
China's super camera can pinpoint specific targets among of thousands of people - SQL2219
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-26/chinas-new-500-megapixel-super-camera/11539176?pfmredir=sm
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Scapeghost
Every single time the topic of surveillance or heavy-handed governance comes
up, I'm surprised to see how nobody brings up the fact that it's always one-
sided:

They can see you, but you can't see them.

This is tyranny.

The people in power can do anything anytime anywhere they want and you'll
never know, unless other people in power tell you about it.

There is an ever deepening divide in our society and eventually the people on
the lower side will never be able to touch the people on the upper side, and
if there's ever a global catastrophe, we'll be left behind to fend for
ourselves.

~~~
matz1
Yes, we need more government transparency and openess. They can see us, we
should also be able to see them.

In a way technology can help us. Technology can help democratize survaliance.

~~~
coldtea
How about no surveillance and other such "solutions" in need of a problem?

~~~
matz1
You essentially trying to stop technological progress, that is not realistic
imo.

~~~
coldtea
Well, I believe that we should be totally able to stop technological progress,
and not have autonomous "technological progress" for the sake of progress.

We should have targeted progress, in the areas we want to improve and which is
beneficial, and not in other areas, which is not beneficial or has negative
externalities or adverse second and third order effects...

The same way governments try to control e.g. nuclear proliferation.

Here's an example: would you be ok with a nuclear-equivalent technology that
could be made by anyone in their homes, with simple materials and be able to
e.g. wipe out an entire city? Surely, it would be a technological and
engineering progress. But just as surely as that, I'd rather we regressed
technologically and prohibited access to the materials etc, than have that be
available to every idiot, madman and bigot.

Now, you might say that "it's impossible", but I don't think so. In a
democracy nothing should be impossible, and political and cultural action
could be made to curtail certain technologies.

That's not unlike Kurwzeil and Musk, notable technologists, warning against AI
singularity...

~~~
matz1
Sure, its possible but do most human want that? I doubt it.

Imo, Technological progress is mostly driven by natural human desire.

Personally, I _want_ technological progess and willing to work hard to make
sure it happen. That includes technology that makes survaliance better and
easier.

The issue with privacy is imo, instead we try to hide the information, we
should fix whatever it is that make us suffer when the information become
public.

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PBnFlash
Whenever I hear about these kinds of things I always think about when they put
a gigapixel camera on a little airplane above Baltimore and flew it around all
day every day. Being able to just retroactively track cars and people had such
shocking power. [https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-
sur...](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-
surveillance/)

~~~
coolspot
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-
IS](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS)

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29_29
Just traveled to China and to my surprise it was more Orwellian than I
anticipated. Despite all of our problems in the US, I'm still proud to live in
a Democracy and a free society.

I took down my outdoor security camera after the trip.

~~~
greggman2
Where did you go? I've only been to Bejing, Shangahi, Nanjing, and Hanzhou.
They seemed like normal large cities. I didn't see police anywhere. I walked
around the cities no problem. Road the subways no issues. Ate lots of yummy
food. Went shopping, walked malls, went to mom and pop stores. Bought stuff at
covenience stores. Went to bars. Went to museums. Went to several night clubs.
Went to China Joy, video game trade show that seemed a lot like Gamescom but
more sexy. I literally saw nothing oppresive. The most was that Google Maps
being bad and I don't read enough Chinese to use Baidu maps. Used a HK sim
last time I went (can order online) but my day to day experience like a pretty
normal life would be in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, or London except the of
course the cities are full of Chinese people with Chinese inspired
architecture etc.. I did see lots of poverty, especially outside the big
cities.

Note I am not defending Chinese. Just shocked at how different our experiences
were. Plenty of youtube travel videos or videos of Shenzen or other cities
that look similar to the experiences I've had.

~~~
29_29
I went to SH and Beijing. what year did you go? Things may be different now,
or under Xi. My Grandparents went in the 80s, and Beijing was made up of dirt
roads.

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ganonm
I worry that widespread camera tracking is an effective route to determining
identities of otherwise anonymous online accounts. If you can work out times
when people are unlikely to be posting content online (e.g. because they are
seen carrying bags of shopping) you can gradually, through process of
elimination, work out who is the real identity behind some online account, or
at least some probability. For example, if I make some number of posts on
hacker news, every person who has an 'alibi' at the time of a post cannot be a
candidate for the true identity of the account.

~~~
bonoboTP
I guess you could set up timers that post with some delay to confuse such
systems.

~~~
oh_sigh
If the state is going to those lengths, you would need to make sure your
automated posting before/during/after web activity is similar to real
activity. So you can't just POST a request at a certain time.

~~~
shoeboxam
It would be possible to write a learned program to simulate browsing habits.
It is ironic, in a way, that you would need to track yourself, to avoid
tracking.

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cronix
Looks like they copied our ARGUS system, which can be mounted on drones to
cover entire cities 24/7\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-
IS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARGUS-IS)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxNyaXfJsA)

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threatofrain
I argue that if the US doesn’t keep up with this technology then a lot of
towns are going to buy this kind of tech. What if somebody told the police
that they can identify problematic people (for any convenient definition of
problem) during a protest, even if they came from out of town?

~~~
latchkey
[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613891/the-pentagon-
has-a...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613891/the-pentagon-has-a-laser-
that-can-identify-people-from-a-distanceby-their-heartbeat/)

~~~
daniel_reetz
Also look up the "Gorgon Stare" and ARGUS-IS. We have these cameras already.

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cosmodisk
My colleague and I had a discussion about the world going down the drain.He
argued that it was never as bad as it is now. I disagreed with him,as I think
people had so many 'we had enough' moments since the beginning of the
humanity,that I see no reason why 5,10,15 or maybe after 40 years someone in
China or the USA will say 'Screw this' and it will eventually snowball into
another revolution,which will take all these CCTV cameras and social profiling
to hell.

~~~
super-serial
What if they’ve already profiled that person and they are in jail already?

I think the worry with this new form of authoritarianism is that it will be so
good no one will have the chance to stop it.

~~~
arcticfox
Exactly, there is no precedent for this

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kashprime
There are many uses for the technology that don't violate civil rights. We can
finally catch dangerous or intoxicated drivers on highways who cause
accidents. Just because the tech is Chinese doesn't automatically disqualify
it from serious consideration.

~~~
cmroanirgo
There are also many ways for the tech to be used that obliterates all forms of
liberties and civil rights, and unfortunately it takes just one bad actor for
any goodwill to disappear. Making the world Orewellian is never a good option
because even the power to rebel against the systems of control is removed.

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sinuhe69
“500 megapixel, 5 times the resolution of human eyes”: wrong. The resolution
of human eyes is around 576 megapixels. [https://curiosity.com/topics/how-
many-megapixels-is-the-huma...](https://curiosity.com/topics/how-many-
megapixels-is-the-human-eye-curiosity/)

------
bobongo
Please correct the title to:

"China's super camera can pinpoint a specific individual among thousands of
people"

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RavlaAlvar
I am so frustrated about how HN is now full of whataboutism on the China
issues.

~~~
latchkey
It is actually a real issue and not just from the tech side of things. For
example, have you seen what is happening in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam because
of China? Do some searching about the infrastructure China is building, and
taking over in these countries. I've seen it first hand, it is nuts. Zero care
for the environment, local culture, etc... total mess.

~~~
29_29
China has a different, competing development model than us.

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samstave
So aside from the 1984 aspects of this, I have some ideas on how this could be
put to good use, specifically in ecosystem management.

Mount this to a drone and have it fly over a forest or a farm.

Have it count the insect population, say number of bees. Or insects in total.

Have it identify the number of a certain type of crop, tree, plant or
whatever.

Connect it to (I don’t know the term for it) where it can determine the health
of the plant or tree. Have it fly over wild areas and count the population of
elk, deer, cattle, whatever.

Teach it to identify and map out potholes in roads automatically

Things of this nature.

Fuck facial targets in a stadium.

~~~
14
More like use facial recognition to identify religious and political
minorities that disagree with you and round up those people and send them to
the farm to count insects, plants, or whatever. When I think of this tech I
think there would be no way for a spy to walk around a city and not be known.
No more blending in with the crowd, not that I am even sure this kind of
intelligence work takes place outside of the movies.

