[Editorial Review of Workers' Daily]
Original title: 180000 cameras "out of control", how to guarantee the public's sense of security?
Wu Di, commentator of Workers Daily - China Industrial Network
"You stand on the bridge to see the scenery, and the people watching the scenery will see you upstairs" - we do not want the beautiful verse to turn into the fear of being "snooping" on some occasions in reality. To make people feel more secure in the public and private sectors, relevant parties need to strengthen supervision, and relevant enterprises should improve their technological confrontation capabilities as soon as possible. At the same time, everyone should also have a basic legal awareness to jointly resist "snooping" acts.
A man illegally controlled more than 180000 cameras to collect real-time images for sale... According to the report of the Workers' Daily on April 4, the Chaoyang District People's Court of Beijing recently released the White Paper on the Trial of Cybercrime Cases (2019-2023), informing the court of the handling of cybercrime cases concluded in the past five years. One case made people feel cold: the defendant Wu obtained the user name and password database of a brand camera through technical means, placed it in the self built APP, and invaded and controlled the target camera by commanding to retrieve database information. According to the survey, the man controls more than 180000 cameras, covering hospitals, families, nursing homes, laboratories, etc., and claims to "watch the world at home". After trial, the court held that Wu's behavior constituted the crime of illegally controlling the computer information system, sentenced him to five years' imprisonment, fined him 100000 yuan, and confiscated his illegal income of more than 800000 yuan.
There have been many similar cases before. At the same time, there are also such phenomena as the stolen recording and video of the driving recorder in the private car, the "blackout" of the camera in places involving the public's personal privacy, and even the high-frequency search term of "remotely opening the camera of other people's mobile phones" on the Internet... Such problems cause public concern about the safety of private and public places.
The "peeping private" business under human control has its own development context. Early bootlegging mainly involves installing equipment in some places in advance and reading data regularly. Later, such devices gradually became lightweight and miniaturized, and their endurance and network transmission performance improved. E-commerce platform transactions were hidden, and related cases increased significantly. When the intelligent security system is popularized, the main way of "spying on private affairs" becomes that criminals invade and manipulate the victim's equipment. The way of committing crimes is low risk and "efficient". The criminals can achieve human-computer separation and greater concealment, which brings difficulties in discovery, evidence collection, and conviction.
The harm of "peeping" cameras cannot be underestimated. It involves personal privacy being trafficked, causing mental damage to the victims, such as personal facial features and voiceprint features being captured by criminals operating cameras, which may be used to implement AI face changing fraud, extortion, etc; Smart home products are connected with things. When the camera is illegally manipulated to issue voice commands, it may endanger the safety of people's family life; At the same time, it also involves threats to public security and public order, such as the intrusion of cameras in beauty salons, gyms, natatoriums, hotels and other places, and the uploading of customer privacy to illegal websites for countless eyes to watch... The "mouse in hand, I have in the world" low threshold evil technology of criminals will cause great anxiety to the public psychology, Even shake people's sense of security in their space.
In order to curb the spread of illegal photography and protect the public's sense of security, in recent years, relevant parties have continued to carry out actions. For example, the public security department continues to carry out the "source cutting" action against illegal production, sales, and use of special equipment for eavesdropping and stealing photos, and the "mine sweeping" action against eavesdropping and peeping; The first local regulation on the management of public security cameras in China has been officially implemented in Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, and a confidentiality and accountability mechanism has been established in terms of management and use; Technical means for upgrading e-commerce platforms, shielding and removing keywords and products related to equipment and technology; Relevant enterprises develop high security products, improve technical confrontation ability, reduce the possibility of being invaded, and so on.
In practice, to make the public feel more secure, we need to solve some pain points and difficulties. For example, legal constraints have a certain degree of lag, or are too general and not targeted enough, leading to difficulties in the application of charges and punishment. In judicial practice, there are few convictions for the crime of illegally producing and selling special equipment for eavesdropping and stealing photos and for the crime of illegally using special equipment for eavesdropping and stealing photos. One of the obstacles to conviction is that the equipment for eavesdropping needs to be identified by the national security organs as special spy equipment, or belongs to special equipment for eavesdropping and stealing photos. In reality, many equipment have the function of photographing or recording, It is not easy to identify it as a device for eavesdropping and stealing photos; The second is the lack of specific criteria on how to determine the "serious consequences" of a case.
No one wants to live in the "full view of everyone" without knowing it, and no one wants to be the fool watched in the real version of "Truman's World". "You stand on the bridge to see the scenery, and the people watching the scenery will see you upstairs" - we do not want the beautiful verse to turn into the fear of being "snooping" on some occasions in reality. To make people feel more secure in the public and private sectors, relevant parties need to strengthen supervision, and relevant enterprises should improve their technological confrontation capabilities as soon as possible. At the same time, everyone should also have a basic legal awareness to jointly resist "snooping" acts.
