be a hivemind active at times), toss an email to the moderators (hn <at> ycombinator <dot> com). I've found they're responsive and generally pretty fair. Even when I'm disagreeing strongly with them.
- dang 9y agoAs others have pointed out, users flag comments that break the site guidelines.
- gopherman12 9y agoI would rather be monitored than seeing some psycopath killer pledging not guilty because of lack of evidence
- BlackFly 9y agoDon't worry, you will both be monitored and see the killer confronted with no evidence. After all, are you the killer in this hypothetical?
- gopherman12 9y agoNo but I believe the cameras are prepared for people like you in my hypothetical
- rishabhsagar 9y agoSo, I strongly believe that there is always going to be an arms race between the government surveillance and people who will want to circumvent such measures. Like people who use tor, VPN, cryptocurrencies etc. Advancement in technology was always going to enable better surveillance capability and anarchists had to always come up with new ways to dodge it. Does this new initiative from Chinese govt change anything at meta level? To me, it doesn't feel like a paradigm shift, but merely the next logical step in status quo.
- vfulco 9y agoSilicon valley will always win; they strive for freedom and nobler reasons
- thisisit 9y agoDoes the citizen score have something to do with the social apps from Tencent? If yes, you have to wonder how does a South African company called Naspers fit into all of this. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-naspers-tencent-holdings-ceo/south-africas-naspers-rules-out-114-billion-tencent-stake-spin-off-idUSKBN19H1S7 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-naspers-tencent-holdings-...