Protest In Hong Kong: The Technology

We've looked at a few of the improvisations of the Hong Kong protesters over the last year. See for example "Hong Kong: After The Cash Machines Were Emptied There Was a Run On The Grocery Stores As The Homemade Catapult Was Rolled Out and.." and more after the jump.

From The Wilson Quarterly:

Protest Tech:
Hong Kong

Introduction

As protests continue to roil Hong Kong, the fervor of the broad public defiance of both the territory’s government and the People’s Republic of China – and the cycles of increasing repression and violence – have been a primary focus.

Yet the high political stakes of these protests – and the vivid images accompanying them – obscure an equally consequential global impact created by the territory’s tenacious pro-democracy movement: The streets of Hong Kong have become a teeming laboratory for the future of organized protest in a surveillance state.

The WTO protests of the late 1990s and early 2000s exerted an outsized imaginative influence on Occupy movements and other protests around the globe, including providing inspiration for the “Occupy Central in Love and Peace Protest” in 2014 in Hong Kong.

Governments also drew lessons from the so-called “Battle of Seattle” of 1999 and other actions, seeking to deter the property damage often associated with anti-capitalist protests – and blunt the effectiveness of even peaceful mass gatherings through tactics such as “kettling” (or confining) protestors to particular areas.

Hong Kong’s role as a workshop for a new era of protest takes shape amidst broader global assertions of state power that have resulted from almost two decades of deadly terrorist activity that followed 9/11. These powers are underpinned by rapid advances in the technologies used to track the movements and activities of citizens.

The 2014 Umbrella Movement – named for the umbrellas used by protestors as a shield against tear gas – had already demonstrated the formidable resolve of the city’s pro-democracy protestors. The protests that broke out again in Hong Kong in 2019, spurred by proposed changes in the territory’s extradition law, have taken the city’s residents into new terrain as the tides of fortunes have shifted back and forth over ensuing months.

The laboratory of protest in Hong Kong is not only shaping innovative responses to technology and repression. Some observers suggest that the protest movement is harnessing the unique landscape of the city. It is also reshaping traditional elements of protest, reviving successes of global protests past, and deploying simple tools in the battle for the streets.

Hong Kong protesters are learning from others, but Hong Kong protest methods are now circling the globe. And it is technology that is transforming the face of protest in Hong Kong and beyond.
On December 25, 2019, Quartz reporter Mary Hui retweeted a picture of graffiti in the city: "We can't return to normal, because the normal that we had was precisely the problem."

Identity
Camera Towers

One crucial element in any mass protest is the safety afforded by numbers. Large crowds not only exert power by their sheer size, but also allow individuals to shed identity and blend into a group.

Surveillance states facing large demonstrations now deploy the vast array of technologies (cameras, AI) usually used to deter criminal activity to identify, harass, and detain particular individuals in a protest or movement.

In Hong Kong, the struggle to ferret out or protect the identity of police and protestors alike has been intense. One particular focus has been high-tech camera towers that capture demonstrators in real time. Citizens involved in protests have splattered such security cameras with paint, or aimed laser pointers at them. Some have succeeded in attacking and toppling the towers upon which cameras stand.

Indeed, a September article in the MIT Technology Review noted that demonstrators who felled one such tower scrambled quickly to deduce its components, which were then published on Facebook by pro-democracy organization Demosisto.

Identity
Masks and Armor 

....MUCH MORE

Hong Kong Protests: What Have We Learned?

Well, in the early days, last spring it was confirmed that short wave radio was an effective form of communication. More on comms further down.

It was shown that lasers have some efficacy when used against facial recognition cameras, either pointed directly at the camera or under the chin to make spooky campfire faces.

Also, they make pretty pictures when the protesters wanted to portray peaceful intent:
[The protestors went on to shining the lasers in the cops' eyes]And it was the lasers that got the response from the army:

CNBC
...The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) garrison in Kowloon district warned a crowd of a few hundred protesters they could be arrested for targeting its troops and barracks walls with laser lights.
One officer shouted through a loudhailer in broken Cantonese — the main language of Hong Kong — “Bear consequences for your actions.”...

So no more of this:
Hong Kong Protests: What Have We Learned?
...they make pretty pictures when the protesters wanted to portray peaceful intent:

SCMP

We learned that reports of tear gas canisters being disabled by dropping in liquid nitrogen were FALSE (don't do it, seriously) but that simple mud actually works. Also, spray an aqueous solution of Maalox or other antacid on the affected area if you get teargassed.

Back to communications, since shortwave isn't for everyone, Forbes reported:
Hong Kong Protestors Using Mesh Messaging App China Can't Block: Usage Up 3685%

"Hong Kong’s banks say they have adequate cash to meet demand, even as calls circulate online for protesters to empty out ATMs"

The protests have gone far beyond the extradition law and seem to be taking on Cloward-Piven overwhelm-the-system tactics to force realignment of the China/Hong Kong relationship. If this is the case it is a bridge too far and a loser for the protesters...... 
"China Cracks Down on ‘Himalayan Viagra’ Used to Bribe Officials "