Information/Technology - 26. page

On March 22, China’s popular military Internet forum “Super Base Camp (超级大本营)” made a sudden announcement that it would permanently close four discussion boards, including the navy, air force, army, and aerospace and new concept weapons, starting from the early hours on March 23.

Afterwards, military public WeChat accounts, such as “Sina Military Affairs (新浪军事)” and “Military Sub-Dimension (军武次位面)” had also been shut down for “violations.” The victims also include Tencent’s own military channel the WeChat account “Military Lecture Hall (讲武堂).”

Some people pointed out that military fans often publish photographs of new military aircraft or warships under construction. As many of the suspended military forums are involved in discussions of weaponry, the recent move was likely to prevent leaks of secrets.

Overseas media observed and reported that some Chinese netizens commented that those social media sites or accounts often “create patriotic rumors” to incite people’s nationalistic emotions, resulting in the “Wolf Warrior sentiment.”

Zhuang Rongwen, deputy head of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Propaganda Department and Director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said at a January meeting in the year of the CCP’s 100th anniversary, that it is of special importance to maintain the order of network communication and ensure that the network space is full of “positive energy.” He demanded that cyberspace place “adherence to the correct political direction, public opinion guidance and value orientation” in the first place. Zhuang also called for an increase in the penalties for illegal accounts and their platforms.

By late January and early February, many self online publishers and public account operators had already received a notice that mentioned specifically that, if an account “does not have the relevant qualifications, it is recommended that it not publish, comment on and interpret information related to political, economic, military, or diplomatic fields and major emergencies, to avoid violating relevant laws and regulations, causing inconvenience to subsequent operations.”

Source: Central News Agency, April 8, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202104080369.aspx

Popular Chinese technology news site CNBeta recently reported that a global chip shortage has intensified since the end of last year and has heavily impacted most of the major automobile manufacturers across the board. The British market research firm IHS Markit expected that, for the first quarter of this year, around one million automobiles will suffer delivery delays due to a car chip shortage. Analysts expressed the belief that the imbalance of supply and demand that the pandemic brought about was the main cause of the semiconductor shortage. The stay-home orders created a large wave of chip demand on personal computers, cellphones, game stations and other consumer electronic products that shifted chip production from automobiles to home devices. The recent fire at the Japanese chipmaker Renesas and the extreme weather in Texas contributed to the chip shortage as well. This trend is pushing the U.S. government and the European Union to start investments in domestic semiconductor manufacturing capabilities. Intel just announced a US$20 billion investment in Arizona for a new factory. Even South Korea, as one of the world’s biggest chip exporters, is forming an alliance with Samsung, SK Hynix and Hyundai to expand its domestic car chip manufacturing.

Source: CNBeta, March 31, 2021
https://www.cnbeta.com/articles/tech/1109051.htm

In recent years, the Western scientific research field has begun to pay attention to Chinese researchers who have submitted fraudulent research papers and the growing industrialized cheating activities in China. On March 23, the British Nature magazine published a feature article, disclosing the problem that many journal publishers are facing. An increasing amount of falsified research papers are produced through the activities of paper-mills or, as the article describes it, “Companies that churn out fake scientific manuscripts to order.” The article mentioned that, in the past 20 years, the number of papers produced through the activity of paper-mills and which come from Chinese hospitals has increased substantially by about 50 times .

A Wall Street Journal article from July 2020 also exposed over 100 research papers by researchers at Chinese hospitals and research intuitions which were linked to paper-mills activity.

According to Nature, since January 2020, independent investigators and various journals have flagged more than 1,000 research papers, whose authors include those from Chinese hospitals, may be related to paper-mills. Meanwhile Nature’s statistics showed that since January 2020, there have been 370 retracted paper-mills alleged articles came from Chinese hospitals. Publishers have added expressions of concern to another 45 such articles. Nature further identified additional 197 retracted papers from Chinese hospitals have contains identical images.

The reason for Chinese doctors who turned to ghostwriter for research papers was because they need the paper for career advancement and promotion, but they don’t have time to write it. Nature quoted two Chinese researchers who expressed frustration that the professional journal publishing is so bad in China that no one believe or reference studies from them. Now people use paper mills for their research papers which also affects China’s reputation globally.

Source:
1. Radio Free Asia, March 24, 2021
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/kejiaowen/hj-03242021141835.html
2. Nature, March 23, 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00733-5

China’s state media Science and Technology Daily Quoted Cai Xiaohong, a researcher with the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who criticized the widespread abuse of facial recognition technology. The problem prevails in shopping malls, scenic spots, and office buildings, where people unknowingly have their facial information collected.

It has been reported that China’s facial recognition market has been growing at an average annual rate of 50 percent over the past few years, and is expected to break $50 billion this year.

The theft of facial information, which cannot be changed or replaced, triggers multiple risks and problems in technology ethics, public safety and law. In December last year, the official Xinhua News Agency reported that real estate agents scanned the faces of a number of homeowners in Guangxi province in southwest China. These homeowners later found out that their properties had been transferred to others without their knowledge.

In other news that the official China Central Television reported, an artificial intelligence security research team at Tsinghua University revealed a security vulnerability of facial recognition. The team invented a special eyeglass that can break the algorithm of facial recognition devices, and were quickly able to unlock 19 cell phone models on the market.

Source: Central News Agency, March 7, 2021
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202103070051.aspx