China Accused Of Putting Recording Devices In All Dual-Plate Hong Kong/China Cars

from the taking-spying-to-a-new-level dept

Fri, Jun 17th 2011 1:04am — Mike Masnick

There's a fascinating report, via Slashdot, claiming that China has been installing spying devices on all "dual-plate" Chinese-Hong Kong cars for about four years now. Officially an electronic border card, some researchers opened the box and found electronics for recording and transmitting audio. Not surprisingly, this has enabled border patrol officials to be much more effective in figuring out which cars to search:

Smugglers were the first to note something strange about the devices. A source told Apple Daily that after the cards were installed mainland authorities had no trouble picking off the cars carrying illicit goods.

�For every ten cars we ran we only had [smuggled goods] in three or four to reduce the risk, but the border agents caught all of them. The accuracy was unreal!� Apple Daily quoted the smuggler saying.

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Filed Under: china, surveillance, tracking

26 Comments

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Jim Gaudet (profile), 17 Jun 2011 @ 3:44am

Surprised?
Not at all, more surprising would be to find what we have monitoring us in the US...
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2011 @ 4:33am

Re: Surprised?
"more surprising would be to find what we have monitoring us in the US."

Well, lets see - cell phone, OnStar, black box, gps, etc - pretty much everything.
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Svante Jorgensen (profile), 17 Jun 2011 @ 4:36am

Ineffective
Cute violation of privacy, but as soon as anyone figures it out everyone will know, and the "bad guys" will just disable it or know not to talk about illicit goods while driving.
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Michial Thompson, 17 Jun 2011 @ 4:58am

Coodos
Coodos to the Chinese, 100% success rate at catching smugglers, and I bet innocents were a little less hassled too....

Somehow I see no problems with this
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2011 @ 5:27am

Re: Coodos -- NOT --
If freedom means NOTHING to you, you don't deserve to live here. This isn't "effective and efficient law inforcement," it IS indescriminate spying and illegal in the U.S. (thanks to our forefathers) despite what this and the previous administration are doing to the Constitution.
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abc gum, 17 Jun 2011 @ 5:28am

Re: Ineffective
Turn up the radio and communicate with etchasketch
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Beta (profile), 17 Jun 2011 @ 5:31am

coventry, anyone?
It sounds as if the Chinese authorities haven't learned one of the basic rules of intelligence: don't overuse a good source.
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abc gum, 17 Jun 2011 @ 5:31am

Re: Coodos
Michial Thompson -> "Somehow I see no problems with this"

Somehow I am not surprised with this
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2011 @ 5:51am

Re: Coodos
Coodos?

Maybe you meant "kudos"? 5 letter words are hard!
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Overcast (profile), 17 Jun 2011 @ 6:54am

Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering high morale and community of purpose. The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in human history. �David Rockefeller

Yep - shouldn't be too much longer before we end up like this - or well, maybe revolt.
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Krusty, 17 Jun 2011 @ 6:58am

Re: Re: Surprised?
It seems all the hullabaloo over chipping and national identity cards was a ruse to allow the TRUE national identity cards to not only enter the American way of life, but to have the user pay for his/her own tracking� smart phones
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Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 17 Jun 2011 @ 7:16am

Re: Coodos
and I bet innocents were a little less hassled too....

Yeah, except the ones who talked about freedom within audio range of their cars. They're probably now in jail.

Guess that's not a problem to you.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2011 @ 7:39am

Re: Coodos
"Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither." - Ben Franklin
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Phoenix, 17 Jun 2011 @ 8:16am

Re: Re: Coodos
Sure, why not make stuff up if you don't have an intelligent come back.
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Phoenix, 17 Jun 2011 @ 8:23am

Re: Coodos
In the context of this story, I agree. You break the law, you get punished. You don't break the law, you don't have to suffer through as much hassle as you would without this mechanism. Everybody wins.

However, obviously we can all understand how this setup might be easily abused.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2011 @ 8:28am

Re: Re: Re: Coodos
Sure, why not make stuff up if you don't have an intelligent come back.

Because everybody knows that the Chinese government would never do anything to suppress democracy or religious freedoms.
/s
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2011 @ 8:31am

Re:
Yep - shouldn't be too much longer before we end up like this - or well, maybe revolt.

Americans don't have the balls.
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 17 Jun 2011 @ 8:32am

Re: Re: Coodos
Knowing him, he probably didn't want to infringe on a trademark or copyright.
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harbingerofdoom (profile), 17 Jun 2011 @ 8:44am

Re: Coodos
then perhaps you should look into moving there?
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2011 @ 9:02am

Re: Re: Coodos
Second that. I say we each donate a dollar or more to cover for his plane ticket.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2011 @ 9:18am

Re: Re:
"Americans don't have the balls."

Of course not. Revolution takes balls, and feminized societies don't have them. Spectator sports and foreign military actions (another spectator sport) are popular ways for such societies to pretend that they still have the balls that have actually been removed.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2011 @ 9:43am

I think this is the original form of the quote in one of the above comments:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

another along the same lines

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
John Adams

This kinda thing puts me in mind of one of the anti terrorism laws in the UK that would never be used for anything but catching bad people with bombs and the like that wound up being used to spy on a family suspected of lying about their post code to get their kid into a better school.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jun 2011 @ 10:08am

You have to take the story with a grain of salt, considering it is third hand (now fourth hand posting it here). Going back up the line tells you a bunch.

The Epoch Times is an organization that is very much against the mainland Chinese government. They are incredibly critical of everything the Chinese government does, and it isn't beyond them to cook up a story to try to make them look bad. The source newspaper, The Apple (from either Taiwan or Hong Kong, depending on the edition) is a tabloid on the scale of the National Enquirer.

Perhaps a little research would reveal how silly this entire story is.
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Hephaestus (profile), 17 Jun 2011 @ 3:03pm

Re:
Is that Anonymous Coward snow flake a chinese IP address?? Sure looks like one to me.
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iBelieve, 18 Jun 2011 @ 9:00am

THANK YOU! I was sure my Foday 4wd was talking to me. Now I know, it was talking to them..
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iBelieve, 18 Jun 2011 @ 9:22am

It is very interesting seeing governments ~creating 'damage control' to appease the criticisms and conspiracy theorists. Does every conspiracy have to be a theory? That is the funny part of living on this planet.. although disconcerting as it is. On the other hand, there's not one thing that at some point won't get ~everybody in the end. That's the comforting part. It is really awful to see some acting as if it won't get them.
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