Surveillance balloons have appeared over US soil before – the president’s reaction is a sign of how boxed in he is by Republicans The gigantic spy balloon that flew from China to the US lies punctured, shot down by an F-22 jet. Similarly in tatters is any optimism that Beijing and Washington might be able to salvage their relationship – and the alarming high stakes of global economic and geopolitical turmoil will be shared by the rest of the world, if their febrile bilateral tie is to unravel. The incident…
Tag: Surveillance
The moment a suspected Chinese spy balloon is shot down over east coast of US – video
Footage shows a suspected Chinese spy balloon being shot down over the Carolina coast. Two US fighter jets circled the balloon before launching an air missile to destroy it. Beijing claimed it was a weather observation airship that had been blown off course, but the Pentagon claimed it had been able to manoeuvre and make deliberate turns. The US said it reached Montana, home to some of the US arsenal of nuclear ballistic missiles. Some Republicans called for the balloon to be shot down over land, despite the risk of…
The Observer view on the real threat behind China’s spy balloon | Observer editorial
It must be admitted that the flap over an enormous Chinese balloon that flew or blew, unannounced, over the US and Canada last week has a certain funny side. Pentagon generals went on high alert, fearful that their missile silos in Montana were being spied on. Joe Biden, not normally a trigger-happy man, had to be persuaded not to shoot it down, and then changed his mind. Republicans accused the president of being weak on balloon defence. Red-faced officials in Beijing scrambled to talk the over-excited Americans down. The balloon,…
Now the Chinese ‘spy balloon’ is down, the question is: what was it for?
Now the Chinese balloon has been brought down in a puff of smoke and debris by a US air-launched missile, after perplexing Washington with its three-day odyssey over the continental United States, the question is what was it all for? Once the balloon was spotted, Beijing claimed it was a weather observation airship that had been blown of course, drawing a snort of derision from the Pentagon, which said the balloon was able to manoeuvre and had made some deliberate turns, bringing it at one point over Montana, home of…
Police in China can track protests by enabling ‘alarms’ on Hikvision software
Chinese police can set up “alarms” for various protest activities using a software platform provided by Hikvision, a major Chinese camera and surveillance manufacturer, the Guardian has learned. Descriptions of protest activity listed among the “alarms” include “gathering crowds to disrupt order in public places”, “unlawful assembly, procession, demonstration” and threats to “petition”. These activities are listed alongside offenses such as “gambling” or disruptive events such as “fire hazard” in technical documents available on Hikvision’s website and flagged to the Guardian by surveillance research firm IPVM, or Internet Protocol Video…
Chinese security firm advertises ethnicity recognition technology while facing UK ban
A Chinese security camera company has been advertising ethnicity recognition features to British and other European customers, even while it faces a ban on UK operations over allegations of involvement in ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang. In a brochure published on its website, Hikvision advertised a range of features that it said it could provide in collaboration with the UK startup FaiceTech. These included using facial recognition for retail security, border control, and anti-money laundering checks for retail banking. The brochure also advertised “Optional Demographic Profiling Facial analysis algorithms”, including “gender,…
How TikTok is turning a generation of video addicts into a data goldmine
Question: what do men and Excel have in common? Answer: they’re always automatically turning things into dates when they’re not. To younger people – that is, anyone under the age of 20 – Microsoft’s spreadsheet program, a tool as essential to accountants as saws are to carpenters, is the contemporary equivalent of mom jeans, handwritten thank-you notes and cravats: stuff that oldies care about. How come, then, that the hashtag #excel has had 3.4bn views on a certain social media platform and that one Excel expert on that platform has…
US sanctioned China’s top facial recognition firm over Uyghur concerns. It still raised millions
SenseTime, China’s largest facial recognition startup, has come under increasing scrutiny by the US government for its alleged role in the surveillance of Uyghurs. Over the past two years, the US has used sanctions to escalate pressure on the company, first by adding it to the government’s entity list, which restricts US exports to the company, and this December, by banning US investment in the firm. But those sanctions have thus far had little effect on the company’s bottom line. SenseTime recently made its debut on the Hong Kong stock…
UK spy chief suggests Beijing risks ‘miscalculation’ over west’s resolve
China is at risk of “miscalculating through over-confidence” over Taiwan, said the MI6 head, Richard Moore, in a statement clearly intended to warn Beijing to back off any attempt to seize control of the island. Giving a rare speech, Britain’s foreign intelligence chief said in London that China was at risk of “believing its own propaganda” and that the country had become “the single greatest priority” for MI6 for the first time in its history. Moore did not mention Taiwan explicitly, but the status of the country, whose independence is…
Chinese province targets journalists and students in planned surveillance system
Security officials in one of China’s largest provinces have commissioned a surveillance system they say they want to use to track journalists and international students among other “suspicious people”, documents reviewed by Reuters showed. A 29 July tender document published on the Henan provincial government’s procurement website details plans for a system that can compile individual files on such persons of interest coming to Henan using 3,000 facial recognition cameras that connect to various national and regional databases. A 5m yuan ($782,000) contract was awarded on 17 September to the…