Orwell, digital prisons and the double-edged sword of surveillance
Might as well start a thread on this before someone in the west gets the bright idea to add this to their Patriot Act toolkit.
Quote:
China is adding facial recognition to its overarching surveillance systems in Xinjiang, a Muslim-dominated region in the country's far west that critics claim is under abusive security controls. The geo-fencing tools alert authorities when targets venture beyond a designated 300-meter safe zone, according to an anonymous source who spoke to Bloomberg.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-use...144700817.html
Trust me, there'll be more to follow.
https://i.imgur.com/jnEiyYz.jpg
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the globe
Quote:
Appeal court judges have ruled the government’s mass digital surveillance regime unlawful in a case brought by the Labour deputy leader, Tom Watson.
Liberty, the human rights campaign group which represented Watson in the case, said the ruling meant significant parts of theInvestigatory Powers Act 2016 – known as the snooper’s charter – are effectively unlawful and must be urgently changed.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...oopers-charter
Considering that the Wall is now down for longer than it was up...
Historical footnote.
East German Snitching Went Far Beyond the Stasi
Quote:
Everyone knows about the Stasi and the extent to which it spied on the East German populace. But that was only a small part of the informing that went on. New research shows that snitching was vastly more common than previously thought.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...a-1042883.html
Xi is building the most powerful and intrusive surveillance regime in history
An article by Australia's Lowy Institute that starts looking at Presient Xi's likely longer term of office and then what is emerging in China:
Quote:
Moreover, under Xi, the government has established online ‘social credit’ databases, which suggests that it could eventually roll out a single score for all Chinese citizens, comprising credit ratings, online behaviour, health records, expressions of party loyalty and other information.
The beauty of a big-data dictatorship is that it could sustain itself less through direct threats and punishment as a public spectacle, and more through ‘nudges’ to manipulate people’s perspectives and behaviour. And the more time Chinese citizens spend online, the more the government will be able to control what they see and do there.
Digital technologies will also allow the government to respond more quickly to public discontent, or to head it off altogether if it can discern or predict changes in public opinion. Given that many dictatorships collapse as a result of poor information, digital technologies could become an even more powerful prophylactic against bad decision-making than term limits.
If there is one thing that political scientists, economists and technologists can all agree on, it is that Xi is building the most powerful and intrusive surveillance regime in history.
Link:https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/ch...a-big-brother/