Does China have a file on you?

There was a very interesting interactive article in the NY Times a few weeks ago, about China’s massive surveillance system in public, urban areas. They showed all the cameras that are everywhere and they talked about facial recognition software, listening devices and other things that they use to compile data and keep track of people.

Yup yup, I was just taking it a step farther. Do they do that for everyone in the world, or at least everyone who enters their territory?

Yes, after my father negotiated service contract for jet engines in 1970s. The Chinese team came to my father’s house for Thanksgiving. They couldn’t believe all the eggs my mom made us as deviled eggs, they had never seen that many eggs at once. They thought the US government had sent the food to impress the Chinese.

How would I know about it? And what could I do about it?

Why waste worry cycles on something like this?

Maybe. I have posted a few memes comparing Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh before…

I suspect they do.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For I am the meanest SOB in the valley.”
Or so they should think…

I would think so. Since they passed a law banning time travel without a license.

If they do it would be one boring file.

I don’t think I am important enough to have a “file” on me but I have communicated a lot with Chinese citizens in China over the years and have visited the country so I will have been picked up on multiple cities cameras. I suppose if the government felt the need they could quickly create a file from existing digital records and that is probably true of GCHQ in Britain and the NSA in America as well.

I would expect them to.
So let me tank my social credit score:

动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门

I have a file on China.
I got some dirt on them.
So I’m not worried.

The only thing in my life of interest to the Chinese is that I prefer Hunan food over Szechuan or Cantonese (especially pot stickers with chili oil), and that my daughter took AP Mandarin in high school.

We may think we’re not of interest to the Chinese government but if, in the event that China ever conquers the US, we’ve been putting our personal opinions about politics and everything else all over the internet, which includes our searches, so it may not turn out well.

I understand that China will become the world’s dominant financial market within 10 years. The days of the US being tops are over.

That sounds scary @jca2 but also believable , lucky thing is China loves Canadians.

@SQUEEKY2 https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/first-reading-canada-is-reportedly-chinas-least-favourite-country it really doesn’t matter how boring your file is; data is power, and your pieces help bring the whole into focus.

@jca2 – while I’m not particularly worried about China conquering the US territory militarily, but maybe it’s something people should think about before traveling there? We get pretty used to free speech, it’s kind of hard to remember there are such massive forces out to end it.

@flutherother – literally every subject of China is important enough for a file. Why not you, too? Especially when you have entered their country, and you do communicate with people there (who themselves are being surveilled)

@RedDeerGuy1 – heh, catch me if you can, am I right? I wonder if they literally have a “time traveler?” notation on your file somewhere.

I think people are lacking imagination for how damaging this info can actually be. Yes, you may be boring, but you may have someone in your circle of friends/acquaintances that is important to them. For example, several of my classmates from high school have some important positions (government, major tech companies, investment firms, etc.). They can triangulate their activities by using your info to some extent (pretending to be you in a reunion email for example). Your data may be only a tiny thread in a large web designed to manipulate or entrap important individuals and influence policy on China. For example, I had a classmate who was involved in the development of the Chrome browser, imagine if the Chinese government threatened to plant child porn on his computer unless he added some source code to the browser?

Russians prob have a file on me. I applied for a visa for a launch base visit. Obviously a rocket scientist, so…

More significantly, FB, Amazon, and Google probably have huge files on my online behavior. I just have to think about something, and FB and Amazon pop up product ads related to it.

@RocketGuy Ya right you are . . . . thinking about my car and the next page I turned to has a national auto parts store ad.