At Beijing security fair, an arms race for surveillance tech

BEIJING – It can crack your smartphone password in seconds, rip personal data from call and messaging apps, and peruse your contact book. The Chinese-made XDH-CF-5600 scanner -- or "mobile phone sleuth," as sales staff described it when touting its claimed features -- was one of hundreds of surveillance gadgets on display at a recent police equipment fair in Beijing. The China International Exhibition on Police Equipment is something of a one-stop shop for China's police forces looking to arm up with the latest in "black tech" -- a term widely used to refer to cutting-edge surveillance gadgets. The fair underscores the extent to which China's security forces are using technology to monitor and punish behavior that runs counter to the ruling Communist Party. That sort of monitoring -- both offline and online -- is stoking concerns from human rights groups about the development of a nationwide surveillance system to quell dissent.