From laboratory in far west, China's surveillance state spreads quietly

["DAVID FARBER" <dfarber () me com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff () iconia com>
> Date: August 15, 2018 at 3:58:25 AM GMT+9
> To: E-mail Pamphleteer Dave Farber's Interesting People list <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: From laboratory in far west, China's surveillance state spreads quietly
>
> From laboratory in far west, China's surveillance state spreads quietly
> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-monitoring-insight/from-laboratory-in-far-west-chinas-surveillance-state-spreads-quietly-idUSKBN1KZ0R3
>
> BEIJING (Reuters) - Filip Liu, a 31-year-old software developer from Beijing, was traveling in the far western 
> Chinese region of Xinjiang when he was pulled to one side by police as he got off a bus.
>
> The officers took Liu’s iPhone, hooked it up to a handheld device that looked like a laptop and told him they were 
> “checking his phone for illegal information”.
>
> Liu’s experience in Urumqi, the Xinjiang capital, is not uncommon in a region that has been wracked by separatist 
> violence and a crackdown by security forces.
>
> But such surveillance technologies, tested out in the laboratory of Xinjiang, are now quietly spreading across China.
>
> Government procurement documents collected by Reuters and rare insights from officials show the technology Liu 
> encountered in Xinjiang is encroaching into cities like Shanghai and Beijing.
>
> Police stations in almost every province have sought to buy the data-extraction devices for smartphones since the 
> beginning of 2016, coinciding with a sharp rise in spending on internal security and a crackdown on dissent, the data 
> show.
>
> The documents provide a rare glimpse into the numbers behind China’s push to arm security forces with high-tech 
> monitoring tools as the government clamps down on dissent.
>
> The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Public Security Bureau, which oversee China’s high-tech 
> security projects, did not respond to requests for comment.
>
> The scanners are hand-held or desktop devices that can break into smartphones and extract and analyze contact lists, 
> photos, videos, social media posts and email.
>
> Hand-held devices allow police to quickly check the content of phones on the street. Liu, the Beijing software 
> developer, said the police were able to review his data on the spot. They apparently didn’t find anything 
> objectionable as he was not detained.
>
> [...]
>
> -- 
> Geoff.Goodfellow () iconia com
> living as The Truth is True
> http://geoff.livejournal.com  
>
>
> This message was sent to the list address and trashed, but can be found online.



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