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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

They just need better PR for Big Brother. One of China's state-owned surveillance companies is way ahead at this. "Hikvision - welcoming you to a safer world".

Ad for face recognition:

https://youtu.be/3-wFa8eWZ7E

Tired of looking at surveillance video? This tool speeds up the job:

https://youtu.be/KrzTAlV70bQ

Overproduced ad for the whole product line. Very funny:

https://youtu.be/otAuH6FDhgw

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The ads are terrifying, mainly because it shows the company has enough money to waste this much on ad production. It also makes me wonder how much the problem in China is top-down vs "middle-out". It seems that the CCP wages a brilliant kind of information warfare:

The ads build up an image around the creation of this technology as an equalizer and solution to middle and lower-class problems. The ad for face recognition, for example, is factored around making the lives of factory and service workers easier. By doing this, they gain buy-in from all social classes. The little guy lives a better life, the middle class lives in a secure and fair society, and the governing class can ensure everything runs smoothly.

I've always thought of China's government as a rather Orwellian top-down state of control. I've realized lately that their propaganda is sophisticated enough to make their populous believe it without coercion. What westerners might see as Orwellian is to them an innovation which helps the working class.

Producing ads like these is never a waste if they can change the public's perception. Creepy.

Hikvision are an interesting company with performant products. You can view CCTV as having had 3 stages. Stage 1 - the model is like a TV studio - closed circuit TV, analog cables, control rooms, monitor banks (some setups are still like this). Stage 2 - cameras are network devices - Axis the big European security camera co started life as a networked printer company, not a coincidence. Stage 3 - connectivity is all IP, but the focus is the combined sensing effect of everything on the network and the smarts to make sense of it all. Some projects have tried to do this as middleware, but much easier if you provide the whole solution like Hik. Stage 4 is combined 'pattern of life' analysis from external and on-person surveillance, maybe this comes from Google/Apple, maybe from Hik/Huawei etc. The game is afoot

About the first one. This seems like an unavoidable future, there's no denying that it's easier if all you have to do is stand in front of a camera compared to using a card/badge. Easy always seems to win.

To be honest, I would buy Hikvision because: 1. Their stuff must be good because China is using it 2. Where I am using it, the usage for China is limited

There are Chinese brands out there I would trust less...

I did notice the surveillance options, but the software tells me the logic is in the cameras and it those dont support it.

Or target the neighbours with video doorbell advertising.

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