
A new Venezuelan ID, created with China's ZTE, tracks citizen behavior - kawera
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/venezuela-zte/
======
nixpulvis
Please no.

> The technology Daquin and colleagues learned about in Shenzhen underpinned
> what would become China’s “Social Credit System.” The still-evolving system,
> part of which uses “smart citizen cards” developed by ZTE, grades citizens
> based on behavior including financial solvency and political activity. Good
> behavior can earn citizens discounts on utilities or loans. Bad marks can
> get them banned from public transport or their kids blocked from top
> schools.

~~~
2RTZZSro
> Good behavior can earn citizens discounts on utilities or loans. Bad marks
> can get them banned from public transport or their kids blocked from top
> schools.

Whatever it takes to herd the cattle.

"First they came ..." is a poem written by the German Lutheran pastor Martin
Niemöller (1892–1984). It is about the cowardice of German intellectuals
following the Nazis' rise to power and subsequent purging of their chosen
targets, group after group. Many variations and adaptations in the spirit of
the original have been published in the English language. It deals with themes
of persecution, guilt and responsibility.

The best-known versions of the speech are the poems that began circulating by
the 1950s.[1] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum quotes the following
text as one of the many poetic versions of the speech:[2][3]

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not
a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was
not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_..](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_..).

~~~
throw2016
How is this different from credit scores?

~~~
jmalicki
Credit scores aren't based on your political activity or used to deny you from
boarding transit.

~~~
est
China didn't ban all the transit boarding for those with low credit, just
planes and first class HSR. You can take the normal train, which is still
quicker than most countries.

No planes though. Planes are considered a luxury.

~~~
2RTZZSro
In May, enforcement of China’s social credit system spread to the travel
industry, restricting millions of Chinese citizens with low social credit
scores from purchasing plane and train tickets.

[https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2018/06/18/chinas-
so...](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2018/06/18/chinas-social-
credit-system-spreads-to-more-daily-transactions/)

------
0xmohit
Modern national ID cards are invariably designed for surveillance. Consider
the case of Aadhaar (the Indian national ID card). No words can better
describe the kind of services it has enabled than what is illustrated in this
image --
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DnWQpoTW4AARm2t.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DnWQpoTW4AARm2t.jpg)
(The image illustrates an app that claims to provide personal information
about a random individual by way of facial recognition made possible by use of
Aadhaar APIs.)

~~~
hadrien01
What about Estonia? Their nation ID card seems pretty secure and privacy-
concious

~~~
0xmohit
Ever wondered why such "secure and privacy-concious" national ID cards only
find place in third-world countries.

"Citizens of Australia, Canada, NZ, UK, and the US successfully opposed
biometric national ID schemes." [https://www.eff.org/issues/national-
ids](https://www.eff.org/issues/national-ids)

~~~
guitarbill
Because the defacto IDs, e.g. SSN (US) or NiNO (UK) are so much better! They
have no identifying features, so it's trivial to commit identitiy fraud. And
once that happens you're fucked because they cannot be changed. But sure is
better than one of those nasty ID cards that e.g. Germany, one of the most
privacy-conscious nations, uses. (/s)

~~~
metildaa
SSNs have been terribly abused by private industry. They were never meant to
be handled by private companies, but here we are with a non-consentual credit
scoring system based atop it.

Should people be required to hold a national ID card? It may have been rammed
through in Germany, but many are not happy with national IDs. Its a basic
consent of the people problem IMO. Passive acceptance is not consent or
support, but merely dealing with the situation at hand.

~~~
guitarbill
What's your point? People have driving licenses, a passport and never think
twice about using credit cards or loyalty cards. But somehow an ID card is
uniquely dangerous? I don't buy it. The status quo is already worse!

~~~
walshemj
Its because its so open to abuse by the police and reminds people (sorry
germany) the Gestapo - that's why post ww2 the UK rejected ID cards.

------
Tharkun
Governments everywhere seem to be increasing their surveillance efforts.
Finger prints on id cards. The Indian Aadhaar madness. Chinese "social credit
scores". The list goes on.

I guess we have to get used to the new world order, where citizens don't
matter, surveillance is everywhere, and there is no obvious way to fight this
madness.

~~~
fokov
You fight it by taking the personal hit and run for office yourself. From my
experience, the only thing you can really control is yourself. The problem is
running for office is a pain and most people don't want their personal lives
going public.

~~~
baq
democracy used to be the optimal system because it processed information
faster than authoritarianism. advences in technology reverse this
relationship. whoever gets to the steering wheel has the potential to stay
there for a long while with a very efficient (in terms of policing behavior
per person employed) police. this all sounds like a bad joke but it is
happening as we speak in china.

------
bitxbitxbitcoin
> “It’s blackmail. Venezuelans with the cards now have more rights than those
> without.”

Take note, this is the exact same vector that could happen even in first world
countries.

~~~
mtgx
First the carrot, then when enough people are on board, the rest get the
stick, too.

------
bithavoc
In addition to be another dictatorship tool to have more control over the
population, they're trying to implement low Gas subsidies to citizens-only in
the border with other countries, they're probably losing +4B yearly in
contraband.

------
duxup
>“We don’t support the government,” he said. “We are just developing our
market.”

Considering the potential oppressive ramifications of such a system this could
support the government a great deal.

~~~
cauldron
Standard response from Chinese companies, "We are just doing business!" (We
got families to immigrate to first world like party officials, need to make
money fast!)

PS. Ctrip Founder levels with you:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kF8yBZeSFU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kF8yBZeSFU)

Our middle and upper management members all sent their kids abroad, do their
best to come by a (foreign) passport. Poor people don't mind, all they want is
an apartment in Shanghai. It's not safe here, American education, air, and
hospitals are just better.

~~~
bitxbitxbitcoin
It's also a standard response from American companies making compromises to do
business in China. Just look at the proposed Google search there.

~~~
atomical
Is YC involved in NEOM in Saudia Arabia? I know Sam Altman is involved. It's
another example of profits over human rights.

------
zipwitch
Would the criticism go away if they called it a credit score?

~~~
gruez
>Would the criticism go away if they called it a credit score?

would the criticism go away if they called it a _happiness_ score?

for all the faults credit scores have, the only factor that they take into
account are your credit events. they don't track every aspect of your life.

~~~
munk-a
Credit score tracking is privately managed and incredibly inaccurate, it can
lead to people being unable to qualify for mortgages when their financial
situation is quite solid. Additionally credit score calculations are all
proprietary and may have begun taking your social life into account (there are
mixed reports) but given that health insurers are already upping the pressure
to gather more of your personal data I doubt they're far behind, the
difference is that health insurance is a much more highly regulated field so
we have proof they're doing it, credit score trackers do all that stuff behind
closed doors..

~~~
gruez
>Credit score tracking is privately managed and incredibly inaccurate, it can
lead to people being unable to qualify for mortgages when their financial
situation is quite solid

The first thing I did was say was that credit scores aren't perfect, so I'm
not disagreeing with you on this. as for the "incredibly inaccurate" claim,
are you talking about accuracy as a whole, or people on edge cases being
screwed because they have a bad score? because I highly doubt lenders would
bother paying for a worthless risk model.

>Additionally credit score calculations are all proprietary

And you think the citizen score isn't going to be?

>may have begun taking your social life into account (there are mixed reports)
[...] credit score trackers do all that stuff behind closed doors..

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Credit_Reporting_Act)
? Also, you can opt-out of social media, not so much the government.

I'm not sure what you're trying to do by pointing out how bad credit scores
are, because citizen scores are clearly worse, considering they can collect
everything credit bureaus can, but more.

------
ilove_banh_mi
If Venezuela asked Google to build a censored, surveillance-oriented search
engine, would they do it? my understanding is that they've already agreed to
do it for China, so doing similar work for other dictatorships should be
standard, even if not as profitable, business.

~~~
mc32
Probably not. There isn’t enough revenue to counteract the detriment to their
goodwill and other hits the company would take. China offers over a billion
reasons to reconsider one’s positions.

------
razster
Funny that they're printed using Datacard SD360. These ID's can be duplicated
with ease.

------
sandov
I know it sounds naive, but maybe an organized boycott towards ZTE could help?

~~~
dgut
In Europe, the Venezuelan crisis is largely ignored. Where I live (Spain), our
current government is more or less on friendly terms with Maduro's government
and there is little insensitive to do anything about it. The left-leaning
media has, for the most part, ignored the topic (El Pais for one...), despite
the increasing number of Venezuelan asylum-seekers arriving in Spain each
year, and any meaningful efforts to boycott anything would need the
media/government's support.

~~~
gaius
_In Europe, the Venezuelan crisis is largely ignored_

Venezuela is still considered the ideal role model by certain British
politicians...

~~~
dgut
I wouldn't say it's considered the "ideal role model" by some British
politicians (as it currently stands), but they definitely stand on very
similar ideological grounds. People like Corbyn simply think that if it's
_them_ who run the machine, things will run smoothly. That is, there is
nothing inherently wrong with their ideology, the only problem with it is who
gets to be the supreme leader. In Corbyn's eyes, he can do better. By the way,
Podemos is the third largest party in Spain, and it supports Chavez/Maduro and
it blames Venezuela's ills on US sanctions. Videos of the leader of Podemos
supporting the Venezuelan dictatorship and its ideals aren't rare.
Unfortunately, HN has the last years turned extremely left. They are like
children who must experience pain before they understand. As a Cuban, I see
through people like Corbyn and Iglesias as if I were Casper. The implications
of their ideology are something the US/most of the West has not experienced
yet, and as such, they're entirely ignorant about it. "The Open Society and
Its Enemies" isn't a popular book among people here, I can tell you.

~~~
dhshahsndeisjwn
I'm not a Corbyn fan, but I think this is a gross misrepresentation of the
current labour leadership, and their likely actions in government. I often see
these kind of analogies being drawn based on a selective reading of the wide
variety of regimes leftist politicians in the UK admired (or once-admired in
the context of the Cold War). Can you point to any recent commentary from
Corbyn or other senior labour figures (excluding Ken Livingstone, who is
increasingly senile but thankfully out of the loop these days) that expressed
admiration for Chavez and Maduro?

------
rdl
DJI or other drone companies could be the solution to Venezuela’s problems.
Almost happened a few months ago.

~~~
cm2187
I don't know. These guys arrived in power through free elections. Don't
underestimate the economically self-destructive force of South American public
opinions.

~~~
clueless123
All it takes for a perfectly democratic country to elect a terrible leader
(who will probably erode democracy away) is to have a previous leader not pay
attention to the voting masses. Anger is a very bad advisor.

------
lgregg
I do wish that Social Security cards in the USA had a photo on them. It would
make fraud much more difficult. The Social Security number's original
intention was for census purposes then the IRS took it for their own purposes.

~~~
laken
The Social Security Number wasn't created for census purposes, nor was it ever
meant (and still isn't) to be fraud-proof. It was created, for _Social
Security_ benefits. It wasn't meant to be truly secure, as the worst you can
do with someone else's Social Security Number with the Social Security
Administration is paying more into their Social Security account.

It is true the IRS used it for their own purposes too, and thus broke the
original purpose, but it'd be ridiculous to make the Social Security card more
secure and turn it into a national ID because of that. In most government
applications anyway, your driver's license number has taken the place of the
SSN. Your SSN isn't supposed to be sensitive.

Furthermore, it sounds like you're advocating for the creation of a "National
ID" of sorts, which is quite the slippery slope.

~~~
lgregg
I think everyone should have easy and free access to personal identification
that is valid for voting, air travel, opening a bank account, etc. I don't
think it should be mandatory. I think if the government is going to require
it, they should provide it.

I'm confidant that the census bureau created those numbers which was soon
taken over by SSA or for SSA. That also isn't really the point I'm trying to
make which is becoming a tangent.

~~~
poulsbohemian
A passport / passport card comes pretty close to your stated goal.

~~~
lgregg
Far as I know, a passport card does exactly what I want it to do except be
free. There are people that are at the poverty level or below, and some right
above the cut-off, who can't afford $100+ dollars in fees.

~~~
poulsbohemian
I've got mixed feelings on this as well. It feels like a passport should be a
service received on the basis of being a citizen, but I also accept that ~$100
is a nominal processing fee and that government doesn't offer any services for
free. As another poster pointed out, it's still cheaper overall than the cost
of a driver's license, which potentially brings with it the cost of training,
insurance, not to mention an actual vehicle and its costs assuming that was
the reason for getting a license in the first place.

~~~
lgregg
They give you things like your SSN and Birth Certificate for free, I believe.
I think my overall point is, the average guy I work with at a shelter or
volunteer gig doesn't have the financial flexibility to spend money on an ID
at least for the explicit purpose of voting. If a citizen is expected to vote,
but must have identification doesn't that mean you're having to pay for the
right to vote in a free democracy? It just doesn't sit right with me.

------
oh_sigh
You'd think they'd have bigger fish to fry at this point.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Depends on what you think their game is. If you think their game is to fix the
economy, yes, they definitely have bigger fish to fry. But if you think their
game is to stay in power, then it makes perfect sense.

------
narrator
I wonder if have a little slider on a GUI somewhere that some Venezuelan
government official uses to determine the minimal social credit score that
lets one get to eat.

------
nwni
Well, that was an interesting and disturbing read, what are you supposed to do
if you don't have the facilities to flee that country? Bend over apparently..

------
mAEStro-paNDa
It's incredibly disappointing the amount of ignorance and political
whataboutism being thrown around here in this comment section.

------
jimmy1
Also this is a great lesson to the younger generation that seem to be wooed by
the Ocasio-Cortezes and Sanders of the world. Unfortunately the world needs a
reminder every generation or so that socialism doesn't work, it never has
worked, and it never will work.

~~~
distances
Isn't Sanders a proponent of a social democratic system, like the Nordics?
These countries are the most successful / least failed states in the world by
a multitude of metrics. Comparing social democracies to Venezuela is of course
just dishonest.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I seem to recall that Sanders' proposals could not be funded at current tax
levels. That was the start of Venezuela's road to ruin. They proceeded to
raise taxes to try to get the revenue, but it wasn't enough. So they started
expropriating (taking) corporate property. So companies left, and revenue went
down. So they funded the government by printing money, and inflation went out
of control.

I'm shooting from memory here about Sanders' proposals, and can't cite a
source, so someone feel free to correct with hard data if you've got it...

~~~
dragonwriter
> I seem to recall that Sanders' proposals could not be funded at current tax
> levels.

The main focus was on Medicare-for-All, which could not but would also (even
in analysis by hostile sources) reduce total public + private health costs.

> That was the start of Venezuela's road to ruin.

No, it wasn't.

Venezuela did not enact policies that cost more than it could supports, then
try to raise taxes for revenue, and then turn to expropriation as a revenue
measure; expropriation and high taxation were adopted deliberately as part of
an overt policy of aggressive redistribution of wealth, not because revenue
for social services was unavailable elsewhere but because redistribution from
the rich was an independent goal.

Venezuela’s road to ruin was based on overdependence on oil revenue combined
with failure to invest to diversify (or even maintain production) which led to
falling production masked for a while by soaring prices and the whole house of
cards collapsing when oil market prices collapsed.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> > I seem to recall that Sanders' proposals could not be funded at current
> tax levels.

> The main focus was on Medicare-for-All, which could not but would also (even
> in analysis by hostile sources) reduce total public + private health costs.

So there's a deal available there to be done where everybody wins (except
perhaps politically). Medicare-for-all _without_ the deal could be a disaster
for the government finances, though.

But Sanders also proposed free college for all, which would also have to be
funded somehow. And it seems like there was another big one, but I don't
remember what it was.

> Venezuela did not enact policies that cost more than it could supports, then
> try to raise taxes for revenue, and then turn to expropriation as a revenue
> measure; expropriation and high taxation were adopted deliberately as part
> of an overt policy of aggressive redistribution of wealth, not because
> revenue for social services was unavailable elsewhere but because
> redistribution from the rich was an independent goal.

On reflection, that's not very comforting. We are at a place politically where
"redistribution from the rich" has become thinkable as an independent goal.

~~~
dragonwriter
> But Sanders also proposed free college for all,

He actually proposed that public colleges and universities should be tuition
free, which is not the same thing.

> On reflection, that's not very comforting. We are at a place politically
> where "redistribution from the rich" has become thinkable as an independent
> goal.

Redistribution wasn't what caused the collapse, being more dependent on oil
while producing less of it (and thus becoming supersensitive to price was.)

I only mentioned redistribution as an independent policy goal to explain why
the narrative social spending -> funding needs -> effort at raising taxes ->
expropriation was wrong. That sequence simply didn't occur. Venezuela relied
on raising oil prices for revenue, and collapsed when oil prices did;
expropriation was adopted early on when things were going relatively well,
because of high oil prices, not in desperation over inadequate revenue.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Didn't redistribution (plus expropriation of businesses) lead to a bunch of
businesses that weren't oil leaving the country, leaving them more dependent
on oil? And they were fine with that, because oil was going up, so who cared
that other business left?

------
dmix
> The card is increasingly linked by the government to subsidized food, health
> and other social programs most Venezuelans rely on to survive.

I really don't understand how Venezuelans haven't revolted and given up on
their failed socialist economic experiment. Typically lack of food has been
the spark that starts these revolutions, but the failure of even basic
services there has been going on for years now. How much more authoritarianism
without any economic gain can these people take?

Are enough regular people really getting enough handouts from the government
to not want to get rid of them? Is the propoganda machine working that
effectively to blind them?

~~~
giancarlostoro
When the government takes guns away from the masses it gets a little harder to
pull off. Venezuela is a narco state at this stage too.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-
state#Venezuela](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-state#Venezuela)

First article I found on it on Google:
[https://www.activistpost.com/2016/05/did-you-know-that-
venez...](https://www.activistpost.com/2016/05/did-you-know-that-venezuela-
banned-guns-for-private-citizens-only-4-years-ago.html)

BBC Link about the ban: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-
america-18288430](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-18288430)

~~~
fifnir
If the US army turned on its citizens do you think it wouldn't go through ANY
resistance like a hot knife through butter?

~~~
christophilus
I live in the southeast. There are pockets here that would be _very_ tough to
take. It would be a Vietnam situation. So, yes. The 2nd amendment still has
deterrent power.

~~~
pjc50
I've no doubt that guerilla resistance would continue for years, but the
imposition of petrol rationing alone would curtail almost all rebel attempts
to hold anything of any importance within about two weeks.

~~~
Jach
If you can successfully blockade an interior group, sure. But that interior
group has the ability to strike back and away from their interior that they
want to hold. America's infrastructure is totally not hardened. The millions
in prisons also make for a potential pool of manpower. All I'm really saying
is any actual conflict would play out a lot different than the real civil war
we had, or any of our foreign continent excursions where the enemy can't
really strike back.

------
walrus01
From an internet infrastructure/network engineering point of view as well, I'm
concerned that US embargoes and trade restrictions are not helping things when
it comes to autocratic regimes.

For example if an ISP in an autocratic regime, right now, wants to buy new
core, aggregation and edge/customer premises routers, for a major network
upgrade, they're going to be looking at ZTE or Huawei. Whereas the better
technical solution might be some combination of things from a US company
(Cisco, Juniper, Brocade). Or if they already have people who know JunOS on
staff for core routing, they'll have to make a business risk decision to buy
grey market Juniper through a third party, without any official support.

ZTE and Huawei and other Chinese companies involved in Internet censorship and
the GFW are happy to sell equipment and consulting/contracting services to
these sorts of countries.

~~~
aglavine
You need UN in these cases, a real UN, not the one build for a postwar
scenario that doesn't exist anymore.

------
mamon
Truth is, historically human civilizations has always been based on some kind
of authoritarian rule, slavery, serfdom, etc. Democracy is just temporary
anomaly created by the fact that during industrial revolution the need arose
for mass education (to have factory workers that could read). Now that
appropriate tech (online banking, smartphones with GPS tracking, AI, etc.) is
in place the things will soon revert to the natural order, i.e. totalitarism.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Democracy is just temporary anomaly created by the fact that during
> industrial revolution_

How does this explain Athenian democracy or the Roman Republic? (Or, for that
matter, Sparta’s elected ephors?)

Totalitarianism is the novelty. It has never, before recent decades, been
feasible for a state to completely monitor all its citizens.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
At least for Rome and Sparta, it was a small group of elite families that
lorded over the mass of people. In addition, the Greeks and Romans considered
their representative form of government to be the exception among their
neighbors and took great pride in it.

~~~
riffraff
but Rome's plebe still had a role and vote in politics. It's not SPQR for
nothing.

Also, the venetian republic lasted for a thousand years and for about half of
that it had a mostly democratic system.

------
gimmeDatCheddar
This is why the 2nd amendment is absolutely crucial in ensuring that American
citizens have the right to self-defense once these types of policies become
more popular in America. Anyone still in Venezuela who has not planned to
leave is utterly screwed.

~~~
Retra
I can't wait to see people shooting their rifles and handguns at fighter jets,
tanks, drones, and bombs. Really good self defense plan there. And it's going
to seem so patriotic when you're shooting at your own government & neighbors.

~~~
gimmeDatCheddar
This has always been a really stupid argument. You realize that the army would
split up because people from the army would join the resistance and lend a
hand, right? And you realize that guerrilla warfare is highly effective even
against superior weapons, right? Basic history shows us this.

------
jellicle
So HN is upset that Venezuela has a national ID card which can be used to
apply for government services, can be used for mobile payments, and the
government has a "database" (in scare quotes) which lists the political party
of the citizens.

Man, you guys are going to be really upset when you find out about the NSA and
FBI.

If we had a press release like "Amazon announces mobile payments card with
integration into government services", you guys would eat that up, right? "Mr.
Bezos said the card would allow holders to easily apply for government
programs such as food stamps."

