China and increased surveillance Part 3 of 3

From: <reginal..._at_hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:11:14 -0700

"China Public Security proudly displays in its boardroom a certificate
from I.B.M. labeling it as a partner. But Mr. Huang said China Public
Security had developed its own computer programs in China and that its
suppliers had sent equipment that was not specially tailored for law
enforcement purposes.

The company uses servers manufactured by Huawei Technologies of China
for its own operations. But China Public Security needs to develop
programs that run on I.B.M., Cisco and Hewlett-Packard servers because
some Chinese police agencies have already bought these models, Mr.
Huang said.

Mr. Lin said he had refrained from some transactions with the Chinese
government because he is the chief executive of a company incorporated
in the United States. 'Of course our projects could be used by the
military, but because it is politically sensitive, I don't want to do
it.' he said.

Western security experts have suspected for several years that Chinese
security agencies could track individuals based on the location of
their cellphones, and the Shenzhen police tracking system confirms
this.

When a police officer goes indoors and cannot receive a global
positioning signal from satellites overhead, the system tracks the
location of the officer's cellphone, based on the three nearest
cellphone towers. Mr. Huang used a real-time connection to local
police dispatchers' computers to show a detailed computer map and the
precise location of each of the 92 patrolling officers, represented by
caricatures of officers in blue uniforms and the routes they had
travelled in the last hour.

All Chinese citizens are required to carry national identity cards
with very simple computer chips embedded, providing little more than
the citizen's name and date of birth. Since imperial times, a
principal technique of social control has been for local government
agencies to keep detailed records on every resident.

The system worked as long as most people spent their entire lives in
their hometowns. But as ever more Chinese move in search of work, the
system had eroded. This has made it easier for criminals and
dissidents alike to hide from police, and it has raised questions
about whether dissatisfied migrant workers could organize political
protests without the knowledge of police.

Little more than a collection of duck and rice farms until the late
1970s, Shenzhen now has 10.55 million migrants from elsewhere in
China, who will receive the new cards, and 1.87 million permanent
residents, who will not receive cards because local agencies already
have files on them. Shenzhen's red-light districts have a nationwide
reputation for murders and other crimes.''
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The end.
Reg Curtis/VE9RWC
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:19 CST