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A new Venezuelan ID, created with China's ZTE, tracks citizen behavior
- duxup 8y ago>“We don’t support the government,” he said. “We are just developing our market.” Considering the potential oppressive ramifications of such a system this could support the government a great deal.
- cauldron 8y agoStandard response from Chinese companies, "We are just doing business!" (We got families to immigrate to first world like party officials, need to make money fast!) PS. Ctrip Founder levels with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kF8yBZeSFU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kF8yBZeSFU Our middle and upper management members all sent their kids abroad, do their best to come by a (foreign) passport. Poor people don't mind, all they want is an apartment in Shanghai. It's not safe here, American education, air, and hospitals are just better.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> Standard response from Chinese companies To be fair, it’s the same excuse Facebook used in Myanmar.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y agoIt's also a standard response from American companies making compromises to do business in China. Just look at the proposed Google search there.
- atomical 8y agoIs YC involved in NEOM in Saudia Arabia? I know Sam Altman is involved. It's another example of profits over human rights.
- new12345 8y agoIf its not Chinese then some other nation would have sold it to them. Its a very lucrative business to have access to data from general masses.
- yters 8y ago"It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come!" - Jesus
- clueless123 8y agoNot "their" problem.. you could say the same about pretty much any other technology product.
- anigbrowl 8y agoPeople who tell blatant lies like this should be aware that they will eventually face the same fate as the oppressors they enable. The logic of capitalism will not serve as a defense, nor should it.
- lifeformed 8y ago>“We don’t support the government,” he said. “We are just developing our market.” Wow, is that meant to be a justification? That sounds even worse than what they are denying. They're just saying, "I don't care about the consequences, I'm just here to make a buck."
- ocschwar 8y agoShit like this is why I like bitcoin.
- codezero 8y agoHow does that apply here, or what does bitcoin solve wrt a national ID?
- vernie 8y agoBitcoin offers a nice distraction from real problems.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y agoAnd less volatility than some national currencies. Never thought I'd be typing that so soon!
- jermaustin1 8y agoAnd you can blame someone else for BTC volatility (darn speculators), but when youa re in control of your own currency, and it is volatile, blaming others becomes much harder, though not impossible (darn capitalists/opec/USA).
- eiaoa 8y agoWhy? It sounds like this ID is mainly used to control the poor with little to no assets. A big pile of USD is probably as good if not better than a pile of bitcoin in this situation. It's much harder to track and control USD than bitcoin.
- ocschwar 8y agoA pile of USD can get you robbed and tossed in jail in Venezuela these days.
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- bithavoc 8y agoIn addition to be another dictatorship tool to have more control over the population, they're trying to implement low Gas subsidies to citizens-only in the border with other countries, they're probably losing +4B yearly in contraband.
- volkisch 8y agoBased chinks. Btw doesn't China already own about 40ish% of Venezuela's oil?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago> “It’s blackmail. Venezuelans with the cards now have more rights than those without.” Take note, this is the exact same vector that could happen even in first world countries.
- dmix 8y ago> The card is increasingly linked by the government to subsidized food, health and other social programs most Venezuelans rely on to survive. I really don't understand how Venezuelans haven't revolted and given up on their failed socialist economic experiment. Typically lack of food has been the spark that starts these revolutions, but the failure of even basic services there has been going on for years now. How much more authoritarianism without any economic gain can these people take? Are enough regular people really getting enough handouts from the government to not want to get rid of them? Is the propoganda machine working that effectively to blind them?
- giancarlostoro 8y agoWhen the government takes guns away from the masses it gets a little harder to pull off. Venezuela is a narco state at this stage too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-state#Venezuela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-state#Venezuela First article I found on it on Google: https://www.activistpost.com/2016/05/did-you-know-that-venezuela-banned-guns-for-private-citizens-only-4-years-ago.html https://www.activistpost.com/2016/05/did-you-know-that-venez... BBC Link about the ban: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-18288430 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-18288430
- fifnir 8y agoIf the US army turned on its citizens do you think it wouldn't go through ANY resistance like a hot knife through butter?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y agoYou mean like it has in Afghanistan?
- christophilus 8y agoI live in the southeast. There are pockets here that would be very tough to take. It would be a Vietnam situation. So, yes. The 2nd amendment still has deterrent power.
- walrus01 8y agoFrom an internet infrastructure/network engineering point of view as well, I'm concerned that US embargoes and trade restrictions are not helping things when it comes to autocratic regimes. For example if an ISP in an autocratic regime, right now, wants to buy new core, aggregation and edge/customer premises routers, for a major network upgrade, they're going to be looking at ZTE or Huawei. Whereas the better technical solution might be some combination of things from a US company (Cisco, Juniper, Brocade). Or if they already have people who know JunOS on staff for core routing, they'll have to make a business risk decision to buy grey market Juniper through a third party, without any official support. ZTE and Huawei and other Chinese companies involved in Internet censorship and the GFW are happy to sell equipment and consulting/contracting services to these sorts of countries.
- aglavine 8y agoYou need UN in these cases, a real UN, not the one build for a postwar scenario that doesn't exist anymore.
- tprnz 8y agoDon't know what makes you think US tech is better, technically. What about all the Cisco backdoors? Also, I live in a European country and network cores here, along with mobile stations, CPEs, etc. are full Chinese. ISPs don't even buy the equipment from them, they just give the Chinese firms full control to deploy the network. So this thing you're mentioning is not some kind of crazy Venezuelan concept.
- jimmy1 8y agoAlso this is a great lesson to the younger generation that seem to be wooed by the Ocasio-Cortezes and Sanders of the world. Unfortunately the world needs a reminder every generation or so that socialism doesn't work, it never has worked, and it never will work.
- walrus01 8y agoIt's hyperbole to say that Sanders is anywhere near the Venezuelan regime politically. He wants a single payer healthcare system like Canada. It's really hard to convey sarcasm in text, but I'll give it a try: Come and see the socialist dystopia that is modern Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal! It's a modern hellscape!
- yters 8y agoPeople just want free stuff and forget they ultimately pay the bill.
- mikeash 8y agoPeople just want a system that works, modeled after other systems known to work, instead of horrible brokenness.
- yters 8y agoCould trying to fit a dissimilar country's system to our own result in a broken system?
- mikeash 8y agoIt could, but I don't see that as the likely outcome. Dissimilarities with other countries are greatly exaggerated, and government is better at getting things done than many people give it credit for. It is possible that the result would still be broken, but it is certain that the result of doing nothing will still be broken. We can either just keep things broken, learn from what others have done use those lessons to take our best shot at fixing things, or we can completely ignore the hard-won lessons of others and go for an untested and novel approach. Which is most likely to work?
- mamon 8y agoTruth is, historically human civilizations has always been based on some kind of authoritarian rule, slavery, serfdom, etc. Democracy is just temporary anomaly created by the fact that during industrial revolution the need arose for mass education (to have factory workers that could read). Now that appropriate tech (online banking, smartphones with GPS tracking, AI, etc.) is in place the things will soon revert to the natural order, i.e. totalitarism.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoMaybe, but I guess that argument is what ‘gun ownership as a civil right’ people say the whole point is, right? The idea being that maybe authoritarianism “the natural order” but combined with ‘ok, but you’ll have to kill me first’. I don’t know what your beliefs are on the matter, nor if you have an entirely valid point. I just wonder if anyone agrees but also feels that citizens shouldn’t have a means to protect themselves from their government that they beleive has an eventual tendeancy to turn authoritarian? Edit: very strange reaction to asking questions that don’t imply any side one way or another but no responses... if you can’t even recognize another side of an argument without an emotional response... I mean... okay, but I think it’s odd.
- pjc50 8y ago> ok, but you’ll have to kill me first’. Bang, you're dead. The US romanticises revolution on the idea that every revolution will be like the US war of Independence, which is a really bad guide to how they tend to go in practice. People would do better to look at violence in South America as an example.
- anigbrowl 8y agoYou are quite right about the romanticization of the US, but there are also multiple non-state political vectors, and the state itself is far from homogenous. Any breakdown of civil society int he US is not likely to be a simple rebels vs tyrannical government scenario. Even kinetic (shooting) conflicts also involve psychological and moral warfare that has greater impact on the outcome than individual contests of violence.
- sandov 8y agoI know it sounds naive, but maybe an organized boycott towards ZTE could help?
- dgut 8y agoIn Europe, the Venezuelan crisis is largely ignored. Where I live (Spain), our current government is more or less on friendly terms with Maduro's government and there is little insensitive to do anything about it. The left-leaning media has, for the most part, ignored the topic (El Pais for one...), despite the increasing number of Venezuelan asylum-seekers arriving in Spain each year, and any meaningful efforts to boycott anything would need the media/government's support.
- gaius 8y agoIn Europe, the Venezuelan crisis is largely ignored Venezuela is still considered the ideal role model by certain British politicians...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gimmeDatCheddar 8y agoThis is why the 2nd amendment is absolutely crucial in ensuring that American citizens have the right to self-defense once these types of policies become more popular in America. Anyone still in Venezuela who has not planned to leave is utterly screwed.
- dgut 8y agoAs my Cuban grandfather once told me, turning in his rifle became his most regrettable action after the revolution... :/
- Retra 8y agoI can't wait to see people shooting their rifles and handguns at fighter jets, tanks, drones, and bombs. Really good self defense plan there. And it's going to seem so patriotic when you're shooting at your own government & neighbors.
- gimmeDatCheddar 8y agoThis has always been a really stupid argument. You realize that the army would split up because people from the army would join the resistance and lend a hand, right? And you realize that guerrilla warfare is highly effective even against superior weapons, right? Basic history shows us this.
- gimmeDatCheddar 8y agoIt is why we desperately need to ensure that the 2nd amendment is preserved as a right for all citizens.
- TremendousJudge 8y agoyeah it really helped when a private company leaked the personal data of _literally everybody_ and suffered _exactly no consequences_
- outbackcoder 8y agoBut that private company cannot force you at gunpoint to comply or take away your right to medical care should you not use their services. Everyone should have a contingency handgun or two if/when things go to hell in a handcart. After Katrina, government swooped in and confiscated legally-owned guns from everyone they could. None of these were ever returned. A handgun could easily prevent your family from being looted, raped, overtaken by bad people at your house. The use of guns for this reason happens a couple of million times a year in America, but it never makes the news because righteous use of firearms does not fit the liberal, progressive narrative. I know two people who saved their own families from harm by having a gun at home.
- gimmeDatCheddar 8y agoIt's pointless, we're going to get downvoted to hell by the fools who think they've got it all figured out.
- anigbrowl 8y agoYeah belaboring people as fools straight out the gate isn't a good way to make your argument. I had actually upvoted your other comment before seeing this one. Ever consider that you might be partly right but also partly wrong, and that maybe people are reacting to your extreme arrogance and unwillingness to entertain other points of view?
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- oh_sigh 8y agoYou'd think they'd have bigger fish to fry at this point.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoDepends on what you think their game is. If you think their game is to fix the economy, yes, they definitely have bigger fish to fry. But if you think their game is to stay in power, then it makes perfect sense.
- rdl 8y agoDJI or other drone companies could be the solution to Venezuela’s problems. Almost happened a few months ago.
- cm2187 8y agoI don't know. These guys arrived in power through free elections. Don't underestimate the economically self-destructive force of South American public opinions.
- clueless123 8y agoAll it takes for a perfectly democratic country to elect a terrible leader (who will probably erode democracy away) is to have a previous leader not pay attention to the voting masses. Anger is a very bad advisor.
- 2RTZZSro 8y agoNever underestimate the influence of ballot stuffing in "free" elections. It happens everywhere, even in the US. This just in from a few days ago: Palm Beach County. The county’s decade-old ballot-counting machines """overheated""" and gave """incorrect totals""", forcing the county to restart its recount of about 175,000 early votes., supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said Tuesday night. The department has flown in """mechanics""" to repair the machines. * Modern computers don't need mechanics when they overheat. The computer will automatically shut itself off if it gets too hot in order to save itself. All you have to is cool the computer down. That's something even an idiot could do. * https://archive.is/WEwqm https://archive.is/WEwqm https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article221631215.html https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article221631215.htm... A few excerpts from the Wikipedia page of the voting machine we use in the USA, "Smartmatic": After receiving funds "from private investors"[11] which included Jorge Massa Dustou,[16] one of the richest individuals in Venezuela,[17] the company then began to expand rapidly. Smartmatic then established its headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida with only seven employees. Bizta was awarded a $150,000 "loan" from Marieta Maarroui de Bolívar – wife of the then-Chavista governor Didalco Bolívar – who was president of FONCREI, the Venezuelan government's organization dedicated to industrial funding. Smartmatic also received an additional $200,000 loan from the Chávez government. The deal with Bizta required the Venezuelan government to own 28% of Smartmatic and placed Venezuela's Head of the Council of Ministers and advisor to Hugo Chávez,[32] Omar Montilla, on Smartmatic's board of directors. After it was reported that the Venezuelan government had been involved with funding and managing Mugica's Bizta for over two years, Smartmatic quickly repaid Bizta's "loan" a month before the election.[29] A Venezuelan government propaganda organization, the Venezuela Information Office, also released a "fact sheet" about Smartmatic, defending the company from allegations at the time.[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartmatic#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartmatic#Controversy
- zipwitch 8y agoWould the criticism go away if they called it a credit score?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- lgregg 8y agoFor most people, it would just be a misnomer.
- gruez 8y ago>Would the criticism go away if they called it a credit score? would the criticism go away if they called it a happiness score? for all the faults credit scores have, the only factor that they take into account are your credit events. they don't track every aspect of your life.
- munk-a 8y agoCredit score tracking is privately managed and incredibly inaccurate, it can lead to people being unable to qualify for mortgages when their financial situation is quite solid. Additionally credit score calculations are all proprietary and may have begun taking your social life into account (there are mixed reports) but given that health insurers are already upping the pressure to gather more of your personal data I doubt they're far behind, the difference is that health insurance is a much more highly regulated field so we have proof they're doing it, credit score trackers do all that stuff behind closed doors..
- gruez 8y ago>Credit score tracking is privately managed and incredibly inaccurate, it can lead to people being unable to qualify for mortgages when their financial situation is quite solid The first thing I did was say was that credit scores aren't perfect, so I'm not disagreeing with you on this. as for the "incredibly inaccurate" claim, are you talking about accuracy as a whole, or people on edge cases being screwed because they have a bad score? because I highly doubt lenders would bother paying for a worthless risk model. >Additionally credit score calculations are all proprietary And you think the citizen score isn't going to be? >may have begun taking your social life into account (there are mixed reports) [...] credit score trackers do all that stuff behind closed doors.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act ? Also, you can opt-out of social media, not so much the government. I'm not sure what you're trying to do by pointing out how bad credit scores are, because citizen scores are clearly worse, considering they can collect everything credit bureaus can, but more.
- 0xmohit 8y agoModern national ID cards are invariably designed for surveillance. Consider the case of Aadhaar (the Indian national ID card). No words can better describe the kind of services it has enabled than what is illustrated in this image -- https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DnWQpoTW4AARm2t.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DnWQpoTW4AARm2t.jpg (The image illustrates an app that claims to provide personal information about a random individual by way of facial recognition made possible by use of Aadhaar APIs.)
- hadrien01 8y agoWhat about Estonia? Their nation ID card seems pretty secure and privacy-concious
- pxtail 8y agoQuite recent story: Estonia sues Gemalto for €152M over ID card flaws:https://www.reuters.com/article/estonia-gemalto/estonia-sues-gemalto-for-152-mln-euros-over-id-card-flaws-idUSL8N1WD5JZ https://www.reuters.com/article/estonia-gemalto/estonia-sues... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18104861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18104861
- hadrien01 8y agohttps://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/crypto-failure-cripples-millions-of-high-security-keys-750k-estonian-ids/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/10/crypt... They suspended almost immediately the public key common to the 750 000 flawed cards, disabling them, and they issued an update a few months later. That seems like a pretty good reaction. I don't see what they could have done better, apart from making the cards themselves.
- DoctorOetker 8y agoPretty sure Belgian eID's are also by Gemalto, which prompts a bunch of questions: 1) are the private keys in Belgian eID's also similarily not randomly generated on-chip, and in whose hands does this happen? 2) if we face the same issue as Estonia, why is no one in Belgium discussing this? 3) if Belgium is not affected, why is Gemalto having 2 systems? doesn't it seem more efficient to use the same private key generation mechanism for both customer nations? why would Gemalto go out of its way to have separate codebases etc regarding "on chip" private key generation? this all seems to suggest that Belgium too is similarily affected
- mAEStro-paNDa 8y agoIt's incredibly disappointing the amount of ignorance and political whataboutism being thrown around here in this comment section.
- razster 8y agoFunny that they're printed using Datacard SD360. These ID's can be duplicated with ease.
- nixpulvis 8y agoPlease no. > The technology Daquin and colleagues learned about in Shenzhen underpinned what would become China’s “Social Credit System.” The still-evolving system, part of which uses “smart citizen cards” developed by ZTE, grades citizens based on behavior including financial solvency and political activity. Good behavior can earn citizens discounts on utilities or loans. Bad marks can get them banned from public transport or their kids blocked from top schools.
- kossae 8y agoHere is a good PM podcast episode on the 'Social Credit System' as well for some further information: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/10/09/655921710/chinas-social-credit-system https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/10/09/655921710/chin...
- 2RTZZSro 8y ago> Good behavior can earn citizens discounts on utilities or loans. Bad marks can get them banned from public transport or their kids blocked from top schools. Whatever it takes to herd the cattle. "First they came ..." is a poem written by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984). It is about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group after group. Many variations and adaptations in the spirit of the original have been published in the English language. It deals with themes of persecution, guilt and responsibility. The best-known versions of the speech are the poems that began circulating by the 1950s.[1] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum quotes the following text as one of the many poetic versions of the speech:[2][3] First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
- throw2016 8y agoHow is this different from credit scores?
- jellicle 8y agoSo HN is upset that Venezuela has a national ID card which can be used to apply for government services, can be used for mobile payments, and the government has a "database" (in scare quotes) which lists the political party of the citizens. Man, you guys are going to be really upset when you find out about the NSA and FBI. If we had a press release like "Amazon announces mobile payments card with integration into government services", you guys would eat that up, right? "Mr. Bezos said the card would allow holders to easily apply for government programs such as food stamps."
- lgregg 8y agoI do wish that Social Security cards in the USA had a photo on them. It would make fraud much more difficult. The Social Security number's original intention was for census purposes then the IRS took it for their own purposes.
- laken 8y agoThe Social Security Number wasn't created for census purposes, nor was it ever meant (and still isn't) to be fraud-proof. It was created, for _Social Security_ benefits. It wasn't meant to be truly secure, as the worst you can do with someone else's Social Security Number with the Social Security Administration is paying more into their Social Security account. It is true the IRS used it for their own purposes too, and thus broke the original purpose, but it'd be ridiculous to make the Social Security card more secure and turn it into a national ID because of that. In most government applications anyway, your driver's license number has taken the place of the SSN. Your SSN isn't supposed to be sensitive. Furthermore, it sounds like you're advocating for the creation of a "National ID" of sorts, which is quite the slippery slope.
- lgregg 8y agoI think everyone should have easy and free access to personal identification that is valid for voting, air travel, opening a bank account, etc. I don't think it should be mandatory. I think if the government is going to require it, they should provide it. I'm confidant that the census bureau created those numbers which was soon taken over by SSA or for SSA. That also isn't really the point I'm trying to make which is becoming a tangent.
- poulsbohemian 8y agoA passport / passport card comes pretty close to your stated goal.
- lgregg 8y agoFar as I know, a passport card does exactly what I want it to do except be free. There are people that are at the poverty level or below, and some right above the cut-off, who can't afford $100+ dollars in fees.
- Tharkun 8y agoGovernments everywhere seem to be increasing their surveillance efforts. Finger prints on id cards. The Indian Aadhaar madness. Chinese "social credit scores". The list goes on. I guess we have to get used to the new world order, where citizens don't matter, surveillance is everywhere, and there is no obvious way to fight this madness.
- fokov 8y agoYou fight it by taking the personal hit and run for office yourself. From my experience, the only thing you can really control is yourself. The problem is running for office is a pain and most people don't want their personal lives going public.
- baq 8y agodemocracy used to be the optimal system because it processed information faster than authoritarianism. advences in technology reverse this relationship. whoever gets to the steering wheel has the potential to stay there for a long while with a very efficient (in terms of policing behavior per person employed) police. this all sounds like a bad joke but it is happening as we speak in china.
- ilove_banh_mi 8y agoIf Venezuela asked Google to build a censored, surveillance-oriented search engine, would they do it? my understanding is that they've already agreed to do it for China, so doing similar work for other dictatorships should be standard, even if not as profitable, business.
- mc32 8y agoProbably not. There isn’t enough revenue to counteract the detriment to their goodwill and other hits the company would take. China offers over a billion reasons to reconsider one’s positions.
- narrator 8y agoI wonder if have a little slider on a GUI somewhere that some Venezuelan government official uses to determine the minimal social credit score that lets one get to eat.
- hulton 8y agoRemember those times when people said, "Don't worry, something like this would never happen, and if it did, people wouldn't let it happen." Turns out you're wrong, dipshits.
- nwni 8y agoWell, that was an interesting and disturbing read, what are you supposed to do if you don't have the facilities to flee that country? Bend over apparently..
- robertsd247 8y agoHmmm...now the immigrants will have an actual reason to leave their communist sh-tholes. Well...that is until the US implements this commie system here. I am sure the next Democrat President already has these plans ready to go.