Slashdot Mirror
12 Days In Xinjiang - China's Surveillance State (business-standard.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader b0s0z0ku writes: China has turned Xinjiang, the Northwestern part of the country surrounding Urumqi, into one of the most advanced surveillance states in the world. Officially, the purpose is to prevent terrorism and control resistance to the government in one of the few parts of China where ethnic Chinese are a minority.
From routine use of facial recognition cameras, to police checkpoints where people's cell phones randomly are checked for unauthorized software, to needing to swipe an ID card and be photographed to buy gasoline and other necessities, the level of technology — and control — is frightening and awe-inspiring.
From routine use of facial recognition cameras, to police checkpoints where people's cell phones randomly are checked for unauthorized software, to needing to swipe an ID card and be photographed to buy gasoline and other necessities, the level of technology — and control — is frightening and awe-inspiring.
How is it worse that the USA's mysterious "no-fly" lists or the TSA groping everybody who wants to travel somewhere in the USA?
In its scope, if nothing else. Checkpoints every couple hundred yards, mass examination of cell phones, forbidden apps, entry/exit of the region strictly controlled and recorded, etc. TSA has nothing approaching this, and it's limited mostly to airports (although it's showing up increasingly at other transportation hubs). And this is only the beginning. China is working its way toward a system of scoring all of its citizens regarding their social value, kind of like a FICO score except encompassing one's entire life and social interactions. The score will in part determine your qualification for good jobs, housing, credit, etc. It's positively diabolical in that one's associations with others enters into the score, so there'll be a penalty if you hang around with folks who have low-scores, meaning society itself will be enlisted in assuring conformance to whatever code authorities want enforced.
More on what is going on in China: https://www.wired.com/story/ag...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Their own shitty countries? The Muslims of Xinjiang are Chinese, and their ancestors have been Chinese for thousands of years.
This space intentionally left blank