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The Chinese government is revolutionizing digital surveillance at home and exporting these technologies abroad. [The study focuses on] Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications provider, which is partly state-owned and increasingly regarded as an instrument of its foreign policy.

The transfers [of technology between China and foreign countries] have sparked widespread concern among observers. These tools of digital dictatorship, many argue, will let recipient governments expand surveillance and reinforce the wave of autocratic retrenchment and democratic erosion currently underway.

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The [foreign] governments that receive Huawei transfers are systematically different than those that do not, and in ways that may be correlated with state repression.

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The Chinese Communist Party's Surveillance State

The Information Age has revolutionized surveillance in the world’s autocracies. In 1998, the CCP launched the Golden Shield Project, which [one researcher] describes as “a domestic surveillance and filtering system that integrates online government databases with an all-encompassing surveillance network.”Footnote 3 In the first phase, completed in 2005, the CCP built a massive network of population databases, ID tracking systems, and internet surveillance tools, which let it record the movement of potential dissidents as revealed, in part, by their online behavior. In 2017, the CCP announced the completion of its “Sky Net” program, which entails 176 million surveillance cameras across China and plans for 626 million by 2020, nearly one camera for every two citizens (Hersey Reference Hersey2017; Russell Reference Russell2017). The result, Qiang (Reference Qiang2019) writes, is “the largest video-surveillance network in the world.”

Simultaneously, the CCP built a facial database that encompassed every adult citizen [...] and a DNA database [...]. The CCP’s facial recognition technology is employed for check-in and security at airports [...] train stations [...] and hotels [...].. In 2017, the CCP applied facial recognition technology to detect jaywalkers, with offenders notified via text message and their pictures displayed at major intersections [...]. This pervasive surveillance apparatus lets the CCP repress dissidents and spend less on public goods [...]. It also complements more analog forms of repression, such as informants and hired thugs [...]. Digital surveillance [in China] is now a conspicuous feature of everyday life.

[...] ** The CCP’s digital surveillance apparatus is supported by a network of domestic technology firms, which are subsidized by the state and routinely used as instruments of foreign policy**. The most general are Huawei and ZTE. Huawei is the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment [...], and especially dominant in Africa, where it has provided 70% of the 5G network.

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China has a number of more focused technology firms that are implicated in surveillance. Several of these specialize in video cameras and facial recognition software: Hikvision, Dahua, CloudWalk, Megvii, YITU, and SenseTime, most notably. Of these, Hikvision is perhaps the most consequential. In 2019, it was responsible for nearly a quarter of the world’s surveillance cameras [...].Dahua has also supplied cameras for Safe City projects, so called for their use of digital surveillance to support the local security apparatus [...]. Other firms specialize in still different areas of surveillance. Meiya Pico reportedly built an app used by the Chinese government to extract data from citizens’ smartphones during street checks [...]. iFlytek develops voice recognition software [...].

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Huawei transfers are [...] more likely if the recipient government has a preexisting relationship with Beijing. The effects of these transfers [...] depend on political institutions in recipient countries. In autocracies, where the chief political threat to incumbents is collective action by citizens and institutional oversight is weak, Huawei transfers lead to an expansion of digital surveillance, internet shutdowns, internet filtering, and targeted arrests for online content. In democracies, where governments have stronger incentivizes to provide public goods, institutional oversight is stronger, and civil societies are more vibrant, Huawei transfers have no clear or consistent effect on digital repression.

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Since Huawei is secretive about its contracts, our statistical estimates may be subject to measurement error. Huawei contracts, like other Chinese infrastructure contracts, routinely include confidentiality clauses [...], which prohibit recipient governments from divulging information about them. Consequently, our record of Huawei transfers may be incomplete, which would effectively include some treated countries in the control group. Since this would bias against our key results, our statistical estimates should be regarded as lower bounds, with the actual effect potentially larger. Third, Huawei’s secrecy means that we also lack fine-grained data about what its transfers entail.

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Transfers that entail “Safe City” infrastructure, for instance, are almost certainly more likely to facilitate digital repression than contracts that focus on IT training for university students. Likewise, Huawei may be inclined to provide some recipient governments more direct personnel support than others, helping them overcome state capacity limitations that might otherwise prevent them from using technology transfers for digital repression.

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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/53562405

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/53566690

ShrimpMoss (虾苔) is a dataset designed for the abliteration (https://github.com/FailSpy/abliterator) of Chinese government-imposed censorship and/or propaganda from large language models developed in the PRC. It consists of a series of files of prompts (in .txt, .json, and .parquet format) in two groupings:

• china_bad_*: Contains a series of prompts likely to trigger censorship or propaganda actions in the model.
• china_good_*: Contains a series of prompts in the same general category of topics but which are designed to not touch on things likely to be censored.

Prompts are in a mix of English, Mandarin, and Cantonese.

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This dataset was produced on Mistral NeMo, an Apache-licensed model with no restrictions on how its outputs can be used. It is free for all uses and users without restriction. All liability is disclaimed.

Production of this dataset is estimated to have had a carbon footprint of under 25 grams.

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Archive.org link

Some key excerpts:

A pseudonymous coder has created and released an open source “tar pit” to indefinitely trap AI training web crawlers in an infinitely, randomly-generating series of pages to waste their time and computing power. The program, called Nepenthes after the genus of carnivorous pitcher plants which trap and consume their prey, can be deployed by webpage owners to protect their own content from being scraped or can be deployed “offensively” as a honeypot trap to waste AI companies’ resources.

The typical web crawler doesn't appear to have a lot of logic. It downloads a URL, and if it sees links to other URLs, it downloads those too. Nepenthes generates random links that always point back to itself - the crawler downloads those new links. Nepenthes happily just returns more and more lists of links pointing back to itself,” Aaron B, the creator of Nepenthes, told 404 Media.

Since they made and deployed a proof-of-concept, Aaron B said their pages have been hit millions of times by internet-scraping bots. On a Hacker News thread, someone claiming to be an AI company CEO said a tarpit like this is easy to avoid; Aaron B told 404 Media “If that’s, true, I’ve several million lines of access log that says even Google Almighty didn’t graduate” to avoiding the trap.

Since the Snowden disclosures we know that the US engages in mass surveillance of EU users by scooping up personal data from US Big Tech. The "Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board" (PCLOB) is the key US oversight authority for these laws. The New York Times now reports, that Democratic Members of the (officially "independent") PCLOB, have received letters, demanding them to resign by Friday night. This would bring the number of appointed Members below the threshold to have PCLOB operate and question the independence of all other executive redress bodies in the US.

The European Union has relied on these US boards and tribunals to find that the US provides "adequate" protection of personal data. Relying on PCLOB and other mechanisms, the European Commission allows European personal data to flow freely to the US in the so-called "Transatlantic Data Privacy Framework" (TADPF). Thousands of EU businesses, government agencies or schools rely on these provisions. Without TADPF, they would need to stop using US Cloud Providers like Apple, Google, Microsoft or Amazon instantly.

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Noyb-founder and lawyer Max Schrems:

"I can hardly see that a Biden Executive Order that was forced upon the US by the EU and regulates US espionage abroad would survive in Trump's logic. The problem is, that not just US Big Tech, but especially normal EU businesses all rely on this system of instable papers to argue that using US cloud systems is legal in the EU."

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Despite all facts, criticism by the European Parliament and the EU Data Protection Authorities, the European Commission has consistently argued that the TADPF is solid and sound. The EU business lobby pushed for a deal - no matter how unstable or wacky. Equally, US Big Tech wanted to stay on the EU market without any technical limitations in relation to US government access. Now everyone from large banks, entire national school systems to many small businesses may wake up to a legal situation, where the use of US cloud products is soon illegal.

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Max Schrems: "While the arguments for the EU-US deal seem to fall apart, companies can rely on the deal as long as it is not formally annulled. However, given the developments in the US, it is more crucial than ever for any [EU] business or other organisation to have a 'host in Europe' contingency plan."

[Edit typo.]

TL;DW: At 4K, the RTX 5090 hits 20-50% uplifts in raster as compared to the RTX 4090, and 27-35% uplifts in RT as compared to the RTX 4090. Power efficiency is roughly equivalent to the 4090. The new dual flowthrough cooler design seems to perform exactly as advertised, providing remarkable cooling for a card that is only two slots thick.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18141775

Since the Snowden disclosures we know that the US engages in mass surveillance of EU users by scooping up personal data from US Big Tech. The "Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board" (PCLOB) is the key US oversight authority for these laws. The New York Times now reports, that Democratic Members of the (officially "independent") PCLOB, have received letters, demanding them to resign by Friday night. This would bring the number of appointed Members below the threshold to have PCLOB operate and question the independence of all other executive redress bodies in the US.

The European Union has relied on these US boards and tribunals to find that the US provides "adequate" protection of personal data. Relying on PCLOB and other mechanisms, the European Commission allows European personal data to flow freely to the US in the so-called "Transatlantic Data Privacy Framework" (TADPF). Thousands of EU businesses, government agencies or schools rely on these provisions. Without TADPF, they would need to stop using US Cloud Providers like Apple, Google, Microsoft or Amazon instantly.

[...]

Noyb-founder and lawyer Max Schrems:

"I can hardly see that a Biden Executive Order that was forced upon the US by the EU and regulates US espionage abroad would survive in Trump's logic. The problem is, that not just US Big Tech, but especially normal EU businesses all rely on this system of instable papers to argue that using US cloud systems is legal in the EU."

[...]

Despite all facts, criticism by the European Parliament and the EU Data Protection Authorities, the European Commission has consistently argued that the TADPF is solid and sound. The EU business lobby pushed for a deal - no matter how unstable or wacky. Equally, US Big Tech wanted to stay on the EU market without any technical limitations in relation to US government access. Now everyone from large banks, entire national school systems to many small businesses may wake up to a legal situation, where the use of US cloud products is soon illegal.

[...]

Max Schrems: "While the arguments for the EU-US deal seem to fall apart, companies can rely on the deal as long as it is not formally annulled. However, given the developments in the US, it is more crucial than ever for any [EU] business or other organisation to have a 'host in Europe' contingency plan."

[Edit typo.]

Source code can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDwganLjpW0

404media.co/zuckerberg-loves-a…

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18137730

Archived link

• Chinese WeChat messaging app, an integral part of everyday life in China, has emerged into a state surveillance tool
• Specific 'community groups' encocurage users to monitor and report their neighbors to authorities
• WeChat is used also abroad to spread Chinese propaganda and misinformation among Chinese-speaking communities

WeChat, often described as a digital “Swiss army knife,” is a super app operated by Tencent, one of China’s tech giants. Launched in 2011, it has become an integral part of everyday life in China, boasting over 1.3 billion monthly active users. While the app’s use for messaging, shopping, bill payments, and access to government services is well-known, its role in the digitalization of police services has been largely overlooked. This raises an important question: To what extent has WeChat become a policing platform for Chinese authorities?

WeChat as a State Surveillance Tool

WeChat’s role in state surveillance is well-documented, particularly its ability to filter and censor keywords and images on both its domestic and international versions. Like other Chinese communication platforms, the app must comply with strict domestic laws, regulations and guidelines that enforce censorship, data privacy, and propaganda requirements.

Censorship in China has a long history. In 1998, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) – the national law enforcement and public security authority – built the Great Firewall to ensure that the country’s economic modernization was accompanied by the suppression of free speech.

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New regulations also hold internet companies legally responsible for real-time content moderation. This is in line with Xi Jinping’s 2016 speech at the Symposium on Cybersecurity and Informatization, during which he made it clear that internet companies must bear “primary responsibility” for content governance.

WeChat’s influence, however, extends beyond China. Researchers in Australia discovered that the app significantly shapes the political views of Chinese-speaking Australians. For instance, during the 2023 referendum on constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians through the creation of an advisory body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, WeChat was one of the platforms used to spread misinformation, disinformation and fake news. This included content rooted in racism, conspiracy theories and colonial denial. Despite this, the app claims its services do not extend to Australia, with its representatives having refused to attend a Senate hearing on foreign interference on these grounds.

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The app’s integration into government services began in 2015 when Li Keqiang – then a State Council minister – introduced the “Internet+” reforms. These reforms aimed to address China’s slowing economic growth by leveraging big data for market regulation, management and supervisory systems, and public service delivery.

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For local police departments with limited resources, WeChat policing offered a quick and cost-effective way to meet government targets without significant investments in software updates.

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Some cities even established “community policing” groups reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, encouraging citizens to monitor their neighbors and report suspicious behavior.

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Today, WeChat is more than just a communications platform. It has become an essential part of China’s public security infrastructure, encompassing digitalized police services, and expanding surveillance capacities, with early reports on these already emerging.

Even if the EU Commission holds the line, and laws like the DSA, DMA and GDPR start to push large online platforms into introducing tangible improvements, the core of the problem is hardly solved: Corporations like Meta, X and Tiktok have too much power. This power puts our entire public debate and even electoral campaigns at risk, as they depend on the goodwill of a small handful of Silicon Valley billionaires. This power also extends to our public infrastructure, access to essential services, and core functions of our States in ways that may soon become irreversible.

That’s why there has never been a more fitting moment for the EU and its member states to start seriously addressing our dependency on Big Tech and invest in real alternative models and services, including investing in Europe’s sovereign digital commons. The EU and member states should build up independent public funding mechanisms, like the EU’s Next Generation Internet programme but bigger, to support the development of sovereign free1 and open source software that can contribute to the resilience of our public digital infrastructure.

These public funds should be subject to conditionality, and not be spent on “AI hyperscalers” or “lighting-fast growing unicorns” that eventually reproduce exploitative business models and further consolidate the economic and political power of large tech corporations. Instead, they must be reserved for open digital infrastructure, software, hardware and standards, similar to what the NLnet Foundation and the Sovereign Tech Agency are already doing on a smaller scale.

This includes the core internet infrastructure that is mostly invisible to users, but could also be extended to projects like an open search index that can be used by innovative, more ethical search engines without having to rely on Google’s or Bing’s indexes, or an open browser engine that can be used by browser makers without being dependent on Google’s Blink engine. In order to address the threats outlined in this article, we also need substantial investment into non-commercial, decentralised public interest social media software like Mastodon, Peertube and other key pieces of the Fediverse.

With the US moving further away from its democratic path, Europe must show leadership to build a better digital future for people, democracy and the planet now.

The rapid spread of artificial intelligence has people wondering: who’s most likely to embrace AI in their daily lives? Many assume it’s the tech-savvy – those who understand how AI works – who are most eager to adopt it.

Surprisingly, our new research (published in the Journal of Marketing) finds the opposite. People with less knowledge about AI are actually more open to using the technology. We call this difference in adoption propensity the “lower literacy-higher receptivity” link.

Trump announces $500B funding for Stargate AI project following Biden executive order on AI safety - Collaboration between OpenAI, Softbank, and Oracle.

https://openai.com/index/announcing-the-stargate-project/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2025/01/21/trump-stargate-ai-openai-oracle-softbank/77861568007/

@technology@beehaw.org @news@beehaw.org @usnews@beehaw.org @programming@beehaw.org @technology@lemmy.world @news@lemmy.world #technology

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/53289064