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San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

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Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#241

Post by TeMPOraL »

shard972 wrote: post #226
onion2k wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd hope that would lead to more public investment in education and services in those areas to alliviate crime and make them safer, but somehow I doubt that's what happened...

More? At what point will they look at all the money being spent and the blood being spilled and maybe consider investing in public schools doesn't magically get rid of an infestation of gang violence.

Hopefully not earlier than 10 years after the investment, as this is how much it takes schools to start making a difference.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#242

Post by qwerty456127 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #78
opportune wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure Google wasn't working on a social punishment system (ie the Chinese "credit score" that's based on social factors), but a censored search engine, which is still pretty shitty but not nearly as bad as what you claim, unless I missed some big piece of news and am myself mistaken

Dragonfly allegedly is designed to associate searches with a user's phone number, which can be tied to their identity. Since China would have access to this system, it's likely searches for banned topics would be able to impact your social credit, or potentially get you disappeared in the middle of the night. https://theintercept.com/2018/09/14/google-china-prototype-l...

BTW although having searches on political topics banned explicitly tracked doesn't sound too scary from a pragmatic point of view I doubt they will stop at this point. They probably will analyse whole search histories of people to produce their social portraits so a person interested in whatever unorthodox kind stuff can get penalized too.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#243

Post by titanix2 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #199
dontbenebby wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think that Google's available talent pool is shrinking. Many very talented engineers have left, and many new potential engineers would not want to work there. Sure, there are still plenty who do, but I would say their options are narrowing over time. I think you overestimate how skilled you need to be to work at Google. Google has famously put people through enormous hoops to work there, regardless of the complexi…

Sure, any employer can always choose to lower their standards, but wouldn't you argue then, that the quality of their output is also likely to suffer? The goal here is to ensure their ethical competitors have access to resources they don't.

Lot of companies have already a recruitment policy based on other parameters than skills, so they already chose the PR boost at the cost of output.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#244

Post by bitL »

cbnotfromthere wrote: post #233
bitL wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of importing H1Bs from areas with questionable past ethical standards in economical distress (India, China, ex-Soviet union, EEU etc.) was for some managers to have a workforce that could do dirty jobs a regular US/WEU citizen would refuse to do (and do it cheaply ofc). You can still observe it even in FANG that is specifically poaching people from EEU for dirty work (e.g. building internal censorship…

"You can still observe it even in FANG that is specifically poaching people from EEU for dirty work (e.g. building internal censorship tools led by Ukrainian/Romanian/non-US devs)." Romania is not and never was part of the EEU aka Eurasian Economic Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Economic_Union

Alright, I meant Eastern (members of) European Union (EEU) vs Western (members of) European Union (WEU). You could see it sometimes abbreviated that way. Didn't occur to me it denotes Eurasian union (I thought that one was largely defunct anyway?).

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#245

Post by Reelin »

everybodyknows wrote: post #228
toomanybeersies wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question, natural rights aside, is this actually a violation of basic rights in a legal sense (laws, constitutions, etc)?

See section 632(b) of California Penal Code: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xh... .

I actually read through that entire document out of curiosity. As far as I can tell it only applies to audio recording (and telegraphs, and cable TV, and a couple other misc items, but not video from what I see). Also, there's the bit right at the top:

> Therefore, it is not the intent of the Legislature to place greater restraints on the use of listening devices and techniques by law enforcement agencies than existed prior to the effective date of this chapter.

I'm not sure how large or small that loophole is according to the courts.

-----

Then as I was glancing through it, I noticed that this is the law that makes CA a two party consent state:

§632(a)

> without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication

§632(d)

> evidence obtained as a result of eavesdropping upon or recording a confidential communication in violation of this section is not admissible

So that sucks.

§633.5

> do not prohibit one party to a confidential communication from recording the communication for the purpose of obtaining evidence reasonably believed to relate to the commission by another party to the communication of the crime of

But at least it's slightly better as of... 2018. It only took them until 2018 to add that. FFS.

-----

This one was a pleasant surprise though:

§637.7

> No person or entity in this state shall use an electronic tracking device to determine the location or movement of a person.

So is it a misdemeanor to track your child via their cellphone in CA? I'm also wondering about all that cell phone location data that was sold (https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a3b3dg/big-teleco...). Have I misunderstood something?

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#246

Post by onion2k »

shard972 wrote: post #226
onion2k wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd hope that would lead to more public investment in education and services in those areas to alliviate crime and make them safer, but somehow I doubt that's what happened...

More? At what point will they look at all the money being spent and the blood being spilled and maybe consider investing in public schools doesn't magically get rid of an infestation of gang violence.

At what point will they look at all the money being spent and the blood being spilled and maybe consider investing in public schools doesn't magically get rid of an infestation of gang violence.

If your question is "When do you decide to stop spending and give up on people?", then I think the only civilised answer is "Never".

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#247

Post by sgift »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #199
dontbenebby wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think that Google's available talent pool is shrinking. Many very talented engineers have left, and many new potential engineers would not want to work there. Sure, there are still plenty who do, but I would say their options are narrowing over time. I think you overestimate how skilled you need to be to work at Google. Google has famously put people through enormous hoops to work there, regardless of the complexi…

Sure, any employer can always choose to lower their standards, but wouldn't you argue then, that the quality of their output is also likely to suffer? The goal here is to ensure their ethical competitors have access to resources they don't.

You seem to think that technical ability and ethics are somehow related. That's a sad misconception which leads to all kinds of bad results. There are many people with very high ability that have an ethical framework which would make them feel right at home in dictatorial regimes. They probably wouldn't even notice it. "I'm just doing my job" is alive and popular.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#248

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #56
zzzcpan wrote: post #43

This is what so sad about tech, it gives those in power unprecedented abilities to control the population. Essentially heading back to slavery through technology with no way out for the slaves anymore.

It also gives tech workers unprecedented abilities to fight it. Software engineers need to take social responsibility for what they create.

1. Yes

2. I walk everyday by a large Bayer building, a company that sells chemicals that create cancer and sells chemicals that heal cancer. Hundreds of people enter the building every day and I think you just need to pay enough money, and you will always find people doing your work.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#249

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

_bxg1 wrote: post #122
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also gives tech workers unprecedented abilities to fight it. Software engineers need to take social responsibility for what they create.

Agreed. The narrative is frequently, "Tech company X's CEO was running secret, morally-questionable project. Rest of the company's engineers upset to find out about it." So far that dissatisfaction has been mostly inert, unfortunately. But I like to think that the typical engineer's morals haven't been as corroded by money as the typical CEO, and that we'll eventually reach a breaking point where things will get so b…

"Tech company X's CEO was running secret"

Very few CEOs can do the coding of a secret project.

Re: San Diego Implemented City-Wide Streetlight Surveillance

#250

Post by dredmorbius »

onion2k wrote: post #246
shard972 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More? At what point will they look at all the money being spent and the blood being spilled and maybe consider investing in public schools doesn't magically get rid of an infestation of gang violence.

At what point will they look at all the money being spent and the blood being spilled and maybe consider investing in public schools doesn't magically get rid of an infestation of gang violence. If your question is "When do you decide to stop spending and give up on people?", then I think the only civilised answer is "Never".

Excellent response.
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