Yeah, I'm "anti-China" because I'm for basic freedom's for the Chinese people, and this tactic is a great way of letting Mainlanders in Hong Kong understand what is going on with the protests.
Ya think that Ren is going to add an Airdrop clone to Huawei and Honor phones?
Ren's lying about Apple as his privacy role model, because he knows it can't happen in China.
You are still mixing a lot of things up.
What does basic freedoms have to do with Huawei?
Huawei might not be perfect (no one is) but Huawei isn't going to help with basic freedoms. Still, just 30 years ago, things were far worse than they are now. If you are seeking some kind of 'instant perfect' you are on the wrong track. Everything takes time. How long did it take for U.S Civil Rights to be enshrined in law for everyone? It definitely wasn't that long ago.
You need to be realistic but you aren't. Either way, Huawei is not ruling China.
You have got to be kidding!
Now you are the one showing your ignorance, you need to get educated on the subject matter you write about before you post. Isn’t that what you said to me.
Things are worse now in China then they were 30years ago, have you not heard of the pervasive facial recognition system and how it interfaces with the social credit system as a start.
Believe me. I am not kidding. The change has been staggering.
Facial recognition is not a uniquely Chinese thing. They are probably right at the head of the pack in that area but most western governments have people who drool over that kind of technology. There are civil liberties involved and control is required but the technology is already pervasive to most western societies in some form or another. Most of which already have your biometric information already on record anyway.
Like I said 'instant perfect' is not realistic but if you truly believe that China hasn't gone through staggering change (for the better) over the last 30 (or even 40 years) you really should be doing some checks and posting your findings.
If you feel I was unfair in highlighting your false claims further up, I apologise but what you posted was factually incorrect and came over as a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what actually happened. For the benefit of people reading from afar it really is better to have the other side of the story also on the table. That is what I and Gatorguy provided.
I just read an article the other day of state driver's license databases being milked by government agencies to feed facial recognition software.
I've mentioned it here before but while working for the UK government in the 80s, I met someone who worked for a department called subversives whose job it was to view hours of recordings of people on protest marches to see if the same people (faces) appeared more frequently 'than they should'. Very manual. Now that most cities are full of cameras I think many western governments will have found ways to automate what that person was doing in the eighties. The department responsible for this definitely won't be called 'subversives' but the goal will be the same.
Yeah, I'm "anti-China" because I'm for basic freedom's for the Chinese people, and this tactic is a great way of letting Mainlanders in Hong Kong understand what is going on with the protests.
Ya think that Ren is going to add an Airdrop clone to Huawei and Honor phones?
Ren's lying about Apple as his privacy role model, because he knows it can't happen in China.
You are still mixing a lot of things up.
What does basic freedoms have to do with Huawei?
Huawei might not be perfect (no one is) but Huawei isn't going to help with basic freedoms. Still, just 30 years ago, things were far worse than they are now. If you are seeking some kind of 'instant perfect' you are on the wrong track. Everything takes time. How long did it take for U.S Civil Rights to be enshrined in law for everyone? It definitely wasn't that long ago.
You need to be realistic but you aren't. Either way, Huawei is not ruling China.
You have got to be kidding!
Now you are the one showing your ignorance, you need to get educated on the subject matter you write about before you post. Isn’t that what you said to me.
Things are worse now in China then they were 30years ago, have you not heard of the pervasive facial recognition system and how it interfaces with the social credit system as a start.
Believe me. I am not kidding. The change has been staggering.
Facial recognition is not a uniquely Chinese thing. They are probably right at the head of the pack in that area but most western governments have people who drool over that kind of technology. There are civil liberties involved and control is required but the technology is already pervasive to most western societies in some form or another. Most of which already have your biometric information already on record anyway.
Like I said 'instant perfect' is not realistic but if you truly believe that China hasn't gone through staggering change (for the better) over the last 30 (or even 40 years) you really should be doing some checks and posting your findings.
If you feel I was unfair in highlighting your false claims further up, I apologise but what you posted was factually incorrect and came over as a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what actually happened. For the benefit of people reading from afar it really is better to have the other side of the story also on the table. That is what I and Gatorguy provided.
I accept your apology and I’ll move on.
As to your claims about China, the post you made a few levels up in the same paragraph as 30years of change you also make the connection to “Civil Rights”. Now even in your last reply you didn’t consider what I said. Yes China has moved ahead in a technological front and living standards have improved but that is not what you said. You made the connection that if they have moved forward on these fronts that they would also be moving along with their civil rights. The opposite is true, when you link facial recognition with big data and a social behavioral modification device like the “Social Credit Score” civil rights go out the window. China is more oppressive now then it was before the Tiananmen Square massacre, and that says a lot. This is part of the fear that the Hong Kong students have in China’s over reach into their society, that all the same systems will be introduced to their island state.
The point on U.S civil liberties was simply to highlight that even in the U.S, things were far from perfect a relatively short time ago. Therefore 'basic freedoms' won't be on a par with what the U.S or many other governments have any time soon and hoping for that kind of change to happen quickly, isn't realistic.
However, in spite of slowness in some areas, staggering progress has been made all over China and lots of it for the better. The reason that the rest of the world does business with China, and doesn't try to isolate it, is because isolation would not be very helpful for anyone. The rest of the world also understands that massive, rapid change on civil liberties is also unrealistic.
What the fuck...
Can you at least stop being an apologist for the Chinese Government. By all measures of civil liberties, China is regressing under Xi Jinping;
"The announcement on Sunday that China would abolish the two-term limit for the presidency, effectively foreshadowing current leader Xi Jinping’s likely status as president for life, had been predicted ever since Xi failed to nominate a clear successor at last October’s Communist Party Congress. But it still came as a shock in a country where the collective leadership established under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s was once considered inviolable. Xi, like every leader since Deng, combines a trinity of roles that embody the three pillars of power in China: party chairman, president, and head of the Central Military Commission. But like every leader since Deng, he was once expected to hand these over after his appointed decade, letting one generation of leadership pass smoothly on to the next.
It’s virtually impossible to gauge public opinion in China, especially as censorship has gripped ever tighter online. But among Chinese I know, including those used to defending China’s system, the move caused dismay and a fair amount of gallows humor involving references to “Emperor Pooh” and “West Korea.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s electoral victory in 2016 similarly prompted rounds of reflection about and criticism of American democracy. But the Chinese case merits significantly more alarm. For all the erosion of norms under Trump, he seems unlikely, despite the fears of some, to fundamentally change the way the United States is governed. Xi, meanwhile, appears to have entirely transformed Chinese politics from collective autocracy to what’s looking increasingly like one-man rule. This switch should leave everyone very worried, both inside and outside China. A country that once seemed to be clumsily lurching toward new freedoms has regressed sharply into full-blown dictatorship — of a kind that’s likely to lead to dangerous and unfixable mistakes.
The Chinese Constitution itself is a largely meaningless document, promising as it does freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and personal privacy. Amendments are frequent, proposed by a committee of “experts” and rubber-stamped by the National People’s Congress, China’s annual — and equally meaningless — parliament. Brave efforts to give the constitution genuine significance were crushed, as with any other attempt to curtail party power, in the early years of Xi’s rule.
Please, just shut the fuck up about China. Your ignorance about the current governance of China is embarrassing, and dangerously naive.
For the record, the U.S. passed the Civil Rights act in 1965, ten years before General Francisco Franco died in office, releasing Spain from the grips of dictatorship. You might want to remember that when you're making your comparison.
I would also note that it is China that is isolates itself from the world, not allowing its citizens access to the rest of the world's Internet, filtered by the Great Firewall.
Why are you so upset about civil liberties in China -- but indifferent to far worse abuses in other autocracies the U.S. is currently embracing, encouraging, celebrating and supporting? Is it simply that Trump has made China the Enemy Du Jour?
Or, why are you so bothered by a different form of government in another country at all? Are you concerned about the Chinese people? It doesn't really sound like it.
Yeah, I'm "anti-China" because I'm for basic freedom's for the Chinese people, and this tactic is a great way of letting Mainlanders in Hong Kong understand what is going on with the protests.
Ya think that Ren is going to add an Airdrop clone to Huawei and Honor phones?
Ren's lying about Apple as his privacy role model, because he knows it can't happen in China.
You are still mixing a lot of things up.
What does basic freedoms have to do with Huawei?
Huawei might not be perfect (no one is) but Huawei isn't going to help with basic freedoms. Still, just 30 years ago, things were far worse than they are now. If you are seeking some kind of 'instant perfect' you are on the wrong track. Everything takes time. How long did it take for U.S Civil Rights to be enshrined in law for everyone? It definitely wasn't that long ago.
You need to be realistic but you aren't. Either way, Huawei is not ruling China.
You have got to be kidding!
Now you are the one showing your ignorance, you need to get educated on the subject matter you write about before you post. Isn’t that what you said to me.
Things are worse now in China then they were 30years ago, have you not heard of the pervasive facial recognition system and how it interfaces with the social credit system as a start.
Believe me. I am not kidding. The change has been staggering.
Facial recognition is not a uniquely Chinese thing. They are probably right at the head of the pack in that area but most western governments have people who drool over that kind of technology. There are civil liberties involved and control is required but the technology is already pervasive to most western societies in some form or another. Most of which already have your biometric information already on record anyway.
Like I said 'instant perfect' is not realistic but if you truly believe that China hasn't gone through staggering change (for the better) over the last 30 (or even 40 years) you really should be doing some checks and posting your findings.
If you feel I was unfair in highlighting your false claims further up, I apologise but what you posted was factually incorrect and came over as a deliberate attempt to misrepresent what actually happened. For the benefit of people reading from afar it really is better to have the other side of the story also on the table. That is what I and Gatorguy provided.
I accept your apology and I’ll move on.
As to your claims about China, the post you made a few levels up in the same paragraph as 30years of change you also make the connection to “Civil Rights”. Now even in your last reply you didn’t consider what I said. Yes China has moved ahead in a technological front and living standards have improved but that is not what you said. You made the connection that if they have moved forward on these fronts that they would also be moving along with their civil rights. The opposite is true, when you link facial recognition with big data and a social behavioral modification device like the “Social Credit Score” civil rights go out the window. China is more oppressive now then it was before the Tiananmen Square massacre, and that says a lot. This is part of the fear that the Hong Kong students have in China’s over reach into their society, that all the same systems will be introduced to their island state.
The point on U.S civil liberties was simply to highlight that even in the U.S, things were far from perfect a relatively short time ago. Therefore 'basic freedoms' won't be on a par with what the U.S or many other governments have any time soon and hoping for that kind of change to happen quickly, isn't realistic.
However, in spite of slowness in some areas, staggering progress has been made all over China and lots of it for the better. The reason that the rest of the world does business with China, and doesn't try to isolate it, is because isolation would not be very helpful for anyone. The rest of the world also understands that massive, rapid change on civil liberties is also unrealistic.
What the fuck...
Can you at least stop being an apologist for the Chinese Government. By all measures of civil liberties, China is regressing under Xi Jinping;
"The announcement on Sunday that China would abolish the two-term limit for the presidency, effectively foreshadowing current leader Xi Jinping’s likely status as president for life, had been predicted ever since Xi failed to nominate a clear successor at last October’s Communist Party Congress. But it still came as a shock in a country where the collective leadership established under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s was once considered inviolable. Xi, like every leader since Deng, combines a trinity of roles that embody the three pillars of power in China: party chairman, president, and head of the Central Military Commission. But like every leader since Deng, he was once expected to hand these over after his appointed decade, letting one generation of leadership pass smoothly on to the next.
It’s virtually impossible to gauge public opinion in China, especially as censorship has gripped ever tighter online. But among Chinese I know, including those used to defending China’s system, the move caused dismay and a fair amount of gallows humor involving references to “Emperor Pooh” and “West Korea.”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s electoral victory in 2016 similarly prompted rounds of reflection about and criticism of American democracy. But the Chinese case merits significantly more alarm. For all the erosion of norms under Trump, he seems unlikely, despite the fears of some, to fundamentally change the way the United States is governed. Xi, meanwhile, appears to have entirely transformed Chinese politics from collective autocracy to what’s looking increasingly like one-man rule. This switch should leave everyone very worried, both inside and outside China. A country that once seemed to be clumsily lurching toward new freedoms has regressed sharply into full-blown dictatorship — of a kind that’s likely to lead to dangerous and unfixable mistakes.
The Chinese Constitution itself is a largely meaningless document, promising as it does freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and personal privacy. Amendments are frequent, proposed by a committee of “experts” and rubber-stamped by the National People’s Congress, China’s annual — and equally meaningless — parliament. Brave efforts to give the constitution genuine significance were crushed, as with any other attempt to curtail party power, in the early years of Xi’s rule.
Please, just shut the fuck up about China. Your ignorance about the current governance of China is embarrassing, and dangerously naive.
Do you honestly think anyone will do anything about that? Do you think the rest of the world will cut itself off from China? Is everyone an 'apologist' for recognising that no change (much less forced change) is coming any time soon?
No. Of course not.
However, in spite of the current situation, there is no denying that China has experienced staggering change for the better over the last 30 years.
Obfuscation on a few points and stating the obvious won't make things move any faster. Your own government, far from backing away from China, is actively seeking a trade deal with the country!
It's time to be realistic.
And once again Huawei got lost in your word soup.
Weren't you telling me minutes ago that Ren would never allow an AirDrop capability on Huawei or Honor phones - completely unaware that it already existed!?
No doubt your last post was simply to distract people away from that, right?
You seem unable to understand that much of the resistance to Huawei in telecom is in fact linked to actions of the Chinese Government under Xi Jinping. That there are countries in Europe that are willing to undermine their own security for cheaper 5G, including Spain, is obvious, and Secretary of State Michael Pompeii has stated that the U.S. would change the way that they coordinate on intelligence with countries that use Huawei for their 5G. I do not think that is an idle threat.
I was, in fact unaware that Huawei had the equivalent of Airdrop, but that doesn't change the fact that Ren is lying about Apple being his model of privacy, given that there is no guarantee of privacy in China.
More to the point, you seem unable to understand the significance of the protests over extradition legislation in Hong Kong. In essence, China would be able to extradite anyone in Hong Kong to the mainland, even including persons that merely traveled through Hong Kong. Hence why protestors were using Airdrop to educate Mainlanders.
Here we go again! No, those European countries are not ignoring their own security. They examined U.S. claims about Huawei, found them lacking, asked for evidence to back them up which could not be supplied -- since there was none. And so they decided to move ahead. U.S. threats to exclude those countries from the U.S. intelligence umbrella were simply strong arm tactics to force them into line, not efforts to protect the U.S.
And, at this point, even the Trump administration has abandoned that story line and is now admitting that there is no evidence that Huawei ever did anything wrong --- but that they might sometime, at some unnamed point in the future -- a claim that could be made against any company in the world!
So instead you believe the guy who has lied over 11,000 times? OK....
Yeah, except once you start fact-checking how they got to that number, it's probably much smaller (though > zero for sure). And those who pulled that number out of their you-know-where don't exactly have a good track record, either. But, the government is pretty predictable... when in their interest, they'll lie.
You really want to state that to all of us? Lame. China has no independent journalism, and is an authoritarian, repressive government. At least in the U.S., there are in fact many quality resources for information, in spite of President Trump's attempts to control the message, badly, I might add.
Umm, my statement wasn't meant as a comparative. Yes, I'm pretty sure things are better for most in the USA than China, but I'm not sure what that has to do with whether I can trust the USA or not.
tmay said: "I haven't been following closely enough"
You don't wear "poorly informed" very well as your argument.
There's a shit ton of information about Chinese Government directed hacking of Western countries, especially of the U.S. as a shortcut for their militarization, and to advance their commercial interests. Sure, it's fair game to do that, love and war, blah, blah, blah, but do you really want to argue that the U.S. is more repressive than China? ...
Sorry, I just haven't been following the 'China hacked/stole USA info' news. I have been following other geo-political stuff, though. So, I wasn't being deceptive there. It might very well be true, but I also recognize that the USA regularly engages in propaganda.
And, no, I'm absolutely not making an argument that the USA is more repressive. However, I might make the argument that the whole issue isn't quite as good-guy/bad-guy as it is often made out to be.
anantksundaram said: Oh yeah, the US government = the Chinese government.
The sheer idiocy of that premise runs the risk of making everything you post entirely absurd.
Except that isn't the premise.
NoFliesOnMe said: I’m not going to post links to substantiate the above points, it is easy enough to search for the references yourself if you’re interested. Now go back to your respective corners and start slinging mud.
Thanks... good post!
avon b7 said: ... If Cisco were Huawei it wouldn't change anything.
Don't you think it is just a little strange that only the Australians reached that conclusion? The U.K for example, has intimate knowledge of pretty much everything Huawei has deployed in the U.K. and will have the same knowledge of 5G equipment. Huawei has signed over 50 5G commercial contracts.
Before awarding those contracts, all technical issues were scrutinised. There is NOTHING - vendor specific - to support a higher risk from using Huawei.
Any communication system is a prime target for attack and misuse. That includes equipment from Nokia and Ericsson (and Cisco and many others).
Can't you see that? National security is national security. It isn't only 'Huawei'!
Great point. If we have legitimate evidence of Huawei's wrong-doing, then fine. But, we also know how often propaganda and false accusations are put in play by governments (including the USA) for various reasons. We're all probably also familiar with 'journalism' like the Bloomberg article about the chip on server motherboards.
Any such equipment from any company would have to be careful scrutinized when used for sensitive things.
avon b7 said: The 'distorting' was done by Bloomberg.
Yeah, they don't exactly have a good track record around here, either.
It's funny though, once you start paying attention to most of the MSM, you'll find they are Bloomberg'ish. We're just more apt to catch problems with technical articles because we here follow tech. But, similar problems quickly arise with a lot of what is sometimes referred to as journalism.
NoFliesOnMe said: ... The opposite is true, when you link facial recognition with big data and a social behavioral modification device like the “Social Credit Score” civil rights go out the window. China is more oppressive now then it was before the Tiananmen Square massacre, and that says a lot. ...
I agree with you here. While I can't compare to before the massacre, there has been more oppression recently than say a decade ago (also in other ways than we're talking about here).
The good thing is that there are now a lot of eyes on whatever happens around the world... IF anyone cares to pay attention (I say this, because if they don't the media/gov't propaganda can easily spin things.)
avon b7 said: I've mentioned it here before but while working for the UK government in the 80s, I met someone who worked for a department called subversives whose job it was to view hours of recordings of people on protest marches to see if the same people (faces) appeared more frequently 'than they should'. Very manual. Now that most cities are full of cameras I think many western governments will have found ways to automate what that person was doing in the eighties. The department responsible for this definitely won't be called 'subversives' but the goal will be the same.
Exactly. We (in the West) just currently think China is employing these things for evil, while we're doing so for good (it is supposed). However, (and with the talk of Constitutions a bit earlier in the thread) with the moral-foundation upheaval going on in the West, who knows where and how things will end up. Most countries don't have a foundation for their constitutions. The USA does, but is quickly trying to jettison it.
At that point, what's the difference? Country X argues that the way country Y is acting is immoral... country Y thinks country X is wrong, etc. If we're living in an age of relativism and postmodern thought, doesn't each country/power/person make their own right/wrong?
Subversives, no doubt. It's all fun and games until you're on that list. And, while I think the USA/Canada, etc. have a long way to fall to approach China, the mechanisms are in place and we're walking on thin ice.
Comments
Is it simply that Trump has made China the Enemy Du Jour?
Or, why are you so bothered by a different form of government in another country at all? Are you concerned about the Chinese people? It doesn't really sound like it.
No, those European countries are not ignoring their own security. They examined U.S. claims about Huawei, found them lacking, asked for evidence to back them up which could not be supplied -- since there was none. And so they decided to move ahead. U.S. threats to exclude those countries from the U.S. intelligence umbrella were simply strong arm tactics to force them into line, not efforts to protect the U.S.
And, at this point, even the Trump administration has abandoned that story line and is now admitting that there is no evidence that Huawei ever did anything wrong --- but that they might sometime, at some unnamed point in the future -- a claim that could be made against any company in the world!
Umm, my statement wasn't meant as a comparative. Yes, I'm pretty sure things are better for most in the USA than China, but I'm not sure what that has to do with whether I can trust the USA or not.
Sorry, I just haven't been following the 'China hacked/stole USA info' news. I have been following other geo-political stuff, though. So, I wasn't being deceptive there. It might very well be true, but I also recognize that the USA regularly engages in propaganda.
And, no, I'm absolutely not making an argument that the USA is more repressive. However, I might make the argument that the whole issue isn't quite as good-guy/bad-guy as it is often made out to be.
Thanks... good post!
Great point. If we have legitimate evidence of Huawei's wrong-doing, then fine. But, we also know how often propaganda and false accusations are put in play by governments (including the USA) for various reasons. We're all probably also familiar with 'journalism' like the Bloomberg article about the chip on server motherboards.
Any such equipment from any company would have to be careful scrutinized when used for sensitive things.
It's funny though, once you start paying attention to most of the MSM, you'll find they are Bloomberg'ish. We're just more apt to catch problems with technical articles because we here follow tech. But, similar problems quickly arise with a lot of what is sometimes referred to as journalism.
I agree with you here. While I can't compare to before the massacre, there has been more oppression recently than say a decade ago (also in other ways than we're talking about here).
The good thing is that there are now a lot of eyes on whatever happens around the world... IF anyone cares to pay attention (I say this, because if they don't the media/gov't propaganda can easily spin things.)
At that point, what's the difference? Country X argues that the way country Y is acting is immoral... country Y thinks country X is wrong, etc. If we're living in an age of relativism and postmodern thought, doesn't each country/power/person make their own right/wrong?
Subversives, no doubt. It's all fun and games until you're on that list. And, while I think the USA/Canada, etc. have a long way to fall to approach China, the mechanisms are in place and we're walking on thin ice.