Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects • Hacker News Board

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#111

Post by hmwhy » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:02 PM UTC

Serious question/statement looking for an answer here—I don’t understand why every time an article along the line of this gets attention it makes me wonder if anyone out there is working on two things:

1. Educating the general population how the latest technologies can/are being used to affect their privacy

2. Working hard to be an independent, trustworthy part that scrutinises the government

I honestly don’t understand the general attitude of most of the comments on articles like this, particular when you are not living in a country where censorship is “okay”.

In an ideal society (in my opinion) the government would act in the best interest of the society and the government is scrutinised by a well-informed population. This is certainly not what is happening in most, if not all, countries; but seeing some of the comments on HN repeatedly that don’t go beyond “scary as” or “this is not okay” is quite disappointing and makes me wonder where else I should look for reasonable opinions sometimes.

Have we not learn anything from storeis about govermental mass surveillance programs in recent years? How about perhaps we should all sit down, think, and set standards for how to protect everyone while setting encforcabke standards for what is an isn’t okay?

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#112

Post by arkh » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:05 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #58

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #46

All these reports have the feelings of small rumblings or rumors of purges and famines that leaked out of the Soviet Union in the 30’s. The dismissal of all of them due to China’s size and growth really strengthens the analogy too. Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I mean the definition for loitering is so broad that alone gets most people. The ad-t…

> Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I think that is the big issue we will see and have seen recently. Surveillance tools are better than ever in history. Many times, laws were created as deterrents to some behavior, that maybe shouldn't be laws, because it wasn't easy to nab everyone doing it. Back then cops, judges and more weren't as locked into f…

Most vague laws have been created to be enforced on some specific population. Now that they could be automatically used against anyone the ruling population which was not supposed to be affected is starting to question those laws. It is OK when mostly blacks, youngsters and poor people get jailed for jaywalking; not so much when upper middle class people are.

That's what a cynical person like me can take from your argument.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#113

Post by noonespecial » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:07 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #58

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #46

All these reports have the feelings of small rumblings or rumors of purges and famines that leaked out of the Soviet Union in the 30’s. The dismissal of all of them due to China’s size and growth really strengthens the analogy too. Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I mean the definition for loitering is so broad that alone gets most people. The ad-t…

> Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I think that is the big issue we will see and have seen recently. Surveillance tools are better than ever in history. Many times, laws were created as deterrents to some behavior, that maybe shouldn't be laws, because it wasn't easy to nab everyone doing it. Back then cops, judges and more weren't as locked into f…

>If we had arrested everyone that used cannabis half the country at least would have a record.

That is the nightmare scenario: when 51% of a population decides they want to lock up the other 49% and technology makes that possible.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#114

Post by coldcode » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

While the tech is interesting, I'd like to know the security of the backend system and the data access system. Poor security allowing it to be manipulated by others could make it a powerful tool for all sorts of criminals or foreign governments. Like Stalin said, its not who votes that matters, its who counts the votes. Likewise the recognition might be perfect but the data is fake.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#115

Post by Symmetry » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:21 PM UTC

subsubsub wrote: post #84

smackay wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? If everyone has a record then they can be detained whenever the authorities feel like it.

Do governments who use this kind of 'selective justice' really need the pretext of an actual law being broken? I think what carlmr is saying is quite relevant to more democratic countries.

Yes. Any government can fall if there's sufficient public outrage[1]. And government employees of basically any government can make use of this. I remember driving with an off duty US police officer once and him pointing out which issue of code every car on the road was in violation of so that he could legally conduct a stop if he wanted to.

[1] AI and robotics might change this later.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#116

Post by braythwayt » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:25 PM UTC

drawkbox wrote: post #58

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #46

All these reports have the feelings of small rumblings or rumors of purges and famines that leaked out of the Soviet Union in the 30’s. The dismissal of all of them due to China’s size and growth really strengthens the analogy too. Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I mean the definition for loitering is so broad that alone gets most people. The ad-t…

> Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I think that is the big issue we will see and have seen recently. Surveillance tools are better than ever in history. Many times, laws were created as deterrents to some behavior, that maybe shouldn't be laws, because it wasn't easy to nab everyone doing it. Back then cops, judges and more weren't as locked into f…

  > If we had arrested everyone that used cannabis half the
  > country at least would have a record.

That idea seems deeply troubling if you're a White American. Meanwhile, this is the daily reality of Black Americans, because the police have been systematically enforcing these laws against people of colour.

Now we face a world where that same disproportionate enforcement may be applied to Democrats, or the young (who disproportionally vote against Republicans).

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#117

Post by rtpg » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:31 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #108

Face recognition exists, is becoming trivial and this has implications. I saw a demo of sorts about 6 years ago, and heard rumors of various research projects @ FB. Banner tracking in malls that link banner "views" to "conversions" using a camera armed cash registers. Hi-res cameras on streets that collect data like wildlife tracking collars. A stadium cam that can id all the people at a match. A smart building that…

A bit of a strong idea, but what if we just outright say that face recognition is unethical?

I have a hard time finding any use that is positive for society. Advertising and surveillance. Given that, what if we try to convince as many people as possible to not research this tech, nor work for any company working on this.

You wouldn't work for a weapons manufacturer, maybe the same metrics need to be applied to adtech and all this other tracking stuff

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#118

Post by otaviokz » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:36 PM UTC

hmwhy wrote: post #111

Serious question/statement looking for an answer here—I don’t understand why every time an article along the line of this gets attention it makes me wonder if anyone out there is working on two things: 1. Educating the general population how the latest technologies can/are being used to affect their privacy 2. Working hard to be an independent, trustworthy part that scrutinises the government I honestly don’t underst…

I think/believe there's lack of "external stimulus" for doing that. Unless you have a channel where a big part of the audience is both intelligent and independently thinking, your message get's no traction.

Simple defences of this or that extreme get a lot of attention because anyone can understand that. Maybe it's time the average "above average brained citizen" grow up and start uniting. But then we all know what can happen to such groups, either being eradicated or hijacked by political interests.

Sorry, I'm feeling very cynic today.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#119

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:43 PM UTC

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #46

All these reports have the feelings of small rumblings or rumors of purges and famines that leaked out of the Soviet Union in the 30’s. The dismissal of all of them due to China’s size and growth really strengthens the analogy too. Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I mean the definition for loitering is so broad that alone gets most people. The ad-t…

"What is it with “connecting people” and really terrible ideas?"

Hehe, nice framing. I'd say the answer is "power." Collectivising, aggregating and connecting people yields power, new abilities that exist as a product of increased network size.

Yuval Noah Harari (grand narrative historian) identifies this network effect as the defining characteristic of human progress. Increased size of a functional group.

The bottlenecks are travel and (more importantly) communication. To him, the difference between modern palaeolithic sapiens and archaic humans (including archaic sapiens chronospecies) is "fictions:" abstract concepts like kingship, nationhood, religion, law, money and such that allow cooperation between strange individuals. Airplanes yielded similar power.

Increasing cooperative group size and the quality of that cooperation yields power, a lot of it.

Air travel improved group size and quality. You can send a letter, visit or bomb places 1,000 km away within an hour. European ships allowed the subjagation of foreign places, transcontinental trade and centralised global administration.

Re: Chinese police don high-tech glasses to nab suspects

#120

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 08, 2018, 1:49 PM UTC

braythwayt wrote: post #116

drawkbox wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Privacy is important because basically we all are, at least once a day, committing some kind of crime. I think that is the big issue we will see and have seen recently. Surveillance tools are better than ever in history. Many times, laws were created as deterrents to some behavior, that maybe shouldn't be laws, because it wasn't easy to nab everyone doing it. Back then cops, judges and more weren't as locked into f…

> If we had arrested everyone that used cannabis half the > country at least would have a record. That idea seems deeply troubling if you're a White American. Meanwhile, this is the daily reality of Black Americans, because the police have been systematically enforcing these laws against people of colour. Now we face a world where that same disproportionate enforcement may be applied to Democrats, or the young (who d…

[deleted]