china It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Government Surveillance! - China launches high-tech bird drones

[rcmaehl]

Sources:

CNET

Techly
Business Insider
 

TL;DR:

China has upped its constant government surveillance by releasing drones disguised as birds. These drones can be hard to detect due to their realistic movement.
 

Media:

 

Quotes/Excerpts:

Quote

China already uses biometrics to identify Beijing metro commuters , facial recognition surveillance at large events and smart glasses to assist police in apprehending criminals... trying out a flock of new "Dove" drones... already been tested in regions such as Xinjiang, where they've gone completely undetected... able to replicate about 90% of the movements of a real dove... More than 2,000 tests were carried out on some of the drones... a built-in high-definition camera, a GPS antenna, a flight control system and data link with satellite communication... speeds of up to 40 kilometres per hour (25 MPH) for up to 30 minutes... design could deceive even highly sensitive radars, posing a real threat to air defence systems.

Quote

More than 30 military and official agencies have used the technology on the field... actually imitate the flapping motion of a bird’s wings to manoeuvre in the air... so lifelike and so noiseless... flying it above a flock of sheep... the notoriously skittish creatures didn’t bat an eye... Song says his artificial birds can still be improved... can’t maintain their “flight” under heavy winds and are unable to travel long distances... All caveats will be solved with advancements in AI...  the technology has been extensively used in the far Western autonomous region of Xinjiang Uygur... 

 

My Thoughts:
 

An interesting and scary method of surveillance. I'm quite sure all Chinese Citizens are aware that they're being monitored 24/7. Perhaps this is a method to try to catch those trying to hide from the normal surveillance to not affect their "Social Credit". I'm sure the USA is just fine with people being allowed to freely spill all their dirty secrets on data obtained from Google and Facebook.

[Taf the Ghost]

Active Drone Warfare is in the horizon. 

 

This is one of those, "you know, I think the Internet was a mistake" type of stories.

[Guest]

inb4 they've start equipping them with weapons and laser beaming for traffic violations.

[GoodBytes]

In China you have no privacy. Jaywalking will have your picture taken and displays on big screens, and a fine sen to your phone.

(https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-police-facial-recognition-technology-ai-jaywalkers-fines-text-wechat-weibo-cctv-a8279531.html and https://mashable.com/2017/06/21/china-facial-recognition-jaywalkers-shaming/#h0GomlRN7qqw)

 

Now, a school is putting cameras in class rooms, monitoring students behavior with facial tracking.

(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/17/chinese-school-uses-facial-recognition-monitor-student-attention/)

 

and more.

[rcmaehl]

4 minutes ago, Densetsu said:

inb4 they've start equipping them with weapons and laser beaming for traffic violations.

Nah, China doesn't do public physical torture. They'd likely just completely destroy you quietly by removing your healthcare, access to government paperwork, oh and throttling/denying internet access. Their Social Credit system is scary. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, rcmaehl said:

Nah, China doesn't do public physical torture. They'd likely just completely destroy you quietly by removing your healthcare, access to government paperwork, oh and throttling/denying internet access. Their Social Credit system is scary. 

o0o, true. That is far scarier than lasers.

[Drak3]

I always wanted to hunt doves.

[ARikozuM]

And with the military spending of today, revolution can’t take place.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

24 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

Nah, China doesn't do public physical torture. They'd likely just completely destroy you quietly by removing your healthcare, access to government paperwork, oh and throttling/denying internet access. Their Social Credit system is scary. 

Yeah, that sounds absolutely terrifying from what I've read.

 

For those who don't know, Extra Credits did an excellent video on the dangers of this

 

 

[Doobeedoo]

Oh yeah, with time more of these than the real ones wil be in sky. 

[YedZed]

39 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

<<... why is there a seagull in the middle of the mountainside...?>>

Seagulls are fuckin dumb, that's why.

[TVwazhere]

INB4 their military attack drones are in the shape of dogs.....

[Sauron]

Time to build some hawk drones

[rcmaehl]

5 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Time to build some hawk drones

They'll just build Great Horned Owl drones, we'll build some Osprey drones (not to be confused with the helicopter), and so on, and it'll slowly work it's way up the tree until it hits human drones. 

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

not to be confused with the helicopter

I mean... a military helicopter drone could do the job too

[TVwazhere]

1 minute ago, VegetableStu said:

are we like full Red Alert here o_o (inb4 Russian Giant Squids)

.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfight

[FloRolf]

I shouldn't have opened that topic as I will be going to China in 2 weeks. 

 

 

 

Chinese offical: have you been to the internet recently?

Me: the who? 

[S w a t s o n]

4 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

In China you have no privacy. Jaywalking will have your picture taken and displays on big screens, and a fine sen to your phone.

(https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-police-facial-recognition-technology-ai-jaywalkers-fines-text-wechat-weibo-cctv-a8279531.html and https://mashable.com/2017/06/21/china-facial-recognition-jaywalkers-shaming/#h0GomlRN7qqw)

 

Now, a school is putting cameras in class rooms, monitoring students behavior with facial tracking.

(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/17/chinese-school-uses-facial-recognition-monitor-student-attention/)

 

and more.

Do the Chinese have their own version of "Big Brother"? In the west we've had books, films and other media created criticizing extreme government control and it's lead to a resistance of overreach but China is just outdoing itself.. Makes me wonder if they had their own warnings..

[GoodBytes]

5 minutes ago, Swatson said:

Do the Chinese have their own version of "Big Brother"? In the west we've had books, films and other media created criticizing extreme government control and it's lead to a resistance of overreach but China is just outdoing itself.. Makes me wonder if they had their own warnings..

I don't know. Probably all banned content.

[Shreyas1]

But will the seagull drones aggressively attack you for your food?

[DildorTheDecent]

3 hours ago, rcmaehl said:

Osprey drones (not to be confused with the helicopter),

Yeah I hate it whenever I get my birds and helicopters mixed up.

[yian88]

4 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Active Drone Warfare is in the horizon. 

 

This is one of those, "you know, I think the Internet was a mistake" type of stories.

Sadly most people think of the internet as a standalone thing or entity that we could have stopped or created differently.

Internet is nothing more than a network of computers connected togheter, and ISP's provide that connection today, but really anyone can make "the internet" if it was all shutdown tommorrow.

Simply connect your small village's computers to the same network and voila you now have internet, it may not be global but its a network of computers that can communicate with each other via various protocols/software.

Ever heard of meshnet, yeah anyone can "make" the internet nowdays.

 

As long as the computers exists with network chips and routers/switches there will be internet.

So internet is not a mistake, unless the entire semiconducter industry is, because internet happens almost naturally as long as you have computers, its just convenient to share data over such fast networks .

Internet/computers can no longer be contained they will always exist from now on, you might censor/block parts of internet but you cant take it out completely without taking computers out of the world... good luck with that.

[Guest]

That bird just looks fake

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

In China you have no privacy. Jaywalking will have your picture taken and displays on big screens, and a fine sen to your phone.

(https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-police-facial-recognition-technology-ai-jaywalkers-fines-text-wechat-weibo-cctv-a8279531.html and https://mashable.com/2017/06/21/china-facial-recognition-jaywalkers-shaming/#h0GomlRN7qqw)

 

Now, a school is putting cameras in class rooms, monitoring students behavior with facial tracking.

(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/17/chinese-school-uses-facial-recognition-monitor-student-attention/)

 

and more.

And let's not forget that western countries like the UK and US are moving in this direction too.

Maybe not the public shaming on big screens, but most certainly in the case of surveillance and censorship of "troublesome" ideas.

 

6 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

That bird just looks fake

Well it's a still image and you have a close up view of it.

Probably a lot harder to see that it's a drone if it's far up in the sky and moving.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

Well it's a still image and you have a close up view of it.

Probably a lot harder to see that it's a drone if it's far up in the sky and moving.

I guess if it’s pretty far, but it needs more colour to pass really. Maybe it’s just a prototype or they don’t have birds in China because of the smog.