If You're a Foreigner Using GPS In China, You Could Be a Spy 219
tedlistens writes "China has accused Coca Cola of espionage for its 'illegal mapping,' allegedly with the use of GPS 'devices with ultra high sensitivity.' On its face the case looks like yet another example of China's aggressive sensitivity about its maps, no doubt heightened by its ongoing fracas with the U.S. over cyberwar. Li Pengde, deputy director of the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, said during a radio interview on Tuesday that the Coca Cola case was only one of 21 similar cases involving companies using GPS devices in Yunnan to 'illegally obtain classified information.' According to Chinese authorities, geographical data can be used by guided missiles to strike key military facilities — a concern that one GPS expert says is overblown at a time when the U.S. government already has high-precision satellite maps of China. Nevertheless, Chinese law dictates that foreigners, be they companies or individuals, are prohibited from using highly-sensitive GPS equipment in China."
Bad idea? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they shouldn't have Coca-Cola deliver refreshments to their secret military installations? ;)
Legitimate complaint? (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh.
Actually seems like it could be a semi-legitimate complaint to me. Realistically what applications are there for a high-precision GPS outside of geological/territorial surveys and military intelligence? Sure we've got the satellite maps, but one of the nice things about those maps is the ability for someone with a GPS on the ground to make "X is here" annotations for important locations. For military purposes the ability to know within a few feet/yards where a strategic "soft spot" is could prove very valuable in terms of, say, disrupting infrastructure with a minimum of the sort of civilian collateral damage which could be used to sway international opinion against you.
Re:Legitimate complaint? (Score:5, Insightful)
Realistically what applications are there for a high-precision GPS outside of geological/territorial surveys and military intelligence?
Ooh, ooh, teacher, teacher! I know this one! It's knowing which freaking road you're on when there are several close together.
Seriously, what kind of question is that?
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High precision is talking about sub 10m accuracy. You don't need that for sat nav, even at junctions. The reason is that although absolute position is only good to within say 10m velocity is extremely good, so you can tell if the user drifted a few metres on to the exit road or not.
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"In three months it will be spring. You _don't_ need heat in spring!!!"
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Depending on how close they are, un-augmented civilian grade GPS may or may not be up to the task. Pretty much all GPS navigators (handheld or dash mounted) are either augmented (with WAAS or it's EU equivalent, or with Assisted GPS) or they 'cheat'
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That being said, even civilian grade GPS is good enough to create a control point to update satellite based maps. There's not a doubt in my mind that the CIA has been doing so globally, using small (possibly military grade) handhelds to mark important points and then using that information to update more conventional maps. (Maps aren't just pretty pictures... there's a lot of data stored on them, but you need an accurate reference point to build the map around.)
Or they could just use their billions of dollars worth of satellites to do the same thing with even more precision or accuracy.
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I was speaking more to the general question of "technology X is only good for military applications, so why should civilians be allowed to use it?" It's silly. A useful technology is a useful technology. More accuracy and precision in any measuring device is good and useful. Immerman might as well have been arguing "Realistically what applications are there for [more than 640k of memory] outside of [military or other government sanctioned work]?"
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You forget, China defines a high-precision GPS as being what the iPhone or any Android phone provides.
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Well, in 1954, there were all the navigational methods of the past plus RDF (radio direction finder) systems, that allowed you to triangulate your position based on fixed beacons. Such systems existed in 1920, but weren't really in wide deployment, although some skilled navigators/radio operators probably were using those techniques with commercial radio broadcasts to navigate. Otherwise there were compasses, navigating by stars (using clocks and other instruments like sextants), charts, dead reckoning, fol
Re:Legitimate complaint? (Score:5, Insightful)
You think that satellites can't do that? This is just about appearances, nothing more, or they just wanted access to those phones for industrial espionage reasons.
This is about as legitimate as banning hunting rifles because they could shoot down military planes. I'm sure it's technically possible to get lucky, but it's rather unlikely that somebody is going to be able to hit something going that fast that far up on purpose.
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The Taliban consider the sniper rifle to be an effective anti-drone weapon.
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Drones aren't planes, they're designed to go low and slow and be expendible. If planes were typically going that low and that slow, the military would be more concerned with it. Plus, you're a fool if you think the typical hunting rifle is comparable with a sniper's rifle.
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You'd be more correct if you replaced "typical hunting rifle" with "typical hunter" and "a sniper's rifle" with "a sniper".
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osm.org ?
it's not a legitimate complaint, it's a crazy totalitarian idea.
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Okay, don't coke machines have sensors to determine how full they are, and they can phone home to alert a technician that the machine needs to be emptied of money and refilled?
In this case, knowing the precise location of a machine could be very useful.
Also quite useful if someone moves the machine.
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I don't see it. The guy who refills the machine already knows *exactly* where it is. A GPS won't pinpoint it's position any better than "Machine 2384756 needs refilling".
I could see GPS being useful for tracking a stolen machine, but that shouldn't take much precision. And really how big of a problem is that in China? A little alarm that starts screaming if the machine is jostled more than X amount without being in "transportation mode" would probably be far more effective anyway.
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Actually seems like it could be a semi-legitimate complaint to me. Realistically what applications are there for a high-precision GPS outside of geological/territorial surveys and military intelligence?
Is it just me or is it getting really scary that people are starting to think this way?
Be it GPS, guns, encryption, or 64oz sodas, there seems to be a growing and vocal faction of people that think that if someone can show some defined "need" to have something then they shouldn't be able to have it.
The presence of tools should NEVER be interpreted as intention to commit a crime.
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In the US or other country where the government claims to represent the will of the people, sure, no argument. But we're talking about China - they're a half step from a dictatorship and make no bones about it, and I would be *very* surprised if any dictatorship didn't object to it's citizens possessing tactically valuable tools, much less foreign nationals from countries with which they're slowly engaging in an early-stage Cold War.
Hmm, looking at that last sentence I think it also sums up why I'm extreme
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Bloomberg in New York City is way ahead of you.
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Hey, given how frequently my employers want to send me to China to train their idiotic "engineers", knowing all I have to do is possess a sensitive GPS device is all I need to know.
I await the banhammer China, [sung to the mighty mouse theme] here I come to train your slaves!
I am an American (Score:5, Interesting)
and I live outside of America because my business is outside of the United States
And you know what ?
For the past decades I've been contacted by "someone" asking me for my "cooperation" so that they can use my company as a cover up to spy on the countries that my business has located branches and local contacts
When I told them that I do not want my company to be involved in some espionage activities "they" remind me of my "duty" to my country, that I should be "patriotic", that I should aid them in "defeating the enemies"
Of course, I can't tell you where my business branches are located - or they will know who I am
Just want you guys to know what is going on in the real world
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Maybe "you" should "put" your "tinfoil" hat back "on", Cause those of "us" in the "real" world think "you" might be "bat-shit" crazy.
Yeah, I can really see the CIA calling up random companies and saying "hey, can you please hire a few of our guys so they can spy on foreigners"?
Don't you think it would be far easier (and more secure) for them to just set up their own front company?
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Sometimes it's much harder to start a company, build your own products (e.g. xerox machines), establish a well known brand, then do the spy stuff:
http://www.editinternational.com/read.php?id=47ddf19823b89 [editinternational.com]
http://tinyurl.com/a7b9jql [tinyurl.com]
I doubt the CIA call up random companies. But as you can see they definitely do use existing established companies.
Re:I am an American (Score:5, Interesting)
In Defense of TacoBoy, I've heard this story before, and it ends in destruction, disaster, courts for the next 30 years, prison and death. I am a veteran and I don't blame them for turning that insane shit down. Working for psychopaths isn't a good business move it always ends bad.
A TOY manufacturer was the victim. Ah here it is if you wanna read a little more: http://www.bobfletcherinvestigations.com/
"Bob merged his toy manufacturing company with a company that imported watches.
That company was called Vista USA INC. and was a covert operational front for US arms sales and covert mercenary training! "
I offer up this example cause it's no laughing matter. There's an interview worth listening to, if you have access to Coast to Coast Am archives: http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2008/10/04
As far as the GPS in China thing, who cares, I don't need GPS in China, it's not my country, I'm not there, I'm here, and to boot I don't use GPS here either, and I certainly would not have been caught like "Coke" binding my standard business operations to it, regardless of what rationalization presented in favor.
Dear COKE, You are making Soda. What the fuck?
Re:I am an American (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks for posting through slashdot. We will now trace and destroy you.
Unfortunately, this is no longer funny. Thanks to such freedom-loving devices as the Patriot Act and that lovely little thing known as FISA, "interested" organizations can march up to Slashdot, demand all sorts of records under total secrecy (at least until yesterday's court ruling), use them as a basis for back-tracking, and apply pressure to foreign entities that would allow them to repeat the process all the way down to drawing cross-hairs on a drone-strike map.
Don't forget that post-9/11, your American citizenship effectively ends when you leave the boundaries of the USA. And, for the most part enter a US airport. You can also effectively lose your citizenship if someone chooses to label you an "enemy combatant". We no longer cling to the 200-year old archaisms that Once an American, Always an American, Innocent Until Proven Guilty, or other such quaint and silly "self evident truths". We may have been able to hold onto them while the Godless Communists of the Evil Empire were howling at the door, but mention the word "terrorist" and we soil our underwear.
We are not yet at the point where it is unsafe even to mention such things, or I wouldn't. But we're close enough that it's possible to receive a visit from certain people who might strongly advise keeping silent - and to more than advise keeping silent about the visit itself.
The true enemies of freedom and democracy are not the foreigners without, it's the Guardians within, The people who feel it necessary to destroy freedom in the name of saving freedom. The so-called Liberal "nanny state" might want to take away your Big Gulps, but the nanny state that you should really worry about is the one with the flags and the eagles. And offshore prisons.
fair play (Score:2)
Classified Information: (Score:3)
Coke got sensitive classified military information that their delivery vehicle that was three hours late was sitting in the parking lot of a local bar all that time.
(The corollary is that the driver they fired was a son of a local party official. Bad idea.)
so people from the outsite can't take there cell p (Score:2)
so people from the outside of china can't take there cell phone with GPS to china??
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Not unless you want the Chinese government to use it to track you wherever you go and aren't worried about them taking all of your private information and your passwords into corporate accounts and putting malware on it that will open a back door when you hook it back into your network when you get home.
These days, tech companies send their employees to China with scrubbed laptops and burn phones for this reason. Then they scrub them again as soon as they get home.
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These days, tech companies send their employees to China with scrubbed laptops and burn phones for this reason. Then they scrub them again as soon as they get home.
The sad part is how long that took to become the norm.
I was recommending this long ago, and only in the last year or two has it become commonplace. Of course, I do the same thing when I travel to the US - except then I don't even bother copying my legally purchased mp3's as I know there is a good chance I'll get harassed about them.
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These days, tech companies send their employees to China with scrubbed laptops and burn phones for this reason. Then they scrub them again as soon as they get home.
The sad part is how long that took to become the norm.
I was recommending this long ago, and only in the last year or two has it become commonplace. Of course, I do the same thing when I travel to the US - except then I don't even bother copying my legally purchased mp3's as I know there is a good chance I'll get harassed about them.
That might be a good idea too, but unless the stories about China are wildly overblown, the extent of US spying on travelers is a great deal less than that of China.
GPS laws are like this all over the place (Score:5, Interesting)
If you do a lot of travelling, you will find that GPS laws are different everywhere. Many countries won't even allow you to bring one across the border. Defense against enemies obtaining high quality maps is usually the reasoning. Sometimes, you can bribe a customs guy to let you bring it in. But you shouldn't be flaunting GPS when you're visiting a place like that. I think China should be more free, but I can't get too upset when they enforce their existing laws against visitors who break them, even when the laws are out of date or seem silly.
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If you do a lot of travelling, you will find that GPS laws are different everywhere.
This has nothing to do with GPS. After the US accused China of cyber attacks, it just retaliated against the biggest US conglomerates they could go after.
China did something similar to Carrefour [forbes.com] after the French President officially received the Dali Lama. Of course, everybody knows that Carrefour had nothing to do with the Dali Lama's visit, but that wasn't the point. The point was to put the French chain store under siege everywhere it was located in China, so that the French corporation and the related F
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Okay, so that's a nice, broad, political view of the situation. I appreciate that. Maybe this crackdown is related. It's also true that sometimes, other countries take a harder line on laws they haven't before, in order to exert diplomatic pressure. Maybe it's bullshit to you that China is now enforcing their laws.
In the meantime, take your GPS into Tunisia and let me know how that goes. I won't visit you in Tunisian prison.
US companies expect retaliation for trade disagreements. The mechanics of thos
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In the meantime, take your GPS into Tunisia and let me know how that goes. I won't visit you in Tunisian prison.
Oh yes of course, I'm not disputing that those laws exist, or that they're enforced on individuals on a regular basis. And even thought, I sounded quite certain in my allegations, I'm only just 90% certain that it is some kind of official retaliation, and not some kind of corrupt official looking for bribe money, or some tin-foil hat wearing official going off on a personal crusade against gps units.
Those multinationals have planned for the consequences, and we shouldn't cry for them.
I don't think anyone is crying for them.
And yes, part of such a contingency plan for US conglomerates could a
Don't worry, China... (Score:2)
One Two Three (Score:5, Informative)
This makes me think of the classic 1953 Billy Wilder comedy involving a Coca-Cola executive going to East Berlin to open up the iron curtain for Coke products.
Hilarious in a dated sort of way. Tremendous pacing, starring James Cagney.
A great way to pick up mid-century American culture.
Misleading title! (Score:3)
Posted from China, Texas.
What "classified information"? (Score:3)
If it really is GPS then it's simply the local time, broadcast in the clear. How is that classified?
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Ground truth does not always equal what is said on a map. It's hard to read the signs that say "one way" from a satellite photo. It's also a lot easier for someone to come back to america, look at their GPS track and say "yep, there's definitely an entrance to an underground bunker here on this street" etc etc.Beijing is riddled with nuclear bunkers with entrances on to public streets, but they're poorly documented in english. Also, government mapping agencies tend to "forget" to put things on maps. BT towe
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It's hard to read the signs that say "one way" from a satellite photo.
That used to be true, but now that they can reasonably shoot oblique due to improvements in adaptive optics, it's not so true.
*Yawn* (Score:2, Insightful)
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Satellite maps have no accurate references to coordinates. The satellite knows where it is, and it knows where it points the camera to, but the error is too large from hundreds of miles away. You can see a lamppost, but you don't know its exact coordinates. The nearest lamppost that you do know coordinates of is not in this photo.
This is why you need to take the satellite photo and then send someone who will stand by that specific lamppost, look at his GPS and write: "This is xx.xxx North and yy.yyy East
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LEO satellites don't even have an absolute location. Geostationary ones do, but good luck taking pictures from *that* orbit.
A LEO spy satellite has its own orbital motion; then it has librations around its own center of inertia; then the camera positioner has errors in aligning the camera; then the lens distorts the image a little, especially if you consider that it takes a picture of a sphere, and often the area of interest is not right under the orbit. All these factors combine to give you a significan
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This.
And every modern phone has GPS in it and many of those will 'geo-tag' by default when taking snaps.
And they're only applying the law to foreigners, so stop being such stupid racist paranoid fucks Chinese Govt.
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It's just a law they have. Why do you feel the need to break laws of foreign countries because they don't adapt to your point of view?
Uhhh... (Score:2)
Can't blame them. (Score:2)
Who"s on first? (Score:2)
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China mapping (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who works for a company that does significant mapping business in China, I'm getting a kick out of these replies. It's funny how sensitive they are to GIS information and maps. The Chinese government has these silly rules about all maps having to show China's borders the way they imagine them to be, and you have to show certain islands and other sensitive areas as exaggerated in size. As long as you comply with their fairy tale, there's no problem. The GPS stuff is probably related. Anything that has the potential to show reality rather than the make-believe world is verboten.
I've used GPSr's many times in China. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've used GPS receivers many times in China, and even has friendly discussions with airport security about some of them. Never had any problem.
That said, I've also been followed during many (most?) of my trips to China, and for some reason they are always doing air duct work just before I get into my hotel rooms...
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Really? You have drink so much of the anti-China news cool aid that even when you visit China you feel like you are being followed. Lol.
From the expat community I know here in China, there was only one incident once with a woman that worked for the US nuclear commission, and all they did was make it very obvious she had security guards following her everywhere. Chinese are not too refined when they do their job, a couple of months in China will teach you that very quickly.
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So, what about Google Earth (map/pic of China)? (Score:2)
Is Google Earth crippled, while your "mapping" or displaying China?
OK, so you'd have to use GE -outside- China...
China may have a relevent point (Score:2)
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And the main point they have is that it is their country and their laws. When you are in somebody's house you should respect the owner's rules. It is polite to say the least.
Only one Possibility (Score:2)
I can only see one issue with high accuracy mapping of roads, it could be used as "ground control" for aerial photography. When you're flying aerial photography it is often highly desirable to have a number of "aerial visible" locations (often large white painted arrows) with high accuracy GPS coordinates distributed through the capture area. That way the images can be rubber sheeted using some pretty fancy algorithms to these points so you take an image with OK accuracy and turn it into one with high acc
It's not like (Score:2)
Tell us news, not history ... (Score:2)
Re:Fuck China - No Fuck You (Score:2, Interesting)
China makes almost everything you utilize on your daily life, directly or indirectly.
This is not by your choice but by the companies you buy utilities and electronics.
China also owns most of US foreign debt.
This is also by design since china has been buying it from the free markets.
Deal with it.
Re:Fuck China - No Fuck You (Score:5, Informative)
China also owns most of US foreign debt.
Actually, China owns about 8% of our national debt. [about.com]
Even if you only consider debt own by foreign countries, China owns only 26% of that, about the same as Japan.
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It's the price they pay to deflate their currency.
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If this "comparative economic utility mitigates the degree of censure" rationale which you have proposed holds true, then it would mean the US, being the world's major exporter of heavy equipment (planes, construction, agricultural, etc) and the source of much of the world's media and software, should also be immune from "bashing" and criticism. Yet, it is not.
If we continue to follow your rationale, the USA's position as a major creditor to the Eurozone would also preclude it from criticism from European S
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I'm a dual national and you can kiss my ass.
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Oh, so that's what I need to do to keep the local ladies at bay next time I'm in the PRC--just explain to them that I really don't work for the government, and they'll lose interest?
Re:The US is headed the same way, not as far along (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a time when the US stood for individual freedom...
When?
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You can still get there in Alaska.
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Re:The US is headed the same way, not as far along (Score:5, Insightful)
Before 1913.
In 1913 we had a president who openly advocated white supremacist policies [wikipedia.org] and praised the KKK. Women were denied not only the vote, but many inheritance rights, right to serve on juries, and were openly discriminated against in education, financial services, and employment. The police regularly colluded in violently suppressing organized labor.
If you were a rich white guy, 1913 may have been the golden age. For everyone else, it wasn't so good.
not as long as the bill of rights is in place (Score:2)
not as long as the bill of rights is in place
A little late (Score:2)
the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
These days you can get busted for a Pop Tart that is vaguely shaped somewhat like a gun.
Re:Fuck USA (Score:3, Insightful)
so the "fuck China" gets a 3 and "fuck USA" gets a -1? ./ for it turns it is just another China bashing web site.
Cybercrime: Styxnet most likely created by USA and Israel
civic unrest: for the last 3 days in Brooklyn blacks are rioting because yet another 16 black kid was shot to death by the Police
Human rights violations: Guantanamo.
Fuck
Re:Fuck USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at how Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Glenn Greenwald, Amy Goodman, and other critics of the US live and prosper in the US. Now, look at how their Chinese equivalents are dead, rotting away in jail, under house arrest, or in exile.
That's all you need know to understand that the statements "Fuck China" and "Fuck USA" are weighed differently.
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Look at how Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Glenn Greenwald, Amy Goodman, and other critics of the US are marginalised into complete irrelevancy by the corporate-controlled mass media...
TFTFY.
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To be fair, Michael Moore's shenanigans are juvenile and transparent.
Noam Chomsky- let's just say there's a reason his fan base is perpetually 23 years old.
I'm not familiar with the work of Goodman and Greenwald.
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Popularity is NOT a measure of censorship. ONLY censorship is a measure of censorship. If they are not censored by the mass media then you have no comparison to China.
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I just pooped into my diaper made out of your country flag.
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So, you're saying that ACs aren't all underpaid bored guys wearing military uniforms that troll slashdot from an office on the outskirts of Shanghai?
Citation needed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Citation Needed.
So Iranian agents taking pics of airports (Score:2)
Authorities have interviewed at least 13 people since 2005 with ties to Iran's government [taking pictures of airports, etc.]
You said:
taking photos of bridges??? You can be arrested for that.
IF I were an agent of the Iranian government, and I was on a watch list causing the government to be interested in what I was doing, and I wax taking pictures of airports, I could be interviewed. Good or bad, decide for yourself, but it's good to be clear on what is actually going on.
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Do they determine what constitutes "ties to Iran's government"? Does it mean Iranian diplomats, Iranian government ministers, vacationing bureaucrats from some government agency, vacationing postal workers, vacationing relatives of postal workers, students in the country on government loans, or just anyone Iranian since anyone from Iran has a "tie" to the Iranian government by virtue of being a citizen?
I mean, seriously, this is stupid. If someone wants to get clandestine pictures of things in plain view of
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You may be arrested for that by police who don't know what the law is, but in the US you will have the ACLU rushing to your defense, and you will ultimately not be convicted of a crime.
In China, there is nothing like the ACLU, since the Chinese government sees lawyers who try to actually hold the government to its own laws as threats to be addressed.
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I used to be a security officer and that's simply not true. At most, you might be questioned about it, and even that's relatively unlikely unless you're already under surveillance. But, if they're going any further than that, you've likely done something else that raised suspicion.
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Can you quit biting the wax tadpole and just come out and TELL US how the fuck YOU FEEL ABOUT CHINA already?! Geez.
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go home to your damn USA and fix your problems
And yet, one of the USA's biggest problems is China spying on US corporations. Though, unlike China's propaganda division, I admit that the Tu Quoque fallacy is not a defense for USA's (or China's) actions.
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one of the USA's biggest problems is China spying on US corporations
Is it?
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Re:Get out (Score:5, Informative)
Just get out of China.
But keep sending your food [ibtimes.com].
And keep sending us your industry. [washingtonexaminer.com]
Oh, your tech too. Keep sending that [chinadaily.com.cn].
Otherwise, just stay the hell out, round-eye.
Re:Get out (Score:4, Insightful)
Your post strikes me as strange and inconsistent.
If, as a Canadian who has been hassled for taking photos of US buildings, your response is to be reflective of the silliness of these laws which govern photo taking in the US, the so too should you be reflective of the silliness of these laws which govern GPS usage in China. It would make more sense for you to have a heightened awareness for such shenanigans due to your previous experience and to be doubly outraged, rather than excusing one while pointing out the other.
You say that "If you don't like China and its laws don't go there" yet you don't seem to apply the same kind of hand-waving to your experience in the US.
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His post is consistent. He never said that he likes that Chinese law, but that even if you don't like a law when you are in either the US or China, should you just go ahead and break it?
If you are going to show that kind of respect for a country's customs and laws, both the US AND China have every right to throw your ass in jail.
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If you would read GP more carefully you would notice that he said he was hassled "more than once" while in the US. This indicates that he didn't quite follow his own suggestion of respecting a country's laws after his initial encounter. One could counter-argue that US laws on public photography are murky and interpreted capriciously, but one must then accept that such argument could apply to Coke's experience of Chinese law on GPS usage.
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I am in China at the moment and all of what you said strikes me as extremely uninformed opinion. Try living in China for a while and then see if all the bullshit you just said still stands.
And for the record, I'm not Chinese.
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I am, by no means, a fan of the United States as it stands today but to compare the two is idiotic. I'll start with: In the United States you'll at least get a trial, probably, if they did any more than question you. You're not going to GITMO (or to the firing squad) for taking pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge and you're not going to jail either assuming all one was doing was taking pictures. Let's at least start with reality and work our way down.
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You don't have to try to make sense of it. It is the typical American mentality where it's ok for me to do it but nobody else can. As a foreign citizen that has lived both in the US and China, I am appalled that in a lot of things China is a lot more free than the US. Especially when it comes to foreigners. Now, the internet situation in China, that is a place where you can actually believe all the stuff you read in the press.