China 2019 - Orwell was 35 years out

[frankfurter + 562]

On 10/11/2019 at 1:34 AM, DayTrader said:

One lesson from 1984, is propaganda succeeds because of two factors;  the kernel of truth is stretched and warped into an agenda; and that story is then poured onto ignorant readers incessantly.

True, China has surveillance tech and the social reporting system. But the manner of its implementation and use is different from what is portrayed in the article. I know this will start yet another firestorm here, so let's leave the matter as a qualified confirmation.

An interesting aspect to this story is the tech was first developed by Americans, for their CIA. Very long before China, I was and am subjected to facial rec tech each and every time I fly to the USA. Every border police kiosk has a camera to scan your face before entry.  Street cameras are in place. So bro, whether you accept it or not, facial tech is used every day by the governments of USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Europe, etc. Added to this is the review of your personal data whenever you are stopped by the police for any cause.  Added to this is the review of your personal social media accounts when you wish to apply for employment, drivers licence, university, and more. So bro, however you may wish to think, the fact is surveillance tech is in your country now and is being used to listen, watch, record your every step. China is really no different from what started in the west.

Now, if we can step back from the demonisation agenda for just a bit, let's focus upon the people of China.  If you visit China and engage, you may be very surprised to learn the Chinese people are kind, non-violent in nature, studious, industrious, and very pragmatic. They are not the evil, blood thirsty, horde of aliens about to swarm into your countries to enslave you all. Overall, we should have a certain sympathy for them, for the simple reason they are the ones who must live and cope with a surveillance state.

The comparisons to 1984 are valid - for everybody, everywhere. We are now living in a global surveillance state, so what are YOU doing about it in YOUR country, other than sitting in your armchairs and demonising China.

But China has one very big difference to say the USA.  1984 was inter alia a warning of the pending drug culture. The USA IS a drug culture: China is not.  Thus the greater threat to it citizens, using the 1984 paradigm, is the USA government. 

[Guest]

I'm not questioning surveillance or saying it doesn't occur everywhere. There is a big difference between street cameras, showing ID at airports, personal data given to police and so on and this Chinese nonsense. You seem to have completely avoided the second line of the article and that's what I have an issue with. 

On 10/9/2019 at 2:11 AM, DayTrader said:

This is all a part of China’s social credit system that will take effect on Dec. 1st. 

On 10/9/2019 at 2:11 AM, DayTrader said:

This is significant because now the Chinese government will use the internet to rate citizens based on their daily behavior online. 

Street cameras, airport security etc is arguably for your safety and for practical reasons, and occurs in every airport and city in the world. If I had a problem with that, I wouldn't make this post about China would I? 

On 10/12/2019 at 3:10 AM, frankfurter said:

you may be very surprised to learn the Chinese people are kind, non-violent in nature, studious, industrious, and very pragmatic.

Not surprising at all. I know many and have no problem with the Chinese people. So my 'agenda' is bang on in terms of government, whatever you think of it. That's what I have a problem with. I'm not a racist prick and don't appreciate the suggestion it's about Chinese people.  

On 10/12/2019 at 3:10 AM, frankfurter said:

They are not the evil, blood thirsty, horde of aliens about to swarm into your countries to enslave you all.

LOL er, phew? You honestly think I think this? Hope this is you being humourous, 

On 10/12/2019 at 3:10 AM, frankfurter said:

The comparisons to 1984 are valid - for everybody, everywhere. We are now living in a global surveillance state, so what are YOU doing about it in YOUR country, other than sitting in your armchairs and demonising China.

I'm admittedly doing nothing about it, as I live in a country where I'm not being 'judged and rated' for everything I do, to see if I'm a perfect citizen in the eyes of my government.

Going through an airport or being on the odd street CCTV? Meh. It's not the same league.

Edited October 14, 2019 by Guest

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

“the USA is a drug culture; China is not.”

I beg to differ. The US has a drug problem and it is often discussed openly in the press. China MAY have a drug problem....but the Chinese media is forbidden from mentioning it.

Secondly, don’t you think that you are generalizing when you say that the entire country is a drug culture?

Finally, what were all those damn Opium Wars about?

[Guest]

Oh Doug. Details shmeetails. 

[PE Scott + 563]

The only credit I'll give china in all of this is at least they're being transparent about it. I suspect there are similar programs in Western countries that are kept more or less under wraps. That's the difference though, china doesn't have to worry about infringing on citizens's liberties if it doesn't provide them any to begin with.

[Guest]

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-congressional-delegation-denied-visas-beijing-over-planned-stop-taiwan

You wanna visit Taiwan huh? No no no ... 

[Guest]

               

               

Edited October 14, 2019 by Guest

[Otis11 + 551]

On 10/9/2019 at 7:10 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

That is some scary stuff. From what I understand (I’ve never been to England) London is very similar re the number of CCTV’s.

But those are CC... not connected to a central cloud that's constantly tracking you and affecting you social score...

 

To my understanding, that requires someone to go look at it if they have a reason to.

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

One lesson from 1984, is propaganda succeeds because of two factors;  the kernel of truth is stretched and warped into an agenda; and that story is then poured onto ignorant readers incessantly.

True, China has surveillance tech and the social reporting system. But the manner of its implementation and use is different from what is portrayed in the article. I know this will start yet another firestorm here, so let's leave the matter as a qualified confirmation.

An interesting aspect to this story is the tech was first developed by Americans, for their CIA. Very long before China, I was and am subjected to facial rec tech each and every time I fly to the USA. Every border police kiosk has a camera to scan your face before entry.  Street cameras are in place. So bro, whether you accept it or not, facial tech is used every day by the governments of USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Europe, etc. Added to this is the review of your personal data whenever you are stopped by the police for any cause.  Added to this is the review of your personal social media accounts when you wish to apply for employment, drivers licence, university, and more. So bro, however you may wish to think, the fact is surveillance tech is in your country now and is being used to listen, watch, record your every step. China is really no different from what started in the west.

Now, if we can step back from the demonisation agenda for just a bit, let's focus upon the people of China.  If you visit China and engage, you may be very surprised to learn the Chinese people are kind, non-violent in nature, studious, industrious, and very pragmatic. They are not the evil, blood thirsty, horde of aliens about to swarm into your countries to enslave you all. Overall, we should have a certain sympathy for them, for the simple reason they are the ones who must live and cope with a surveillance state.

The comparisons to 1984 are valid - for everybody, everywhere. We are now living in a global surveillance state, so what are YOU doing about it in YOUR country, other than sitting in your armchairs and demonising China.

But China has one very big difference to say the USA.  1984 was inter alia a warning of the pending drug culture. The USA IS a drug culture: China is not.  Thus the greater threat to it citizens, using the 1984 paradigm, is the USA government. 

 

Wow Frankfurter we actually agree!!!

I am truly amazed!

I agree that the technology was mostly from the West and subsequently stolen/copied by China (which is Trump's argument regarding the current trade wars), but I digress.

I also agree that this isn't a Chinese issue, this is global, China are just taking it to the next level and pushing the boundaries of what is morally acceptable to the populace.

In the West wherever I have travelled we are subjected to being scrutinised on camera virtually everywhere we go. Drones are the latest intrusion into peoples personal space and there seems no laws about who owns them and where and what they can film.

The only thing I would disagree with you on is your last paragraph as I don't see the relevance of drugs to the thread topic, albeit drugs are a blight on any society.

Happy we agree on most of this but it is worrying that China have seemingly escalated how the technology is being used and even more concerned that maybe this will be adopted in the West in the near future.

 

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

the thought police are everywhere!

Dont do it let alone think about doing it!!

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

First, the US is not a drug culture. This is a generalization that does not fit the reality. Yes, America, like other countries, has a ‘drug problem’, but to paint the entire American population as participating in the problem, or attaching the trappings of a ‘drug culture’ to the entirety of American society is not only misleading, it is false.

The fact is, the American media constantly report on the drug problem, and this is likely where the perception comes from. If you watch the news in Malaysia you are likely to see where the police have ‘busted’ a drug ring 3-4 times a week, yet nobody labels Malaysia as being a ‘drug culture’.

Do you honestly think that if China had a drug problem that the media would be allowed to report on it?

I have not seen a single post where anyone has described the Chinese people as ‘evil, blood thirsty, horde of aliens about to swarm into your countries to enslave you all.’. In fact, most comment that they are as you describe.

[Guest]

I go back to one of the first lines of the article, about the points system given to citizens. This isn't about the odd bit of CCTV, as much as the Chinese want to think it is, and say 'this happens everywhere'. Please read my earlier comments in this thread. As I said, it's a different league. This is not about airports or CCTV or giving details to police or social media or .... 

Edited October 15, 2019 by Guest

[frankfurter + 562]

In case any of you have illusions, CCTV cameras are connected to a national network in your country, your govt spies upon you constantly, and employers rate you by your social media disclosures.  How you think this is ostensibly different from what China does is rather baffling. China has simply reached a higher level of efficiency and is openly informing its citizens. Stating this does not make me a supporter: so stated for all you demonisers. But fear not, your govt is working very diligently to catch up; and very doubtful you will ever know the results of such hard work.

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2377-social-media-hiring.html

"According to a 2018 CareerBuilder survey, 70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates during the hiring process, and about 43 percent of employers use social media to check on current employees."

Seems to me, like people in China, people elsewhere accept the surveillance state imposed upon them and try to get on with their lives. Funny, that.  Unless readers here can point me to evidence to the contrary? 

 

[Guest]

[Guest]

I had no idea that employers choosing to look at your social media was the law ...  

Or that every single citizen even uses social media ... 

So lovely what you learn here....

I can be heard on CCTV saying I hate all UK politicians and they are all a joke. If I was evil I could even say I want them all dead if I wanted to. Nothing would happen.

What would happen in China I wonder if a citizen said that? 

You seem unable to get the difference here. Somehow. But admittedly from what I read you would score highly on their system. Bravo. 

Edited October 15, 2019 by Guest

[PE Scott + 563]

1 hour ago, frankfurter said:

According to a 2018 CareerBuilder survey, 70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates during the hiring process, and about 43 percent of employers use social media to check on current employees."

On one side of things, "Real IDs", which are driver licenses in NM that are accepted all over the U.S. (originally there were some issues -different story) require your photo is taken with facial recognition technology. They were pretty transparent about that fact when these new IDs became available. So, if I want a state ID or driver's license, I have to subject to that technology. However, as far as I know, it's not used for active surveillance. Its more of an after the fact sort of thing when trying to identify a robber from home security footage for example. Publicly, I have no knowledge of a system that ranks people based on their behavior or anything like that. 

Even the NSA, for all the attention they've got, has more or less admitted to not having the infastructure to process all the data they collect. Instead, they collect everything all the time and don't look at it until you've become a person of interest. This could change, presumably technology could catch up and all that data is already there. At least, this is my understanding of there current surveillance. 

Lastly, the part I quoted. Personally, I don't have a social media account. I have a linkedin account for professional references and such, but nothing social. That's the beauty of it, no one forces you to use FB or any other social media platform. I'm free to carry on blissfully unaware of how much people think I'm an asshole. For those that don't know me already, they just have to wait and find out. There will be no warning. So employers are force to look at my resume and qualifications, or disregard me all together. So far, I haven't seen a downside.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, PE Scott said:

So far, I haven't seen a downside.

Mic drop

[Guest]

17 hours ago, Otis11 said:

But those are CC... not connected to a central cloud that's constantly tracking you and affecting you social score...

 

Yeah the CC is the clue

[Otis11 + 551]

4 hours ago, frankfurter said:

In case any of you have illusions, CCTV cameras are connected to a national network in your country, your govt spies upon you constantly, and employers rate you by your social media disclosures.  How you think this is ostensibly different from what China does is rather baffling. China has simply reached a higher level of efficiency and is openly informing its citizens. Stating this does not make me a supporter: so stated for all you demonisers. But fear not, your govt is working very diligently to catch up; and very doubtful you will ever know the results of such hard work.

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2377-social-media-hiring.html

"According to a 2018 CareerBuilder survey, 70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates during the hiring process, and about 43 percent of employers use social media to check on current employees."

Seems to me, like people in China, people elsewhere accept the surveillance state imposed upon them and try to get on with their lives. Funny, that.  Unless readers here can point me to evidence to the contrary? 

 

Incorrect. CCTV isn't connected to the internet, much less a national grid.

In a former roll I worked on my company's network architecture - I could see everything from the PCN (Process Control Network), the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone - nickname that means it's just a pass-through layer with nothing actually in that region), Business network, Enterprise network, cloud layer, etc. (and know what's on each network and what data is sent between each layer). 

Our CCTV and Badging networks are 2 separate networks - distinct from each other and distinct from the architecture shown above. There is no way for either to be connected to the internet (we actually have a very elaborate procedure for updating so that there is now way for information to flow out, can only follow a very controlled flow in, and there isn't even anything capable of connecting to another network. We actually have 'virus' that are actively looking for any external connections. One time, someone connected a smart coffee pot to the wrong network - so we could go in the hard wired connection and out through the coffee pot's wifi - found it in minutes).

Anyway, in the US, big corporations have a big enough network and security team that they're not just connecting these CCTVs to wifi, and small corporations are too small to be worth infiltrating. Yes, there are scripts that go around looking for unsecured cameras and pulling that into databases - and while I'm sure the US government is collecting that info, I'm equally sure the Chinese government is collecting that information. (I've actually traced an unauthorized stream on one of these devices before... ended up being sourced from China. Shocking, I know.)

With that, I'm confident in my response as I'm aware of quite a bit more than is public knowledge.

Your bit about social media profiles is 100% spot on, however. The most shocking thing there is that only 43% are admitting it.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Otis11 said:

Your bit about social media profiles is 100% spot on, however.

But not everyone has it anyway. Plus, if you're happy enough to plaster your whole life onto social media, it is literally out there already, publicly.

So the fact your employer might take a peek at this? So what? You made the decision to post this trash. As far as I know it's not illegal to look on FB? For this to be labelled as 'surveillance state' is hilarious. 

''I posted something publicly and someone looked at it''   - yeah, it's real 1984 stuff. 

Cheers. 

[Otis11 + 551]

Oh, the most interesting one was where we showed how an airgap between networks could be bypassed by using a CCTV that WAS connected to the internet, along with a virus implanted on the PCN of an airgapped system. The virus infected the computer and used the laptop's camera to look at a security camera, which had a red blinking light, and a different security camera could see the computer screen. Used Morris code from controlling the blinking light to write a program on the computer to carry out instructions, and viewed the progress from another security camera.

This is yet one more reason not to have your Security Cameras connected to the internet!!! (Combine with the fact that people can then see into your facility... and see the actual physical security layout.)

... more rant because Connecting Security Cameras to the internet is moronic. You'd have to have very incompetent security people to even consider such an arrangement, much less implement it.

[Otis11 + 551]

1 minute ago, DayTrader said:

But not everyone has it anyway. Plus, if you're happy enough to plaster your whole life onto social media, it is literally out there already, publicly.

So the fact your employer might take a peek at this? So what? You made the decision to post this trash. As far as I know it's not illegal to look on FB? For this to be labelled as 'surveillance state' is hilarious. 

''I posted something publicly and someone looked at it''   - yeah, it's real 1984 stuff. 

Cheers. 

Oh yeah, absolutely. That's why I don't have social media either. (Sadly, I have a very unique name, so if you know that, I'm pretty much toast. You can find every publication/article that I've written or been quoted in, award I've received, etc. LinkedIn, whatever.)

[Guest]

Use a pseudonym    Nice subtle ''award I've received'' by the way haha. Love it. 

[Otis11 + 551]

1 minute ago, DayTrader said:

Use a pseudonym    Nice subtle ''award I've received'' by the way haha. Love it. 

That's why I go by Otis. (That is a pseudonym)

And sorry - didn't think enough to realize that could come across as self-aggrandising.

[Guest]

Oh that is the pseudonym, I see.

No don't apologise for talking sense. 

It's rare here, trust me.