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China's super camera can pinpoint specific targets among of thousands of people
- nkkollaw 7y agoGotta love communism.
- point78 7y agoDon't fool yourself, the West has it too but we don't publish it. (And anyway look at cctv in london)
- imeron 7y agoLondon, the 6th most surveilled city of the planet. https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-surveilled-cities/ https://www.comparitech.com/vpn-privacy/the-worlds-most-surv...
- tbyehl 7y agoDemocracies will follow. It'll be marketed for anti-terrorism purposes and slowly expand until it's automatically sending citations to people who commit petty "crimes" like jaywalking and not picking up their dog's poop.
- samstave 7y agoThis is literally the pushback had against the NWO has always been for me. Growing up in the 80s and 90s I was fascinated with cyberpunk in culture, ideas etc. I knew that’s where the future was going to be - but being young and naive, it was always “it would so cool if...” Playing cyberpunk games, etc got me into computers. I suspect that sort of techno-curiosity and infatuation with tech is what brought many of us to the industry. I’ve helped build tracking and spying systems my whole career under the guise of “data” That dystopian reality of every single thing you do, see, seek has spread like a cancer into every aspect of our lives. Heck, there are even stories (I haven’t confirmed their veracity) of people being attacked by governments for attempting to be totally off grid. It is completely impossible to detach from the system. —— I recall when we used to talk about Eschelon in the 80s and 90s and nobody believe our crackpot conspiracy theories then. But now the we are many generations beyond the original Eschelon, it’s been hyper-normalized, and there is nothing you can do about it, because-fuck-you-that$-why So, I don’t have any “whataboutism” - many brilliant minds have been exploited for authoritarian profits, and you can’t escape the world we have all worked to create through evolving technology.
- nkkollaw 7y agoI know. Pretty scary! I actually believe China is the playground for the future, unfortunately.
- bonoboTP 7y agoYou should elaborate why that is bad and provide different examples. Many people would say it's actually good if there's less dog poop and that small rule breaking should be followed by proportionately small punishments instead of selective enforcement or letting better cheaters get away with things. I think an implicit assumption behind fears from surveillance systems is that our society relies on small rule breaking all the time and human judgment is needed to smooth out the rough edges and be flexible. If 100% enforcement becomes the norm, the laws need to be much more precise with many more exceptions and clarifications. The other issue of course is that many laws are not written according to normal people's interests, so their 100% enforcement would harm society.
- tbyehl 7y ago> our society relies on small rule breaking all the time Precisely. And individually, we all have different ideas of which are acceptable to break regularly, which we're generally indifferent about, and which should be considered absolute. The prospect of absolute enforcement sounds great when used against something you agree with, like failing to pick up dog poop. Probably not-so-great when used to enforce one of the rules you personally break regularly. I'm sure you can think of several, and I might only agree with half. > If 100% enforcement becomes the norm, the laws need to be much more precise with many more exceptions and clarifications. I think it's the opposite. We need fewer laws with less precision. Too many laws are effectively "How not to be a dick all the time or endanger other people." But what constitutes being a dick or endangering someone is often more situational than a bright-line "Never do X." Nevermind that we have so many laws it's impossible for anyone to be sure they haven't already broken one today.
- zo1 7y ago> "Nevermind that we have so many laws it's impossible for anyone to be sure they haven't already broken one today." I'm sure there is a good middle ground that can be reached. The more we automate, the less we leave ambiguous. Because even though ambiguity enables us to be civil towards one another in the form of understanding "context", it also allows a lot of genuine bad behavior to occur and also inevitably leaves loopholes for bad actors.
- AsyncAwait 7y agoChina's not been communist in anything but name for a loong time. Nonetheless, it serves as a nice testing ground for policies eventually implemented by the West as well, sadly.
- angry_octet 7y agoI don't know how down voting people can be confused about the truth of your statement. They can obviously give up communism in all but name and still retain authoritarianism and all the secret police, labour camps, informers etc that go with it. China is literally selling their surveillance tech (with backdoors of course) to Western local government... https://theconversation.com/amp/is-chinas-social-credit-system-coming-to-australia-117095 https://theconversation.com/amp/is-chinas-social-credit-syst...
- Barrin92 7y agohttps://longreads.com/2019/06/21/nothing-kept-me-up-at-night-the-way-the-gorgon-stare-did/ https://longreads.com/2019/06/21/nothing-kept-me-up-at-night... high tech surveillance in the US has been going on for a while, the mentioned book by Arthur Michel is a recommended read.
- RavlaAlvar 7y agoI am so frustrated about how HN is now full of whataboutism on the China issues.
- spookyuser 7y agoLast time I saw this on HN it actually wasn't too bad there were some people trying to defend the CCP in a thread about Hong Kong and almost every pro CCP comment was flagged and had a response. But in the real world it is super frustrating, was having a conversation with someone the other day that was trying to to make that exact kind of whataboutism with Apple and Huawei. They just did not see it as categorically different, no matter what you believe apple can and has done, that Huawei is essentially owned by the CCP [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669
- Barrin92 7y ago>people trying to defend the CCP in a thread about Hong Kong and almost every pro CCP comment was flagged so just to play devils advocate here, say someone is Chinese and wants to post on HN and has a pro-government view of his own country, which is quite common, you're saying they don't even need to bother posting? It's always interesting to see where the tolerance of opinion ends.
- bordercases 7y agoIt ends where it supports behavior that eliminates the ability to enable being tolerant. This isn't difficult.
- Barrin92 7y agothere's plenty of intolerant views that are widely held, many religious say that are part of a healthy discussion if you want to hear everyone's viewpoints. It seems a little weird to brush off the opinions of hundreds of millions of people as 'it isn't difficult'. It's really difficult. The intensity of disregard of political opinions concerning China hasn't anything to do with the opinions themselves, because I read way stranger stuff on HN every day. It's that it's an American website that puts much higher scrutiny on opinions held by perceived US adversaries.
- samstave 7y agoSo aside from the 1984 aspects of this, I have some ideas on how this could be put to good use, specifically in ecosystem management. Mount this to a drone and have it fly over a forest or a farm. Have it count the insect population, say number of bees. Or insects in total. Have it identify the number of a certain type of crop, tree, plant or whatever. Connect it to (I don’t know the term for it) where it can determine the health of the plant or tree. Have it fly over wild areas and count the population of elk, deer, cattle, whatever. Teach it to identify and map out potholes in roads automatically Things of this nature. Fuck facial targets in a stadium.
- 14 7y agoMore like use facial recognition to identify religious and political minorities that disagree with you and round up those people and send them to the farm to count insects, plants, or whatever. When I think of this tech I think there would be no way for a spy to walk around a city and not be known. No more blending in with the crowd, not that I am even sure this kind of intelligence work takes place outside of the movies.
- threatofrain 7y agoI argue that if the US doesn’t keep up with this technology then a lot of towns are going to buy this kind of tech. What if somebody told the police that they can identify problematic people (for any convenient definition of problem) during a protest, even if they came from out of town?
- latchkey 7y agohttps://www.technologyreview.com/s/613891/the-pentagon-has-a-laser-that-can-identify-people-from-a-distanceby-their-heartbeat/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613891/the-pentagon-has-a...
- daniel_reetz 7y agoAlso look up the "Gorgon Stare" and ARGUS-IS. We have these cameras already.
- hos234 7y agoHow often are 10000 people miling around in American towns?
- ganonm 7y agoI worry that widespread camera tracking is an effective route to determining identities of otherwise anonymous online accounts. If you can work out times when people are unlikely to be posting content online (e.g. because they are seen carrying bags of shopping) you can gradually, through process of elimination, work out who is the real identity behind some online account, or at least some probability. For example, if I make some number of posts on hacker news, every person who has an 'alibi' at the time of a post cannot be a candidate for the true identity of the account.
- bonoboTP 7y agoI guess you could set up timers that post with some delay to confuse such systems.
- oh_sigh 7y agoIf the state is going to those lengths, you would need to make sure your automated posting before/during/after web activity is similar to real activity. So you can't just POST a request at a certain time.
- shoeboxam 7y agoIt would be possible to write a learned program to simulate browsing habits. It is ironic, in a way, that you would need to track yourself, to avoid tracking.
- lallysingh 7y agoOr just monitor their network links.
- netsharc 7y agoI don't think they do anonymous accounts there (AFAIK). Social media needs to be connected with real ID, in any case the most popular, WeChat is connected to your phone number, and people link it to their CCs to pay for everything (I saw a lady selling baked potatoes from a pull-cart, the cart had a QR code which buyers can scan on WeChat to pay her)
- kashprime 7y agoThere are many uses for the technology that don't violate civil rights. We can finally catch dangerous or intoxicated drivers on highways who cause accidents. Just because the tech is Chinese doesn't automatically disqualify it from serious consideration.
- cmroanirgo 7y agoThere are also many ways for the tech to be used that obliterates all forms of liberties and civil rights, and unfortunately it takes just one bad actor for any goodwill to disappear. Making the world Orewellian is never a good option because even the power to rebel against the systems of control is removed.
- mrtweetyhack 7y agoThat's super impressive considering they all look alike
- 29_29 7y agoJust traveled to China and to my surprise it was more Orwellian than I anticipated. Despite all of our problems in the US, I'm still proud to live in a Democracy and a free society. I took down my outdoor security camera after the trip.
- agumonkey 7y agoAny way to share what you felt ? are there videos that show "it" ?
- whoevercares 7y agoWould you mind be more concrete? I’m curious what part is surprising from your travel experience, assuming you are just a regular traveler/tourist (i.e. not journalist)
- 29_29 7y ago* "Security Check" - Airport style security everywhere even on the subway. * Cartoons - Authoritarianism was wrapped up and packaged with cute police cartoons https://www.google.com/search?q=china+police+cartoon&sxsrf=ACYBGNSbLunsLM5fjhrJ-7tZkm4IKdkOAQ:1569684665543&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjap5iH6_PkAhVJnKwKHcmqA1sQ_AUIEigB&biw=1224&bih=715 https://www.google.com/search?q=china+police+cartoon&sxsrf=A... * The Red Armbands - Communist party volunteers, in the subway, and in the community keeping watch https://bitterwinter.org/red-armbands-are-watching-you/ https://bitterwinter.org/red-armbands-are-watching-you/ * Passport check at sensitive locations and to buy a train ticket. To get into Tiananmen Square I needed a passport, I was denied entry to my train and separated from my group because the passport number didn't match my ticket * Police everywhere. Literally everywhere * I saw a a mosque surrounded by security cameras. They didn't even hide its surveillance. * I was watched everywhere, except the great wall - but I was told cameras are being constructed there too. The feeling I had was like being in the forest of District 12 of the Hunger Games, I felt free there. * Signs in the Hotel warn you that you DO NOT have a right to privacy, and you must register your passport or state ID
- cosmodisk 7y agoMy colleague and I had a discussion about the world going down the drain.He argued that it was never as bad as it is now. I disagreed with him,as I think people had so many 'we had enough' moments since the beginning of the humanity,that I see no reason why 5,10,15 or maybe after 40 years someone in China or the USA will say 'Screw this' and it will eventually snowball into another revolution,which will take all these CCTV cameras and social profiling to hell.
- super-serial 7y agoWhat if they’ve already profiled that person and they are in jail already? I think the worry with this new form of authoritarianism is that it will be so good no one will have the chance to stop it.
- arcticfox 7y agoExactly, there is no precedent for this
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cosmodisk 7y agoI had these thoughts as well, especially about advanced AI,which can go far beyond of what nowadays machine learning is capable of. Yet, if mass dissatisfaction is big enough, a lot of things cease functioning, introspectively of how strong they are. However I agree with the sentiment,that it will most likely be much harder than it used to be even 100 years ago.
- Scapeghost 7y agoEvery single time the topic of surveillance or heavy-handed governance comes up, I'm surprised to see how nobody brings up the fact that it's always one-sided: They can see you, but you can't see them. This is tyranny. The people in power can do anything anytime anywhere they want and you'll never know, unless other people in power tell you about it. There is an ever deepening divide in our society and eventually the people on the lower side will never be able to touch the people on the upper side, and if there's ever a global catastrophe, we'll be left behind to fend for ourselves.
- matz1 7y agoYes, we need more government transparency and openess. They can see us, we should also be able to see them. In a way technology can help us. Technology can help democratize survaliance.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- chillacy 7y agoI've heard it called "Sousveillance"
- coldtea 7y agoHow about no surveillance and other such "solutions" in need of a problem?
- carapace 7y agoHow do you ensure no one is using surveillance without a good surveillance system?
- coldtea 7y agoWith a good "gets thrown to jail" system if they're found to be using surveillance. If they can use surveillance and keep it forever secret and with no public artifacts from it shown, let them do it...
- cronix 7y agoLooks like they copied our ARGUS system, which can be mounted on drones to cover entire cities 24/7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA
- bobongo 7y agoPlease correct the title to: "China's super camera can pinpoint a specific individual among thousands of people"
- PBnFlash 7y agoWhenever I hear about these kinds of things I always think about when they put a gigapixel camera on a little airplane above Baltimore and flew it around all day every day. Being able to just retroactively track cars and people had such shocking power. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-surveillance/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-sur...
- throwaway6734 7y agoBeen back in the news lately: https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/baltimore-states-attorney-marilyn-mosby-says-surveillance-plane-still-on-the-table https://foxbaltimore.com/news/local/baltimore-states-attorne...
- coolspot 7y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS
- sinuhe69 7y ago“500 megapixel, 5 times the resolution of human eyes”: wrong. The resolution of human eyes is around 576 megapixels. https://curiosity.com/topics/how-many-megapixels-is-the-human-eye-curiosity/ https://curiosity.com/topics/how-many-megapixels-is-the-huma...