Posted on 07/09/2024 8:53:06 AM PDT by algore
Since 2017, self-driving cars owned by Chinese companies have traversed 1.8 million miles of California alone, according to a Fortune analysis of the state's Department of Motor Vehicles data.
As part of their basic functionality, these cars capture video of their surroundings and map the state's roads to within two centimeters of precision. Companies transfer that information from the cars to data centers, where they use it to train their self-driving systems.
The cars are part of a state program that allows companies developing self-driving technology -- including Google-spinoff Waymo and Amazon-owned Zoox -- to test autonomous vehicles on public roads.
Among the 35 companies approved to test by the California DMV, seven are wholly or partly China-based. Five of them drove on California roads last year: WeRide, Apollo, AutoX, Pony.ai, and DiDi Research America. Some Chinese companies are approved to test in Arizona and Texas as well.
Fitted with cameras, microphones, and sophisticated sensors, self-driving cars have long raised flags among privacy advocates.
Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the digital rights nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, called self-driving cars "rolling surveillance devices" that passively collect massive amounts of information on Americans in plain sight.
In the context of national security however, the data-hungry Chinese cars have received surprisingly little scrutiny.
Some experts have compared them to Chinese-owned social media site TikTok, which has been subjected to a forced divestiture or ban on U.S. soil due to fears around its data collection practices threatening national security.
The years-long condemnation of TikTok at the highest levels of the U.S. government has heightened the sense of distrust between the U.S. and China.
Some Chinese self-driving car companies appear to store U.S. data in China, according to privacy policies reviewed byFortune -- a situation that experts said effectively leaves the data accessible to the Chinese government.
Depending on the type of information collected by the cars, the level of precision, and the frequency at which it's collected, the data could provide a foreign adversary with a treasure trove of intelligence that could be used for everything from mass surveillance to war planning, according to security experts who spoke with Fortune.
And yet, despite the sensitivity of the data, officials at the state and federal agencies overseeing the self-driving car testing acknowledge that they do not currently monitor, or have any process for checking, exactly what data the Chinese vehicles are collecting and what happens to the data after it is collected.
Nor do they have any additional rules or policies in place for oversight of Chinese self-driving cars versus the cars in the program operated by American or European companies.
"It is literally the wild, Wild West here," said Craig Singleton, director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative-leaning national security think tank. "There's no one in charge."
Sounds like they don’t have to get permission before taking pictures of whatever (at least what shows from the street), but that you can revoke permission to use the images afterward. Makes more sense that way, since I couldn’t see how they could obtain permission from, say, every pedestrian on a city street.
Try looking up the road (public road) that cuts through oprah winfrey’s hawaiian acreage. She has the road blocked off— wonder how about that too. Can’t find a google stream on that road— and it’s public.
When they started the street view- people in the know made sure they didn’t get their entrance even. Don’t know when that was.
So a Chinese Google/Apple map. Wonderful.
Where are our security people ?
Meet your new security people.
Should’a nuked China’s leadership back in the 1950s. They be another Japan today!
AFTER they save photo/video of it— doesn’t blur it to THEM.
Not the same at all. The only answer is live where a looooong drive it obscures any dwelling/office.
As part of their basic functionality, these cars capture video of their surroundings and map the state’s roads to within two centimeters of precision. Companies transfer that information from the cars to data centers, where they use it to train their self-driving systems.
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Its important to understand that Xi Jinping began the “Civilian-Military Fusion” program, where whatever the military has is transferred to civilian companies and whatever civilian companies have is transferred to the military.
So all of this precision mapping data is going to the PLA: where all the critical military bases, and vital civilian infrastructure are located.
They’d be another Japan today!
Blur it on their display-— but they don’t take their copy off their storage— so it is available to people who shouldn’t need it— or, if they do should get a warrant.
4th Amendment to the Constitution (in the Bill of Rights)— no illegal search (tech version photo’d) or seizure— and they do this all the time.
Imagine the seizure of cash while travelling because their “drug dog” indicated dope on the money— money which changes hands because it is... money. Seize it because C all money has cocaine residue or some other agent, especially fentanyl now. Republicans conservative ones have been trying to change this. Have friends who breed/trade horses that take cash payments in volume well over 10k per purchase.
Cash in US dollars of course are all Federal Reserve Notes
not US ‘currency’.. each printed with Federal Reserve Note on them— meaning they are a Promissory Note for payment through a “member” bank (assumedly, not saying only FDIC members).
Google Earth seems to have dropped a lot of street views recently. I just went to a small town where I lived until 2020 and most of the streets no longer show in street view, just the main drag. Odd, because in larger cities they show just about every parking lot now, and quite a few interior views of restaurants and stores and such.
Want to have some fun- and are not afraid? If you see two male military age chinese in the same govt issued cloths walking around with backpacks taking pictures— go up to them and ask them for their entrance visas. Do it in a forceful manner— and see what they say. Couple of times— they RAN from being questioned. Pretty good clue-they spoke English fairly well.
This is a thing— happening because of Mayorkas and Xiden. Americans are not stupid.
It sounds like it’s not only in California, based on “in California alone since 2017”, but they don’t name any other states.
There is a COSCO (china oversease shipping company) container shipping port fully owned by Chi-Coms, in the Bahamas, in Nassau. Owned by the Chi-coms.
The container ships have been reworked by chinese and iranians to contain missile launchers. The Iranian ship, Shahid Mahdavi has such capabilities, incidentally developed inside standard 40 foot containers by the Russians and the Chi-Coms. The Russian Kaliber missile might be used or some chinese variant.
The Bahamas.
“Google Earth seems to have dropped a lot of street views recently.”
I can only speculate that while google still have these images they are in archival storage on slow spinny disks.
Probably there is an algorithm that determines no one really wants that info so it is more cost effective to have it offline.
I remember back in 1999 TerraServer was migrating to a new upgraded platform and since I had 4TB of extra storage they asked if I could backup their stuff temporarily.
Back then 4tb was a big deal unlike today. iirc 4tb was 6 42u racks with a bunch of fujitsu drives controlled by a proliant 5000 8way server with 4.3gb raid drives for the OS
Ok, I’ve already done similar with Latinos. Ask them if they are legal or not, you can tell immediately. I didn’t see it as fun, though, kinda pissed me off when most of them shied away (day laborers).
In bed with the enemy.
A big box store down the road has these robots that look like Roombas with a tower on top, about four feet tall, with blinking lights and highly annoying beeping sounds. They cruise the aisle performing shelf inventory.
I do not know how the technology accomplishes it — through AI analysis of photos of the shelves, or ability to read masses of bar codes turned every which way on the shelf, all at one time?
You shifted the subject ...
Thanks, free traitors.
It’s all the same subject FRiend, or does it have to come in a book report fashion, chapter 1 and so on.
5th columns allowed to work inside this country. What, can’t follow the info- and how widespread the effort is and continues. We are being invaded, our private property being sucked up by these communist vampires. Most here get this. What’s your problem?
Tet, USMC— you know many things from that, especially how the communist mindset is applied- the oriental communist mindset particularly. Semper Fidelis!
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