panopticon for all

So Beijing watches the people, who in turn watch each other:

After talking to Qi, I decided to go on a bug hunt. Friends of mine are concerned about listening devices, so I picked up a detector for about $35 and went to their office. I turned off office equipment to avoid any undue interference and went to work. In just five minutes, I detected bugs in a lamp, several phones and two fax machines.

And here’s another datapoint in the political economy of mistresses:

"Our profession is seen as a serious concern by China's high-level officials," Wei says through nicotine-stained teeth at a tea house. "Mistresses are what corrupt officials are most afraid of. That's the weakest link in their defense system."

So ernai are not only symbolic of multiply abusive power relations, but also the point at which public and private  - vertical and horizontal – surveillance networks intersect. And obviously, it’s a vital interest of the government that horizontal networks don’t start pointing upwards even as their products are harvested by the relevant organs.

Comments

[Strategist]

it’s a vital interest of the government that horizontal networks don’t start pointing upwards even as their products are harvested by the relevant organs.

I'm Finbarr Saunders fnarr-fnarring at this - but the one with the slightly puzzled look, where he's not sure if the joke's on him.

[Alex]

After that time the Shenzhen metro turned out to be running its signalling in the 2.4GHz open slather, and BXL's whole semiofficial SIGINT operation with the guy from Beijing PTT University, sometimes you just want to walk around China with a Rohde & Schwarz handheld spectrum analyzer, for the five minutes or so before they'd kill you but good. I get the impression China's internal chaos is nowhere more concentrated than the radio frequency spectrum:-)

Also, you lunk this: http://www.thenanfang.com/blog/heroine-with-sexy-legs-prevents-suicide-on-street-corner/

I think we now need the movie:-)

[Alex]

So ernai are not only symbolic of multiply abusive power relations, but also the point at which public and private - vertical and horizontal – surveillance networks intersect

More seriously, this is a fairly regular failure mode of French politics (Christiane Deviers-Joncour; Mitterand's secret daughter and massive journo-taping; Pompidou and the wife x Alain Delon allegedly sex tape).

[ajay]

sometimes you just want to walk around China with a Rohde & Schwarz handheld spectrum analyzer, for the five minutes or so before they'd kill you but good.

It must make life rather nice for the chaps behind the big steel doors in the US and UK embassies. You don't need to get out there and plant your own bugs in the office of the Foreign Minister - you can just sit at your desk and snarf up the take from the one that the Deputy Foreign Minister put there.