Massive Database Leak Exposes China's 'Digital Surveillance State' (eff.org) 72
Long-time Slashdot reader retroworks shared this EFF article:
Although relatively little news gets out of Xinjiang to the rest of the world, we've known for over a year that China has been testing facial-recognition tracking and alert systems across Xinjiang and mandating the collection of biometric data -- including DNA samples, voice samples, fingerprints, and iris scans -- from all residents between the ages of 12 and 65... Earlier this month, security researcher Victor Gevers found and disclosed an exposed database live-tracking the locations of about 2.6 million residents of Xinjiang, China, offering a window into what a digital surveillance state looks like in the 21st century...
Over a period of 24 hours, 6.7 million individual GPS coordinates were streamed to and collected by the database, linking individuals to various public camera streams and identification checkpoints associated with location tags such as "hotel," "mosque," and "police station." The GPS coordinates were all located within Xinjiang. This database is owned by the company SenseNets, a private AI company advertising facial recognition and crowd analysis technologies. A couple of days later, Gevers reported a second open database tracking the movement of millions of cars and pedestrians. Violations like jaywalking, speeding, and going through a red-light are detected, trigger the camera to take a photo, and ping a WeChat API, presumably to try and tie the event to an identity.
China may have a working surveillance program in Xinjiang, but it's a shockingly insecure security state. Anyone with an Internet connection had access to this massive honeypot of information... Even poorly-executed surveillance is massively expensive, and Beijing is no doubt telling the people of Xinjiang that these investments are being made in the name of their own security. But the truth, revealed only through security failures and careful security research, tells a different story: China's leaders seem to care little for the privacy, or the freedom, of millions of its citizens.
EFF also reports that a Chinese cybersecurity firm also recently discovered 468 exposed MongoDB servers on the internet, including databases containing detailed information about remote access consoles owned by China General Nuclear Power Group.
Meanwhile, ZDNet suggests that SenseNets may actually be "a government contractor, helping authorities track the Muslim minority, rather than a private company selling its product to another private entity. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain how SenseNets has access to ID card information and camera feeds from police stations and other government buildings."
Over a period of 24 hours, 6.7 million individual GPS coordinates were streamed to and collected by the database, linking individuals to various public camera streams and identification checkpoints associated with location tags such as "hotel," "mosque," and "police station." The GPS coordinates were all located within Xinjiang. This database is owned by the company SenseNets, a private AI company advertising facial recognition and crowd analysis technologies. A couple of days later, Gevers reported a second open database tracking the movement of millions of cars and pedestrians. Violations like jaywalking, speeding, and going through a red-light are detected, trigger the camera to take a photo, and ping a WeChat API, presumably to try and tie the event to an identity.
China may have a working surveillance program in Xinjiang, but it's a shockingly insecure security state. Anyone with an Internet connection had access to this massive honeypot of information... Even poorly-executed surveillance is massively expensive, and Beijing is no doubt telling the people of Xinjiang that these investments are being made in the name of their own security. But the truth, revealed only through security failures and careful security research, tells a different story: China's leaders seem to care little for the privacy, or the freedom, of millions of its citizens.
EFF also reports that a Chinese cybersecurity firm also recently discovered 468 exposed MongoDB servers on the internet, including databases containing detailed information about remote access consoles owned by China General Nuclear Power Group.
Meanwhile, ZDNet suggests that SenseNets may actually be "a government contractor, helping authorities track the Muslim minority, rather than a private company selling its product to another private entity. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain how SenseNets has access to ID card information and camera feeds from police stations and other government buildings."
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There are no communists.
Try dictators.
Re: Good (Score:2, Insightful)
Conservatists in China actually Maoists. The people that they worry about are the ones that push for liberal reforms. The terms conservative and liberal are relative to what is in place already.
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The terms conservative and liberal are relative to what is in place already.
Indeed. I learned this in 1991, when the attempt by hard-core communists to seize power in Russia [wikipedia.org] was widely described as a "right wing" coup.
I've been seening a lot of these stories lately (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing I haven't seen is so much as a peep about this from main stream media or a single politician. Calling out China's gov't is up there with showing a picture of Mohammad or pissing off Vladimir Putin in the list of "Shit you don't do".
What annoys me is seeing folks call for "Regime Change" in Venezuela and Iran while they ignore China (and Saudi Arabia while we're at it). Hell, Xi has basically declared himself emperor for life [bbc.com] and Trump didn't just say it was OK, he said we should do that too [thedailybeast.com]. Not a peep I tells ya.
I know it's all about money (oil and cheap labor), but damn it pisses me off. Not the hypocrisy (pay a man that much and he doesn't care if you call him a hypocrite), but how they always get away with it.
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There has been but not in such direct ways. We've backed politicians in such a hole there isn't a response they can give that won't piss someone off. Trump is no exception. Had he come out against China it would have "offended" Chineese living in the US and seen as racist. See Mexico as an example.
The only way to deal with it is by consiously refusing to accept it. Stop watching, reading, consuming media from organizations who insist on perpetuating the brainwash. More importantly TELL people why
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What annoys me is seeing folks call for "Regime Change" in Venezuela and Iran while they ignore China
China is a superpower. America is responsible to a large extent [venezuelanalysis.com] for what is happening [mintpressnews.com] in Venezuela [cepr.net] and has long been the driving force in regime change in Iran, often through extremely direct intervention. We can't fix China (although we could stop enabling them so much) but we are responsible for much of the mess in the other countries you mentioned.
Um... America's a super power too ya know (Score:4, Insightful)
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As it is we're ignoring that responsibility for the sake of a fast buck.
That's how it works everywhere, which is why we are having a climate crisis. Cheeto Mussolini is as much a symptom as a cause. Hell, "ignoring responsibility for the sake of a fast buck" ought to be his motto. I bet it sounds better in Latin.
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You insensitive clod.
The guy has a goddam purple heart.
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but we can give them a nudge in the right direction.
You are overestimating American influence on Chinese society. Even nudging is going to have little effect, and will likely do more harm than good by tainting domestic reformers in China as foreign stooges.
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What have we done to help America? It's going through precisely the same process.
The Trump administration is corrupt and Trump tells outright lies and runs a mafia and no one is doing anything about that.
Re:I've been seening a lot of these stories lately (Score:5, Informative)
drinkypoo opined:
America is responsible to a large extent [venezuelanalysis.com] for what is happening [mintpressnews.com] in Venezuela [cepr.net] and has long been the driving force in regime change in Iran, often through extremely direct intervention. We can't fix China (although we could stop enabling them so much) but we are responsible for much of the mess in the other countries you mentioned.
Let's see now:
According to Wikipedia, venezuelanalysis.com has been funded by the Venezuelan goverment [wikipedia.org] since it was founded in 2007 (when Hugo Chavez was president), despite claiming on its website since 2014 (after Maduro took over) that it is funded exclusively via donations from its readers. And the wife of its founder, Greg Wilpert, was appointed Consul General of Venezuela's New York consulate in 2008. So, it's hardly an objective or disinterested source.
Wikipedia's article on mintpressnews.com [wikipedia.org] highlights several ongoing controversies over issues of journalistic integrity (including falsely attributing co-authorship of an article on nerve gas attacks on Syrian citizens to a respected journalist who denies having co-written that article, and who has repeatedly demanded her name be removed from it, as well as falsely reporting an annual Shiite religious pilgrimage to Kerbala [wikipedia.org] as a "march against ISIS"). The publication's masthead prominently features conspiracy mongers (including a strident proponent of the false and defamatory claim that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged, with actors hired to play the part of grieving parents, and that no children were actually killed there). Its sources of funding are undisclosed, although Mnar Muhawesh, its editor, now claims to be its sole investor, and that it is self-financing, via ad revenue (an extremely dubious claim, as anyone who is familiar with the paucity of legitimate advertising income available for online-only journalism ventures will attest). Her claims in this regard are impossible to verify, because, since 2015, she's made it impossible to contact her [minnpost.com].
The only even-faintly-legitimate source you cite is cepr.net, which is a self-described "progressive" think tank. But the actual link you provide is to an editorial piece, which is, by definition, an expression of the author's personal opinion, not actual reportage.
In sum, you give us two propaganda outlets and an opinion piece in support of your argument that the USA is the party most responsible for "repressing" the people of Venezuela.
Now, I'll grant you that we embargo oil imports from Venezuela, in continuation of a policy that dates back to the G. W. Bush administration. That, in itself really doesn't affect the country's economy, because it has plenty of other customers elsewhere. What does, very much, affect it is the crash in world oil prices over the past 3 years or so - and that is entirely due to Arab countries (led by Saudi Arabia) overproducing. So, supply and demand is the cause of Venezuela's financial woes.
Well, that, and Maduro's insistence on printing money in an attempt to make up for the revenue shortfall, which has resulted in a disastrous hyperinflationary spiral that rivals Weimar Germany or modern Zimbabwe.
Chavez was a charismatic charlatan, who was able to provide Venezuela's poor with a whole range of "free" benefits only because oil revenues were at historic highs during his reign (again, driven purely by supply and demand - although rampant speculation by commodity traders had a significant hand in that). Maduro, by contr
The benefits weren't free (Score:2)
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The problem with that narrative is that it misses the point. Resource rich countries have to, in the long term, not merely modernize their country but diversify their economy to a wide base. A large reason why the USSR collapsed was because of too much reliance on oil sales. Even today, Russia is heavily reliant on natural gas sales, though it's not nearly as bad as it was. Iran learned from this and it's one reason sanctions don't have near the same effect there. North Korea has an absolute brutal reg
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Chavez took the oil money and used it to modernize his country
No, he took the oil money and used it to fund the same socialist/communist policies that destroyed dozens of economies. He didn't even do anything new. Just the same old crap that has caused failed states all around the world.
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At the time of his death in 2013, Hugo Chavez was worth an estimated $1 billion, in known assets. His family is estimated to be worth almost another $1 billion more.
While that's not a lot of money compared to the economy of Venezuela as a whole, don't pretend for a moment that Chavez and his family (and all their friends) didn't make out like bandits during their time in power.
Re:The benefits weren't free (Score:4, Insightful)
rsilvergun opined:
Chavez took the oil money and used it to modernize his country instead of pocketing it all for himself. That's up there with George Washington turning down the position of King of America for WTF moments in the history of leadership. And yeah, I'm sure Chavez did a lot of awful things to get in and stay in his position. Venezuela was a hell hole before the oil money, but the fact that he didn't just keep it all for himself and his cronies (they way the Sauds do) deserves praise.
I think comparing Hugo Chavez with George Washington is just a little off the mark [telegraph.co.uk].
And to say he "modernized" Venezuela is equally wrong. (The Telegraph article I linked to mentions in passing that the streets of the town in which Chavez was born are still paved with dirt, for instance.) What he did do is to subsidize he country's poor - especially their costs for food and fuel - using state oil revenues, which won him their love and undying support. It's probably fair to claim that he was less corrupt than the House of Saud, but, then again, that's not really saying much.
Chavez was a very clever authoritatian. Maduro is simply a thug - and a particularly dimwitted thug, at that ...
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The only even-faintly-legitimate source you cite is cepr.net, which is a self-described "progressive" think tank.
I'm shocked. I know that the Center for Economic and Policy Research has been described by others as progressive, but I can't imagine them describing themselves that way. That just isn't done.
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I averred:
The only even-faintly-legitimate source you cite is cepr.net, which is a self-described "progressive" think tank.
Prompting Can'tNot to object:
I'm shocked. I know that the Center for Economic and Policy Research has been described by others as progressive, but I can't imagine them describing themselves that way. That just isn't done.
Technically speaking, you are correct. However, On CEPR's About us page [cepr.net], under the heading Affiliations, they list only one link, to EARN [earn.us], which describes itself as "a nationwide network of research, policy, and public engagement organizations fighting, state by state, for an economy that works for everyone."
So, although you're correct that CEPR does not explicitly describe itself as a progressive organization, the fact that their only affiliate link is to an organization whose
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For your note at the bottom: I had a conversation with someone who was absolutely insistent that communism and fascism were effectively the same thing, and could not be convinced otherwise. I think there's a talking point going around trying to equate them. Regardless: you don't have to be radical, you just have to be in the outgrou
Don't be stupid. Stop being stupid already. (Score:2, Insightful)
China is just too big to take on, so they can do as they please. And hey, if China can do it, then maybe politicians elsewhere can use that tech to keep the plebes under their thumb, so why pick that fight? There'll be useful cheap surveillance tech to buy later.
I think we (as in the people living in ostensibly free countries) need to be very wary of what sort of surveillance tech gets rolled out and right now China is leading the pack in sheer scale and pervasiveness. "Our" politicians like what they see,
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China may too big to take on, but the Chinese regime is not. If that were not true, then the regime would not be developing systems like this.
I actually don't think the *intent* is to develop some kind of tyranny, although that may be the effect. The fear of political instability and social unrest runs deep. They are trying to create what in their mind is a better society, one that is safer and more orderly. People behave differently when they know they are being watched -- like drivers entering an ar
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American leaders are not aghast at this revelation.
They are envious.
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China may too big to take on, but the Chinese regime is not. If that were not true, then the regime would not be developing systems like this.
Have you ever been to China? I've been studying Mandarin and can now speak it somewhat passably. And actual people in China like their government.
And it's not just propaganda, Westerners grew up with books like "1984" that depict a crumbling bleak society. But that's opposite of what's happening in China - their economy grew by an order of magnitude during the last 30 years.
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I am Chinese American, but I have never been. I cancelled my trip there in 1989, for obvious reasons.
Of course the Chinese people think highly of the their government. Based on what they know, why wouldn't they?
Re:I've been seening a lot of these stories lately (Score:4, Insightful)
Let China be China.
Worry more about America. Facebook is slowly boiling the pot across the globe and no one's doing anything about that.
Trump tells outright lies and no one's doing anything about that.
You're worrying about something that most people don't care about.
Re:I've been seening a lot of these stories lately (Score:4, Funny)
Does slashdot even try anymore looking to out state-sponsored disinformation campaigns? Did they ever?
I love this question and you know why?
Because I know the answer: /. is not what you think it is. It's a news aggregator. It posts "News for nerds, stuff that matters."
After a cursory glance you'll discover that members and AC, like yourself, comment on the news articles and stuff. /. is not a political investigative reporting site.
That's the answer to your first question.
The answer to the second is, "No, they never did."
We here at /. are very aware that we have inconvenienced you and we sincerely apologize for your lack of understanding as to how this goddam motherfucking site works.
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Re:The most disgusting part... (Score:4, Informative)
I cannot believe that so few of you care about this. It's completely beyond my comprehension.
Actually there are a lot of people who care and and the ones that don't seem to care are not incomprehensible. Just stupid.
Most people don't have the time to fight to try to roll back the security state. It is very easy to slide into complacency and shrug it all off (for now) with two bromides: 1) I'm a law abiding citizen so I have nothing to hide and 2) it is just bits in a computer somewhere that no human will look at anyway.
I know from your post that you know why this shouldn't be acceptable but the vast majority of people crave security. They want the government to take care of them and be a force for "good" against the "bad" guys. To them this is just the police being better, higher-tech police.
I'll bet that anyone reading this could not recite all the titles of the movies, TV shows, thriller novels they have seen where the hero caught the bad guy with some high-tech data system run by the government. Something that would totally appall the founding fathers of the U.S. who created laws against anyone opening your mail.
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I bet you have seen "Enemy of the State," which captures this future (and present) beautifully. Highly recommended.
China Builds Its Doom (Score:1)
Societies, like any other living thing, must be able to evolve and adapt to new conditions or they die. What China's Big Brother are doing doing gives their powers-that-be all the tools they need to suppress any social change they disagree with. Historically, the powers-that-be see ANY change as threatening to their monopoly on power. Rulers always try to stifle change, but in the long run, it's the ones who fail (cf. American Revolution, 1776) who benefit most. (cf. World War II, Britain vs. Nazi Germany)
C
braindead affectation (Score:3)
Wrong bullhorn.
Apathy is not the issue here. Cynicism is not the issue here.
The Chinese authorities have an outright death wish for the individual freedoms of China's many citizens.
Well, duh! (Score:2)
China's leaders seem to care little for the privacy, or the freedom, of millions of its citizens.
There's no "seem" about it - they don't care, and everybody and his dog knows it. I'm sure even the most naive of Chinese citizens are under no illusion that their government gives a rat's ass about their welfare at all, much less their privacy or freedom.
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I'm sure even the most naive of Chinese citizens are under no illusion that their government gives a rat's ass about their welfare at all, much less their privacy or freedom.
I'd have thought the same, but by most eyewitness accounts, people do seem to think that their government has their best interests in mind. Most of them aren't even aware of what's being done to them. To them, Tienanmen square is just a place, because China has been so effective at removing dissent (by removing dissenters.) And they've been raised not to believe in privacy or freedom.
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To them, Tienanmen square is just a place, because China has been so effective at removing dissent (by removing dissenters)
Pretty much all Chinese people (except maybe for really young millenials) know about Tiananmen square rebellion. They just think that the government did the right thing and put down the rabble-rouses.
I like how an article about Chinese Databases (Score:1)