Re: <nettime> China’s dystopian push to revolutionize surveillance

Hi Nils,

Maybe this helps...with big data, social types can be formed as "likely" to misbehave from cross-referencing and aggregating the data from facial recognition, for instance - if suppositions about social types (are men of color more likely to commit crime? - obviously not, but without any broader social understanding of crime, this idea gains traction, and their statistical likelihood becomes the dominant metric for assuming - based on "collected data" -- this "social type" will commit crime or misbehave...Policing regimes/systems will track, locate and increase widespread surveillance not only upon that "type" but, also, upon individuals who fit that description, regardless of their criminal records. Of course, this is highly problematic because it means blanket surveillance of a social group based in prejudicial data sets to begin with...and probably the unjust arrest and punishment of men of color. US system already works this way without high-technology. Look at American jails. Cookies and spyware and other tracking tools such as motion capture cameras which collect motion and facial and thumbprint data

ensconce users and bystanders in mechanization of social control. To me a function of the growing police state, and no amount of safety is worth this pernicious separation of 'state' from 'citizen'.

But, for readings, I'm thinking of the useful Deleuze presenting us with an ideal type for the society of control - the "man in debt" for instance... as the

perfect inhabitant. (great essay by him, Postscripts on the Societies of Control. http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/viewFile/384/407

and the direction here - in Trump's anti-immigrant police-state - regardingplanned collection of social media data by DHS from immigrants, naturalized citizens, and others in US. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homeland-security-plans-to-collect-immigrants-social-media-info/

or background on business data mining -

http://www.dashboardinsight.com/articles/new-concepts-in-business-intelligence/the-realities-of-social-media-data-mining.aspx

or here: rules for data collection from social media on specific groups:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170926/12215238292/dhs-to-officially-require-immigrants-files-to-contain-social-media-info.shtml

molly

On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 2:00 PM, Nils Reichert <guterhundkunterbunt@kleinrot.net> wrote:

Am Mon, 18 Sep 2017 10:54:30 +0200
schrieb Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>:

> As part of a new multimillion-dollar project in Xinjiang, the Chinese
> government is attempting to “build a fortress city with technologies.”
> If this sounds Orwellian, that’s because it is. According to the Sina
> online news portal, the project is supposed to strengthen the
> authorities’ hands against unexpected social unrest. Using “big data”
> from various sources, including the railway system and visitors’
> systems in private residential compounds, its ultimate aim is to
> “predict … individuals and vehicles posing heightened risks” to
> public safety.

This may be a cultural thing but I'm struck by the casualness of this
“ultimate aim”. While a lot of discussions about surveillance still
follow the idea of a panopticon, big data could be (once again) a step
from avoidance of misbehaviour through predictable punishment to
predictable misbehaviour leading to avoidance and self-punishment.
The difference is most eminent when it comes to the position of
knowledge:
I know that I will be seen and I will be punished (but despite all
coercion could still decide to misbehave)
vs.
The system knows I might misbehave and is going to intervene before I
make up my mind. (Disobedience is only possible through a loss of
self-determination.)

Maybe this is nonsense or just common sense but anyway I'd be
thankful for any greater outlooks on this perspective, reading
suggestions etc…

nr
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org
# @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: