
China's Surveillance State Should Scare Everyone - xoa
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/02/china-surveillance/552203/?single_page=true
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Powerofmene
This is scary to think about. Imagine if private companies provided our
government information and the totality of our communications and purchases,
or even content of private conversations or prescriptions that you filled
determined a “trust level” and that this factored into whether we were
accepted by a college or determined if we were eligible for loans etc. This
would change the course of each life without question.

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analyst74
You mean the credit system we have here in US, which allows you to borrow
money from banks at a low interest rate, buy a car/house with little down
payment, or even rent a place without having to prepay 6 month rent?

Yeah, I think every country needs it.

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Powerofmene
And then when we have a change in control in our governments administration
the rules also change, as does the formula for calculating this rating. We
will have a never ending target you cannot hit regardless of how much you
try....just when you think you are getting close to your target score or
rating the equation changes.

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rishabhsagar
So, I strongly believe that there is always going to be an arms race between
the government surveillance and people who will want to circumvent such
measures. Like people who use tor, VPN, cryptocurrencies etc.

Advancement in technology was always going to enable better surveillance
capability and anarchists had to always come up with new ways to dodge it.

Does this new initiative from Chinese govt change anything at meta level? To
me, it doesn't feel like a paradigm shift, but merely the next logical step in
status quo.

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vfulco
Silicon valley will always win; they strive for freedom and nobler reasons

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thisisit
Does the citizen score have something to do with the social apps from Tencent?
If yes, you have to wonder how does a South African company called Naspers fit
into all of this.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-naspers-tencent-
holdings-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-naspers-tencent-holdings-
ceo/south-africas-naspers-rules-out-114-billion-tencent-stake-spin-off-
idUSKBN19H1S7)

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est
The problem is not how bad things goes on in China, but every _other_
government want it.

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ppbutt
Funny how HackerNews deletes comments that warn against this... what side are
the admins on?

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acdha
Citation needed, especially given the degree to which the moderators give all
but the most flagrant trolls multiple chances.

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grzm
By "deleted comments", your parent is likely referring to the flagged dead
comments in this thread.

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acdha
Could be but that seems to be normal user voting rather than the moderators
doing anything unusual

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grzm
Yeah, I agree. It seems often members aren't aware of the difference or choose
to make the distinction.

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vfulco
Given the amount of fraud and scams which abound, this may be the best system
for them. It's the "People's Republic" after all. Let them decide what they
want.

~~~
vfulco
Haa, downvoted for speaking the truth. Got to love it. I am the polar opposite
to the statement above (as in V for Vendetta) in philosophy but until the
people demand change, why should we force western values onto their thing? Let
them find the error of their ways in a cataclysmic way if that's what it
takes. That's the historical record over millenia.

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gopherman12
I would rather be monitored than seeing some psycopath killer pledging not
guilty because of lack of evidence

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BlackFly
Don't worry, you will both be monitored and see the killer confronted with no
evidence. After all, are you the killer in this hypothetical?

~~~
gopherman12
No but I believe the cameras are prepared for people like you in my
hypothetical

