A city with a thousand eyes: mass surveillance in Belgrade | Hacker News Reader

A city with a thousand eyes: mass surveillance in Belgrade

aboutintel.eu

Huh, we traveled through Serbia and Montenegro by train 5 years ago and stayed in Belgrade for 3 days, I cannot remember seeing any cameras. But I certainly do remember the feeling that China is trying to seek influence in Serbia. If I remember correctly, there was a gigantic billboard right outside the main station in Belgrade which showed the futuristic utopia a Chinese company wanted to build in the surrounding quarter after demolishing the old (and beautiful) station.

PS: if you are European and looking for a great 3-4 week trip, buy a train ticket to Belgrade via Ljubljana (stay there 2 nights) and Zagreb (stay there 2 nights). Stay in Belgrade for 2 days, take the trans-balkan express train (a beautiful and spectacular ride) to Montenegro, stay in Kotor for a week, take a bus to Dubrovnik, stay there for one week, take a bus up coast to Split, stay there for one week, and then you can either take the night train back to Zagreb and from there back home, or continue up coast via Rovinj and Piran to Triest, and take a train back home from there. You will not be disappointed.

One can throw a boot into how superpowers have conditioned smaller countries into endless cycles of trading patronage for influence.

Many third world countries simply lost that institutional capacity to being an upstanding nation without living off "benefits payments" received from some major power.

Not just third world. Reminds me of the politics of Poland from the 18th century onward, that is, after it began to loose its status as a European power following the cataclysmic events of the 17th century (such as the Northern Wars/Swedish Deluge and the Khmelnytsky Uprising). The subsequent corruption and meddling of Prussia and Russia led to the partition and destruction of Europe's largest state.

Today, neocolonialism tends to be economic in method. At least this way, we save appearances at UN meetings. At least for now.

Presently, there are mainly three factions vying for power in Poland, namely, the US camp (represented by the current ruling party), the German camp (represented by the current opposition and the previous ruling party), and the Russian camp (represented by a weakened group of postcommunists that once held power). China is in the mix, too, though its presence is less obvious. Similar things may be said about the other states straddling Central Europe. One strategy involves playing these powers off one another so that they become mutually limiting. Another complementary way out requires that these countries form a bloc of states that can counter foreign domination, which is ostensibly what they're attempting with the Three Seas Initiative. Serbia, however, is not a member of the TSI, probably because of its ties to Russia and conflicts with the other Balkan states in the group. Not sure how those ties relate to Chinese influence.

Heh. From the swedish side, Stormaktstiden (great power era) seems to be the name for a period including the Swedish Deluge.

TIL Wismar was swedish from 1648-1803.

Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUUhu6Fi9ds

You will be very disappointed, Europe is trying very hard to fight off the virus and frivolous train rides by tourists are not on the menu in many places right now.

Wait for a bit until this COVID stuff is behind us (let's hope that is sooner rather than later).

I would very much like to believe that GP was trying to picture a post-covid scenario and providing a rather personal recommendation to fellow travel enthusiasts.

Let’s try to at least imagine a world where we can get back to some sense of normality :-)

Yup, this was of course meant as a general suggestion. Regardless of COVID, I would also not recommend taking this trip in late autumn or winter.

Here in Belgrade right now, nightclubs/bars/etc are all open. It is mostly business as usual.

Is the train to Sarajevo running again?

Correction: the company is not based in China, but in Abu Dhabi. My mistake. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgrade_Waterfront

The article suggests that there will be roughly 8000 cameras in Belgrade including body cams etc.

“ The latest information gathered from the second DPIA of the Ministry suggests that there will be more than 8000 different cameras and other devices in use, such as body cams, mobile cameras and vehicle-mounted cameras.”

Quite a low figure compared to the over 600 thousand CCTV cameras in London:

“ If there was one camera for every 14 people in London, that would put the number of CCTV cameras in use in the capital as 627,707.”

https://www.cctv.co.uk/how-many-cctv-cameras-are-there-in-lo...

Yes quite low compared to London but London has been actively adding cameras for 20 years. And Serbia doesnt have the checks and balances at the government level to control the usage and rollouts. As the article states, there isnt even any laws in place that determine how the footage can be used. Pair that with the fact that the current regime has a stranglehold on the country controlling the narrative at every corner, and you can see why there is such a great concern. I have friends who recently moved from Serbia and they say the overall situation has been getting progressively worse in the last 5-10 years. People are generally more frustrated and tense in everyday life.

Pales even next to NYC which is aiming to have 2000+ cameras just for generating traffic ticket revenue and these are just part of the NYPD Domain Awareness System[0]. The wikipedia article does a good job of defining the scale of it.

People just don't get it. The observation has been here for years if not decades, its only because similar technology is available to the general public that we are now just beginning to understand how little privacy we have and how much government is watching and recording.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System

Pales even next to NYC which is aiming to have 2000+ cameras just for generating traffic ticket revenue

About ten years ago, the Chicago Police Department was bragging about having 30,000 cameras on the streets. God knows how many there are now.

> And Serbia doesnt have the checks and balances at the government level to control the usage and rollouts.

Does have UK, or US?

Yes, although it's arguable how effective they are.

We have RIPA and the Data Protection Act, and we have the surveillance camera commissioner.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/surveillance-cam...

See eg the latest report: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

The vast, vast majority of the 600k (methodology is questionable) cameras in London are private indoor CCTV cameras that don't monitor public areas.

TFA appears to be about government-operated cameras in public areas.

Comparing those two figures is apples to oranges.

That's not to say London doesn't have significant government operated camera installations. Most are road cameras used to optimise traffic light patterns, but there is also the "Ring of Steel" in the City of London which, at ~650, is probably the largest integrated surveillance camera installation in London.

I think issue is not the number of cameras so much as that number will increase but the Chinese system that uses AI to track people. https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/13/china-cctv-bbc-reporter/

Issue in Belgrade is that the current government is quite corrupted and World media are covering very little about demonstrations regarding recent rigged elections. Basically, current government is in this way looking a way to suppress opposition even further. If I would compare it is very similar situation like in Belarus, and this is high tech upgrade to give dictatorship additional power.

>What especially caught the public’s attention was the fact that these cameras — supplied by Chinese tech giant Huawei — will have facial and vehicle license plate recognition capabilitie

Becoming a Chinese Client State: The Case of Serbia https://www.csis.org/analysis/becoming-chinese-client-state-...

Would it have been worth a sentence in the article, or a comment about client states, if these cameras came from the United States, or France?

Oh yes. After you read the reports it's clear. Chinese are funding and guiding Serbian government by hand.

I'm from Belgrade, trust me it's far more complicated than that. There are Chinese pushing into the whole region who are a perfect fit to the current corrupted dictatorship going on in Serbia, there's CIA pushing weapons to Middle East using Serbian arm dealers, there's Arabs'/offshore money being pumped into the country, there's drug money from Kosovo, there're Russians with whom Serbia has many historical connections, but who don't really care that much about Balkan anymore, there's EU that's been a cockteaser for decades, but not really interested in Balkan integrations (but wants us as a market)... and on all of that you also have Balkan states post-war conflicts and internal political conflicts and corruption in Serbia...

For what it's worth .. I have a rather intimate/inside perspective on Serbia and its dealings .. and yes, I can confirm that all of the things you mentioned are indeed true. Plus a whole lot more, which I rather not get into. Long story short: it is indeed complicated. Even to the point where the focus on very legitimate concerns themselves, can also be used for a political (foreign) agenda that might not care much about those concerns themselves (only about how people respond to them). I'm not saying that's the case here (I honestly don't know), but it happens regularly that legitimate criticism is hijacked for another (political) purpose.

Sadly Serbia is (or has become) a perfect target/partner for many foreign investments/endeavors that can't quite stand the light of day, with many eager local accomplices who gladly keep what they know to themselves in exchange for outside guarantees of compensation/support/protection/safety.

It pains me, because the country is dear to my heart. We will see if this current "equilibrium" (of sorts) will eventually tear itself violently apart, or if there's a chance to peacefully transition to a better situation. As it is now, I highly doubt it can remain sustainable for long. There's just too many skeletons in the closet. At some point the (intentional/instigated) squeeze of a single person could trigger a chain reaction that not even the most draconian containment measures could control, let alone stop. The country will be in ruins by then though (if it isn't already).

Don't all cameras essentially have facial and vehicle recognition if you amass the data for central processing?

I don't think it is that notable, from a privacy standpoint, that the cameras themselves perform the processing. The whole point of these city-wide camera systems is to perform complicated analysis, far more insidious than mere facial or license plate recognition, on a larger, centralized backend.

The article mentions serbia negotiating EU membership. Having traveled in many balkan countries that try to be in the EU, serbia felt like a place that doesn't really try too hard.

It's geographical disputes with neighbors aren't really helping.

That said, Serbia is an amazing country with many layers of history and a culture that I felt very fond of, and it's sad to see the recent movements.

Many of the countries in the East of Europe seem to be in the process of turning against the EU, from Hungary to some mild anti-EU sentiments in Poland, etc. Although I did read some Polish people suggesting that EU's financial benefits to the country guarantee they'll remain.

There is 0% chance E. Europe countries would leave the EU, it's huff and puff. It would knock them back 20 years.

Serbia is historically aligned with Soviet/Russia ie on the 'Greek Orthodox' side of the Iron Curtain and so that's why it's going to take them that much longer to join the EU, if ever.

Edit: FYI [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Serbia_relation...

I saw a poll that Polish people trusted EU officials more than Polish officials in terms of corruption. Those countries also receive huge amounts of development aid and the threats of leaving the EU have all been coming from the richer original member states. Are there any Polls here who can confirm or correct that impression?

Poles want to change the structure of the EU and/or realign its priorities, but most don’t want to leave it entirely.

Poles are the most positive of EU of any EU country [1], even if at the same time they might be quite opposed to certain things (certainly the 'narrow majority' right wing groups are obviously very opposed). That does not translate into Euroskepticism.

But Poland would be done without the EU - imagine if 'New Mexico' were cut off form the US, it would be devastating. It's not just the transfer payments, it's the trade, quality standards, participation in so many groups, financial networks, zillions of Poles able to work abroad and remit payments, the Poles do not have a sophisticated diplomatic corps so they'd be starting from 'nothing' in trying to make international trade deals and nobody would care.

From a geo-strategic perspective, Putin & Co. may very well press hard to meddle in their affairs, trying to pull them into the Eurasian Economic Union aka the Neo Russian Empire.

So in almost every way, Poland wins tremendously from EU participation and that's probably unanimous from every perspective. Arguments between Duda and EU is huff and puff, partly it's just populism, partly it's negotiation, partly it's Duda trying to draw the line at where he believes power is etc. etc. but it's not existential - there is zero chance Poland is leaving the EU.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/19/europeans-cred...

Leaving the EU was a bad move for the UK too - don't underestimate the power of blind nationalism and misinformation.

I would argue Serbia is traditionally aligned with Russia/Soviets. That's the narrative for the last 25 years maybe, and I think it was just the path of least resistance. Boomers in Serbia were more westernized than you would expect. Some poor judgement of some Western powers tipped the balance and forced Serbia into Russian influence, IMHO.

It's really hard to eradicate chauvinistic mindset from the culture. Even after you did tons of shit and got punished for that.

Who are you to tell Serbians what mindset to have?

> The article mentions serbia negotiating EU membership. Having traveled in many balkan countries that try to be in the EU, serbia felt like a place that doesn't really try too hard.

Because it spent 2 decades trying, while not being taken seriously, and is now tired? Turkey is now in the same bag.

I think at some point it was as close to starting an accession roadmap plan as ironing out some agricultural subsidies, and "WaReZ in Belgrade." It amazes me how EU let them slip out of their hands over being "deliriously pedantic."

Tito was famous for playing the Soviets and the West off against one another. He did it quite successfully. This worked out rather better for them than the "pick a side and obey blindly" strategy.

I don't think Serbia has forgotten this lesson in geopolitics.

I'm sure those Chinese cameras weren't donated for free. It would be interesting to see the contract and if there's a 99 year lease mentioned anywhere in case of payment default.[0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magampura_Mahinda_Rajapaksa_Po...

We need more statements through Art to combat this kind of thing. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Building...

sounds like an investment from CCP. China has strong tight with Serbia.

There is a sizeable chinese people presence there (due to relaxed visa laws, etc), and offices from chinese companies like Huawei. I wouldn't be surprised if this is true.

Huawei? Didn't Vucic sign an agreement w/ Trump few weeks ago to ban sales of Huawei sales?

He did, but I don't think that it had time to come into effect. And that part was explicitly related to 5G technology, which is a relatively vague term. The cameras might or might not come into that.

Back when the Kosovo thing was unfolding and the Muslims were making headways over there, the West was mum about the whole thing, vilifying the East, looking to slander Serbia and other countries who were aiding them.

Now that the Chinese have taken hold of one area and are growing their influence there, suddenly it's a topic worthy of discussion and critique. With 1M+ Muslims in concentration camps, I am curious as to how this is going to unfold.

As the expression goes, it looks like the shoe is on the other foot. Or as I like to see it: you made your bed, now lie in it.

I like these monolithic Muslims that appear everywhere. It's like the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Ever been to Kosova? Less than 1% of population give a damn about religion. We're a secular progressive country. Come, visit, you'd be amazed :)

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