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Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State
- _lessthan0 8y agoAlso similar maybe not as in depth situations are made in the UK, US and others. Not just China.
- lostlogin 8y agoThe Dutch have it pretty bad, possible worse than some of the above. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/01/smart-cities-data-privacy-eindhoven-utrecht https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/cities/20... https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-dutch-surveillance-kings-of-europe-are-about-to-get-even-nosier https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-dutch-surveillance-kings-o...
- edejong 8y agoAs a dutch citizen from a city near Utrecht, I am baffled by the number of surveillance systems in place operated by surveillance capitalists. This has to stop. Uncontrolled invasion of our public space without properly informing the subjects and giving a choice is totally unacceptable.
- mercer 8y agoSadly I find that the Dutch, in general, are extremely indifferent and even antagonistic towards political activism. I'm not entirely sure why this is. Perhaps it's general wealth/comfort, or perhaps a history of, at best, amoral profit-seeking. Or maybe I'm just seeing things. But in general my experience has been that the kinds of people that I would expect to be activists are much less so over here than in, say, Germany or France or Spain.
- huffmsa 8y ago> Or maybe I'm just seeing things No, I've always been befuddled by how both the Dutch and Belgian have basically had their colonial reigns of terror handwaved away. It's likely that neither nation really acknowledges it or has anyone agitating internally for the nation to own up to it. So like you said, they're rich and a bit amoral.
- mercer 8y agoMy impression is that we don't even bother to hand-wavy and justify or defend any of it. We just don't care. It happened. It's in the past. And we didn't personally do it.
- edejong 8y agoWell, before talking about the reason why we are moderate in activism (which is debatable), I'd like to understand why you believe the Dutch are particularly amoral profit-seekers. Do you have references comparing the Dutch history with the Spanish? With the slavery practices among the African tribes? With the destruction and mass-murder of the American natives by the Brits? With the plundering of the South American treasures. At least the Dutch stayed independant during the first world war, while entire generations were slaughtered on the battlefield from other nations. For what? Economic reasons. No, we're meek activists for simpler reasons. Our population density is high, so we needed to build on a culture of tolerance and acceptance. We are constantly battling a common enemy: water from the seas and the rivers. This required understanding, cooperation and negotiation. We are a country with diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds, which also requires a certain level of cooperation instead of activism. And yet, I think we are actually quite high on the political activism ladder, but not on the militant activism. Hurting our neighbours entails hurting ourselves, so we prefer talking over destroying.
- _lessthan0 8y agoDefinitely, authoritarian regimes are scary but it seems like we are already verging on one with surveillance capitalism.
- huffmsa 8y agoBut the capitalists can't field the firepower to enforce their surveillance unless they become part of a governmental apparatus.
- ionised 8y agoOf course they can. PMCs are already a thing and some companies (and individuals) are wealthier than entire countries. Private military forces are going to become a lot more common.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoI wouldn't have a problem with PMCs replacing police for pretty much everything but detective work. It would actually give society a lot more leverage over law enforcement and separating after the fact investigation and prosecution from active enforcement would remove a lot of bad incentives from the current system. If the PMCs you've hired to do cop things shoot someone wrongfully you can sue them and not be suing the taxpayer. You can force them to have insurance as part of the contract. You can fail to renew their contract if they screw up. Having a profit motive removes the desire to have unnecessary military hardware for the same reason your local landscaper doesn't own a mining dump truck. Obviously there's trade-offs but it seems like having privately security instead of cops would be an end run around most of the things that are bad about modern policing.
- huffmsa 8y agoLike the TSA private partner screening program [0]. They didn't have any staffing issues during the shutdown, because they're not a magic money Government entity. I don't have the source handy, but I believe they're more efficient and do a better job than the TSA at catching contraband. [0] https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/travel/tsa-screening-partnerships-the-reason-why-some-airports-dont-have-long-security-lines/ https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/travel/tsa-screening-partner...
- Engineering-MD 8y agoI find it very ironic that I’m a post about surveillance, the guardian link is AMP
- pjmlp 8y agoIn UK I always take extra care to park properly thanks to CCTV.
- discordance 8y agoPanoptisicm in full effect - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticism
- nova22033 8y agoAlso similar maybe not as in depth situations are made in the UK, US and others. Not just China. The chinese police can stop an Uighur person on the streets and make sure he has the government mandated software installed on his phone. So,yes....exactly like the US/UK..
- derwiki 8y agoFive years ago I was stopped and ID’ed by a police officer walking through downtown SF when Obama was at an event 4 blocks away.
- sbhn 8y agoUk just outsourced surveillance to huawei. Is spying on the tax payer going to be cheaper now, no. even more money will be laundered across the border by those contracted by state in the name of security. If there is money to be made reminding people they are under attack, you can be sure that your government has it properly monetised. Lol, if you down vote me fast enough, what i said might not be true,
- kmlx 8y agobetter huawei + cia than just cia. level the playing field.
- bluetomcat 8y agoInvented in the West for public safety, exported to the rest of the world for corporate profit.
- winchling 8y agoWhat's the ideal size of a polis? Too small: there's no privacy. Too large: also no privacy. In the first case, for example a roving band of stone-agers, say N = 30 with all males related and everybody knowing the leader. Which is good because whatever the political system, leadership entails consent of the led. But bad because the leader knows everyone so it's harder to act or think differently. Errors in understanding the world are firmly entrenched. The second case might be for example a modern state of N = 100M, with IT. There are notional leaders but they are partly controlled by unseen oligarchs, possibly residents of other states. The bureaucracy and businesses collect and sell information about everybody. Voting, if it exists at all, generates little consent, since only a negligible fraction of people know the official leaders, let alone the oligarchs, let alone what sort of decisions will be consequently be made. The ideal is therefore presumably where N is some fairly low multiple of Dunbar's Number. But even if we wanted to we don't have the technology or knowledge to implement this yet.
- lr4444lr 8y agoIt's almost as if decentralized federalism of the United States, with a limited federal government, states which are essentially 50 laboratories to experiment with which ideas work, which don't, and which need to be different, with lots of county and town level control as befits the granularities of each level of affiliation, starts to make sense.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>states which are essentially 50 laboratories to experiment with which ideas work, which don't I've been noticing an edge case where a bunch of people sharing certain beliefs about how government should work manage to ruin one state with their belief but because they're fairly well off they can then flee to several other states and put them on the same path before the experimental results from the first state can be analyzed and published. Of course no raindrop feels responsible for the flood so nobody ever has to think about their personal impact on society.
- Razengan 8y agoNow imagine this applied to an entire planet. All countries doing their own experiments, no wars, and people being free to travel across borders at any time, to live in and support the ideals they prefer.
- throwanon 8y agoI grew up in a third-world country, and I've noticed a palpable shift in the moods of my educated, middle-class friends and family back home. People in many third-world countries have been fed the line that democracy is the correct form of government. This isn't accidental: the soft power of Hollywood and the myth of American exceptionalism have been powerful incentives to have faith in the ability of democratic institutions to improve lives: it's an odd form of cargo-cultism, and if you are a believer in freedom and democracy, a "helpful delusion". The educated elites in third world democracies have recoiled from the notion of authoritarianism, and from the idea of having every aspect of their lives surveilled for safety. Political events in the US, the rise of social media, and the risks of virality unexpectedly unleashing mob chaos have made them a lot more wary. Openness and the exchange of ideas exposes the worst of human nature: the trolls whose ideas are magnified by algorithms seeking to capture attention. The propagandists and bots with their massive reach are noticed by educated people, who can see how powerless or unwilling social networks and governments are to stop them. It doesn't matter whether the propagandists succeed or not-their mere unfettered existence is enough to disturb people. With the weakening of democratic norms, other options are suddenly back on the table. As people have theoretically become freer, they seem to seek more security. Blanketing a city with CCTV seems to be a pragmatic trade-off for personal safety. The censorship of China seems to be attractive because of the endless hateful noise of social media, the orderliness of having criminals removed from society permanently via the death penalty suddenly seems attractive. The lesser-educated never really cared for abstract notions of liberty anyway. In short, the authoritarian surveillance state is an increasingly attractive proposition to large swathes of humanity.
- bluetomcat 8y agoThe unquestionable notion that democracy with capitalism is the only reasonable form of society has created highly corrupt states with facade institutions pretending to be democratic, serving the interests of the local elites behind the scenes. Democracy is just one possible way for a society and it has to be developed organically through history, not forced upon populations. Many people are perfectly happy with someone else making decisions for them, as long as they trust that other person.
- cooervo 8y agoinvented in the UK
- huffmsa 8y agoThe playbook was written there too. Poor George. He'll get a statue as the "godfather of our peaceful watchful state" and not for warning us.
- basetop 8y agoThe oddest thing about 1984 is how the education system ( at least here in the US ) has turned it into a warning about the soviet union when it was in fact a warning about the west. Animal farm was about the soviet union. 1984 was about the west. And yet we are taught over and over again that 1984 was about the soviet union. George Orwell worked as a propagandist for the BBC during ww2. "I was wasting my own time and the public money on doing work that produces no result. I believe that in the present political situation the broadcasting of British propaganda to India is an almost hopeless task." https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-orwell-statue-20160809-snap-story.html https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-orwell-sta... Orwell based the Ministry of Truth and Room 101 on the BBC. And yet the BBC is building a statue for Orwell for his work as a "journalist" at the BBC. What an insane world we live in. The BBC is co-opting Orwell to burnish their own reputation, even though Orwell criticized and warned us about the BBC. You have to respect the hubris even if you disagree with the misrepresentation.
- raubtier 8y agoWe will get there for sure. Unless, of course, all of you here and elsewhere wake up and stop advocating just a bit of tyranny applied just to the right place.
- yogthos 8y agoThis focus on surveillance in China is incredibly disingenuous because things aren't actually all that different in the West. We all carry phones that collect a ton of information on us, and we now know that this information is shared with the government. The only difference is that in China you know that the state watches you while here we pretend that it's not the case. The reality is that Chinese government is just more open about it. We also have a social credit system here it's your credit rating score. Your value in the West is determined solely by the size of your bank account. So, perhaps if we don't like what we see in China, it's time to start looking inward instead of pointing fingers.
- Gustomaximus 8y ago> things aren't actually all that different in the West Really. I feel there's a massive difference between agencies background lurking looking for signs of extremism to focus limited physical surveillance resources and a 'social credit score' where you ability to work a job, attend a school or catch a plane etc is based on a computer generated score on how the govt feels you should act from their surveillance.
- yorwba 8y ago> agencies background lurking looking for signs of extremism to focus limited physical surveillance resources A common pattern in stories about people interned in "reeducation camps" in Xinjiang is that they spent some time abroad, e.g. in Kazakhstan, then returned to their hometown and were arrested as terrorist suspects. E.g. https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=666287509 https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=666287509 > 'social credit score' where you ability to work a job, attend a school or catch a plane etc is based on a computer generated score Such a thing does not exist yet, and although it might become reality at some point, it's all speculation so far: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social-credit-score-isnt-real/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/11/16/chinas-orwellian-social... China's surveillance capabilities are pretty similar to the West, the greatest difference is in the way that information is used, since they aren't as worried about targeting innocent people.
- raxxorrax 8y ago
- chappi42 8y ago> including Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kenya, the United Arab Emirates and Germany Germany finds itself in great company... With a more sane migration politic this shouldn't have been necessary? Not so long ago there was a time where e.g. Christmas Fairs in Berlin didn't need a fortress built around.
- whoevercares 8y agoIt’s pretty clear through China’s history and several Chinese writers might have pointed it out, that the majority of Chinese people won’t be awakened unless the government screwed up extremely badly(e.g. partially how cultural revolution ended). As Lin Yutang pointed out(in 1930s, still holds), ““Chinese are culturally old but racially young” and a “prolonged childhood”. It’s then appeared totally strange, as a culture to exhibit “retaining some of the adaptability, flexibility” from ones childhood. A example is how Management talents are in a huge demand in China and it could be amazing to see how bad the management could be in common Chinese enterprises. Surveillance which is a big deal to mature western culture, might not incur broad critical thinking in China because it might fall into this flexibility domain that most people won’t give it a second thought. People will actually try to adapt and workaround first. Sadly this peculiar culture IMHO is great fit for an authoritarian system and a long way to go for democratic system to work for it
- intended 8y agoI’ve written it elsewhere on HN, but the China model is going to be the more popular model of internet management. It’s time to understand the implications of a govt sanctioned whitelist of information.
- mv4 8y agoIt's amazing how many of the top-selling IP cameras on Amazon (including "Amazon's Choice" like Wyze) have buyer reviews where people discovered their cameras contacting servers in China, Russia, etc. And that's why we made an autonomous, cloud-less video security assistant. We should probably do a Show HN at some point!
- jammygit 8y agoI would have subscribed to the times by now if they practiced what they preached. Why can't paykng subs be free of the tracking ads?
- jackcosgrove 8y agoHow many people in this thread advocating for surveillance are doing so because they, as information workers, would personally have an advantage under such a system?
- vms20591 8y agoIt's always right when the West and big corporations do it, because they are the good guys, right?. Everyone has an agenda, whether its open or hidden. Any form of violation of privacy or rights and anyone who does it should be held accountable. Just don't pick and choose to suit your bias.
- chriselles 8y agoI wonder if Ecuador is the best example to use for the export of technology enabled authoritarianism? I strongly suspect the generation of equipment installed in Ecuador misses the more recent and far more ominous AI/ML force multiplier effect of surveillance technology. Mass customised surveillance price/performance is making an Orwellian/Stasi state a reality. In terms of authoritarianism versus democracy my thoughts are: Votes can’t be eaten Votes can’t shelter you Votes can’t employ you Votes can’t educate your children Votes can’t ensure a better quality of life for you children Votes don’t equate to trust I strongly prefer living under democracy than authoritarianism. But if there was a hypothetical binary choice between: Corrupt democratic government And Net Promoter Score responsive authoritarian government I believe the needle will be shifting away from the former and towards the latter. Perhaps the perception of democracy as a luxury with a questionable value proposition to many is one that should be better considered? Do we want/need Government as a Service/Subscription?
- subjoriented 8y agoThe history of China's rise as a technologically enabled state is in direct contradiction to the premise of the accusation. The West invented technologically enabled surveillance. The Stasi in Germany - for example - developed a records and accounting system and would use home telephony equipment to spy on dissidents. As of the 70s and 80s the United States NSA has backdoored much of the modern global communications systems - and has build these systems to scale intelligence into actionable intelligence for partner enforcement organizations (CIA/FBI/etc). At a municipal scale, the United States is networked with threat scoring systems, camera networks with facial recognition, ISMI interceptors (with continuous passive collections events over all major cities), data fusion centers between policing and data networks, requirements to data holding companies to compel data access, and much more - these systems were build several decades ago but are constantly being updated. China was struggling through these decades to reestablish itself, and has only recently copied modern Western systems of surveillance. I don't really have teeth in that game though. I realize this is a political topic ("blame"). The fact that the West employs a sophisticated and pervasive surveillance state should not restrict us from criticizing Eastern implementations of the same gross mal-application of technology. And the fact is that who "invented" it is a bit of a non-starter, as state surveillance existed thousands of years ago in rudimentary forms that have evolved independently between states - and the application of modern technology is just one aspect of historical picture. Of course the surveillance situation in the United States goes much further, with state intelligence agencies actively "engaged" with the public so that public perception can be shaped. The NSA calls this combination of surveillance and engagement "active listening". I don't know whether China has learned from this yet (such topics are hard to research) but it wouldn't surprise me.