CHINA PUBLIC SEC TECH, Inc. (CPBY.OB)

Orwell meets Mao! "1984" paranoia intermingles with the Red Curtain's "Animal Farm" mentality. I just got back from a trip to Beijing and there are street poles along major thoroughfares every couple of blocks with video feeds instead of street lights. They say the cameras are for traffic flow, but there are as many that are pointed at pedestrian areas as there are pointed at streets.

This company, China Public Security Technology, is the ultimate in security and surveillance as China increasingly uses technology to enforce its laws and to find rulebreakers. This company makes, installs and sometimes operates surveillance systems for Chinese police agencies, jails and banks, and other customers. Now the Chinese police can find 24-hour video feeds and start to implement face-recognition software.

Next up is behavior-recognition software to spot the beginnings of a street protest before it can mushroom into a full-blown affair. One feature of new software is that it can "count" the number of people within crosswalks and then alert the police if a crowd forms at an unusual hour, which could be a possible sign of an unsanctioned protest.

The Chinese government trade association for surveillance companies predicts that the surveillance market in China will expand from $500 million in 2003 to more than $43.1 BILLION by 2010. Under a program adopted by the government earlier this year, no less than 660 cities are starting work on high-tech surveillance systems.