How Zte Helps Venezuela Utilization China-Style Social Control

Ummm, told you.
Over together with over again.
To such a grade that yours really risked exemplifying Churchill's Definition of a fanatic:

"A fanatic is i who can't modify his heed together with won't modify the subject."

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 major investigation from Reuters, Nov 14:

Chinese telecoms giant ZTE is helping Venezuela construct a organisation that monitors citizen direct through a novel identification card. The "fatherland card," already used past times the regime to rails voting, worries many inwards Venezuela together with beyond
(En español)

In April 2008, old Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez dispatched Justice Ministry officials to see counterparts inwards the Chinese applied scientific discipline hub of Shenzhen. Their mission, according to a fellow member of the Venezuela delegation, was to larn the workings of China’s national identity carte du jour program. 

Chávez, a decade into his self-styled socialist revolution, wanted assist to provide ID credentials to the millions of Venezuelans who withal lacked basic documentation needed for tasks similar voting or opening a banking company account. Once inwards Shenzhen, though, the Venezuelans realized a carte du jour could exercise far to a greater extent than than only position the recipient.

There, at the headquarters of Chinese telecom giant ZTE Corp, they learned how China, using smart cards, was developing a organisation that would assist Beijing rails social, political together with economical behavior. Using vast databases to shop information gathered amongst the card’s use, a regime could monitor everything from a citizen’s personal finances to medical history together with voting activity.

“What nosotros saw inwards Communist People's Republic of China changed everything,” said the fellow member of the Venezuelan delegation, technical advisor Anthony Daquin. His initial amazement, he said, gradually turned to fearfulness that such a organisation could atomic number 82 to abuses of privacy past times Venezuela’s government. “They were looking to convey citizen control.”

The next year, when he raised concerns amongst Venezuelan officials, Daquin told Reuters, he was detained, beaten together with extorted past times tidings agents. They knocked several teeth out amongst a handgun together with defendant him of treasonous behavior, Daquin said, prompting him to flee the country. Government spokespeople had no comment on Daquin’s account.

The projection languished. But 10 years afterward the Shenzhen trip, Venezuela is rolling out a new, smart-card ID known every bit the “carnet de la patria,” or “fatherland card.” The ID transmits information most cardholders to figurer servers. The carte du jour is increasingly linked past times the regime to subsidized food, wellness together with other social programs most Venezuelans rely on to survive. 

And ZTE, whose piece of work inwards the fatherland projection is detailed hither for the get-go time, is at the pump of the program.

As piece of work of a $70 i G one thousand regime endeavour to bolster “national security,” Venezuela final twelvemonth hired ZTE to construct a fatherland database together with exercise a mobile payment organisation for utilization amongst the card, according to contracts reviewed past times Reuters. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 squad of ZTE employees is similar a shot embedded inwards a exceptional unit of measurement inside Cantv, the Venezuelan province telecommunication companionship that manages the database, according to 4 electrical flow together with old Cantv employees.

The fatherland carte du jour is troubling some citizens together with human-rights groups who believe it is a tool for Chávez’s successor, President Nicolás Maduro, to monitor the public together with allocate scarce resources to his loyalists. 

“It’s blackmail,” Héctor Navarro, i of the founders of the ruling Socialist Party together with a old government minister nether Chávez, said of the fatherland program. “Venezuelans amongst the cards similar a shot convey to a greater extent than rights than those without.”

In a outcry upwards interview, Su Qingfeng, the caput of ZTE’s Venezuela unit, confirmed ZTE sold Caracas servers for the database together with is developing the mobile payment application. The company, he said, violated no Chinese or local laws together with has no piece of work inwards how Venezuela collects or uses cardholder data.

“We don’t back upwards the government,” he said. “We are only developing our market.”

An economical meltdown inwards Venezuela is causing hyperinflation, widespread shortages of nutrient together with medicines, together with a growing exodus of desperate citizens. Maduro has been sanctioned past times the United States together with is criticized past times governments from French Republic to Canada every bit increasingly autocratic.

In that, critics say, Maduro has an ally. The fatherland card, they argue, illustrates how China, through state-linked companies similar ZTE, exports technological know-how that tin flame assist like-minded governments track, vantage together with punish citizens.

The database, according to employees of the carte du jour organisation together with screenshots of user information reviewed past times Reuters, stores such details every bit birthdays, position unit of measurement information, work together with income, belongings owned, medical history, province benefits received, presence on social media, membership of a political political party together with whether a individual voted....

...MUCH MORE

In a slightly different context nosotros offered our services:

The dream of whatever right-thinking modify agent is to mandate that people utilization your product.
If that approach is non viable the fallback is to revenue enhancement the competition

Here at Totalitarian Marketing Group nosotros provide strategies for the power-mad piece making life easier for the altitude 0.0000001%. TMG, when nudge only isn't fast enough....

If interested run into also:
"How China’s AI Technology Exports Are Seeding Surveillance Societies Globally"
 
Secretly Hankering to Be a Totalitarian? "How to Invest inwards the Communist People's Republic of China Social Credit Score" 

Potemkin AI: Many instances of 'artificial intelligence' are artificial displays of its ability together with potential

One of the problems amongst artificial tidings together with its presentation to lodge is the ikon of omnipresence that many of its detractors ascribe to what is currently a not-so-advanced technology.
That ikon is also presented past times proponents every bit a way to moo-cow citizens—see China's totalitarian internal propaganda—into a version of Martin Seligman's learned helplessness. Resistance is futile, mightiness every bit good only curl upwards inwards a ball, etc.

I don't convey a lot of fourth dimension for Howard Zinn's approach to history but i of his ideas seems to direct upon this point:

“If those inwards accuse of our lodge - politicians, corporate executives, together with owners of press together with telly - tin flame dominate our ideas, they volition live secure inwards their power. They volition non demand soldiers patrolling the streets. We volition command ourselves.”

If you lot call upwards you lot are ever existence out-thought past times folks amongst access to all-powerful A.I. you lot volition comport yourself differently than if you lot don't call upwards the materials is omnipotent....

And to a greater extent than straight tech related
UPDATED—NVIDIA Wants to Be the Brains Behind the Surveillance State (NVDA)

The companionship only rolled out a $399,000 two-petaflop supercomputer that every piffling totalitarian together with his blood brother is going to lust afterward to run their surveillance-city smart-city information slurping dreams.

The coming municipal information centers volition goal upwards matching the NSA inwards full storage capacity together with NVIDIA wants to live the i sifting through it all. More on this downwards the road, for similar a shot here's the beast....