Live data from Hacker News

Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

engadget.com

11–20 of 60 posts

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#11
The realist in me knows that the people working at Wal Mart will accept this, because in the end they have no choice. But when you continue to squeeze people and control them more and more closely, eventually they wake up and realize who has the real power. Eventually the guillotine rolls out, and everything starts over.. Can we not do this this time?

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#12
post #10
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how they'd make the required notifications to make this legal in one-party consent states. I don't see how this could fly at all in a two-party consent state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#Unite...

If they're not actually recording the audio (just a boolean of whether or not the cashier said "did you find everything you needed?"), they might not need anyone's consent.

Which would require the somehow the audio is "intercepted" to analyze that the greeting was said. Two-party consent state include that action. Storage is another thing, no?

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#13
post #3

> ways that will help us further enhance how we serve customers Further enhance? Why?

> Everybody knows by now, all businessmen are completely full of shit; just the worst kind of low-life, criminal, cocksuckers you could ever wanna' run into – a fuckin' piece of shit businessman. And the proof of it, the proof of it is, they don't even trust each other. They don't trust one another. When a business man sits down to negotiate a deal, the first thing he does is to automatically assume that the other guy is a complete lying prick who's trying to fuck him outta his money. So he's gotta do everything he can to fuck the other guy a little bit faster and a little bit harder. And he's gotta do it with a big smile on his face. You know that big, bullshit businessman smile? And if you're a customer – Whoah! – that's when you get the really big smile. Customer always gets that really big smile, as the businessman carefully positions himself directly behind the customer, and unzips his pants, and proceeds to service...the...account. 'I am servicing this account. This customer needs service.' Now you know what they mean. Now you know what they mean when they say, 'We specialize in customer service.' Whoever coined the phrase 'let the buyer beware' was probably bleeding from the asshole. That's business.

-- George Carlin, "You Are All Diseased" (1999)

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#14

The realist in me knows that the people working at Wal Mart will accept this, because in the end they have no choice. But when you continue to squeeze people and control them more and more closely, eventually they wake up and realize who has the real power. Eventually the guillotine rolls out, and everything starts over.. Can we not do this this time?

The scary part is.. this time we have a much higher amount of control. Unless people are unwilling to not use that knowledge / power, then we are going to be less effective when the guillotine rolls out this time...

That being said, the initial Russian transition of power in WWI, where the czar stepped down was without (minimal) violence.[1] This is before the October revolution (which was violent).

[1] https://www.english-online.at/history/russian-revolution/rus...

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#16
...How much further are we going to let this sort of thing evolve?

This is classic Industrialist overreach. Taft-Hartley be damned. Enough is enough. Corporate America needs a wake-up call, and I think the unions may need to brush off the dust and get back in the game.

It's one thing to play with hypotheticals, but Corporations are starting to leverage capital advantaged positions in order to dictate what values the average American can expect in their lifetime.

It's a slow, insidious process that will happen over several generations, and if a stand isn't made against this sort of thing, it qualifies as implicit acceptance of the status quo.

If industry is going to try to build itself into a position where it can micromanage every iota of the working day out of a perceived superior position brought by cornering the "market" on economic power "capital", then labor needs to be willing to say "have fun with that, we'll find another way to survive."

I get this may come across as hyperbolic rhetoric, but it is absolutely INSANE that people are thinking about IMPLEMENTING these sorts of things.

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#17

This has got to stop people. I'm serious. We need to take collective action and do something before this stuff gets out of hand. Anyone got some resources on getting involved?

Get a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook, conveniently available at Amazon :)

Re: Walmart patents surveillance tool that can eavesdrop on workers

#18
As far as I'm concerned, I'm hired to do a job. Not be a (coerced) actor to every last dimension of my expression.

That's a much harder job. And if they insist on that, they can damned well pay -- a lot more -- for it.

And that's where the group of the impacted have to and, as far as I'm concerned, have the right to come together and say so.

Meantime, Walmart, as a tax payer, I'm tired of paying for your b-llshit (public benefits to full-time or should-be-full-time employees, ridiculous tax breaks (that go to the top, not the bottom), and all the rest).

Post reply on HN