From Comment is free:
Like its precursor, the Great Wall of China, the Great Firewall was constructed to guard China from waves of foreign influence and information intrusion. With the world’s spotlight on China and widespread criticism of its repressive actions, one should not forget that the knowledge and technology used to create the world’s most prominent Big Brother society was designed in the west, often by the very same corporations whose advertisements on TV take up the time between the relay race and the javelin competition.
Much more than your standard internet filtering gateway, the Great Firewall comprises an administrative collaboration of seven government ministries, unrestricted access to numerous public record databases, closed circuit television footage with built-in facial recognition systems, as well as the more well-known information surveillance and censorship technology. Software and hardware purchased from around the world continue to tighten the screws of a digital information society. Network control and optimisation, intrusion detection and other security features promised in the product brochures of western IT firms are put to use against the rights to privacy and freedom of an entire populace. This is a brief survey of the surveillance scene:
