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Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

theguardian.com

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Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#81

Post by dang »

resters wrote: post #61
tlb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that people haven't commented "this is bad" doesn't mean lots of people don't think it's bad. But such comments don't change anything, and the site guidelines specifically discourage them because they just add noise. Insulting people, however, tends to derail any useful discussion.

> Insulting people, however, tends to derail any useful discussion. She didn't insult anyone, please explain how you got that from the text of the comment. Most likely HN users are fearful of retaliation from the mods for participating in a discussion that will likely be deemed "political" or a "flame war". I suggest you not reply to this or else your account might get shadow banned. YC is heavily invested in Palanti…

Calling others stupid is insulting, no?

We don't ban people for that. HN hosts prolific discussion of topics like this one. The current submission is on the front page because moderators put it in the second-chance pool (described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380).

YC is not invested in Palantir, but I suppose if you're going to make something like that up it makes sense to throw in "heavily" as well.

We moderate HN less, not more, when YC's interests are involved. That's the first principle of HN moderation: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....

Edit: there's a good example on the front page now. NYT published a profile of Brex with a baity title that—no surprise—is dominating discussion in the thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20598025). Normally we'd change the title to indicate that the article is really a profile of a particular startup. But I've not done so because this is a YC-funded startup.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#83

Post by mc32 »

apo wrote: post #49

> The new balloons promise a cheap surveillance platform that could follow multiple cars and boats for extended periods. And because winds often travel in different directions at different altitudes, the balloons can usually hover over a given area simply by ascending or descending. Stepping back from the details of this story reveals a striking pattern that most public discussions on mass surveillance miss entirely.…

This is reminiscent of some technology and technique learned and developed for operations in Iraq to go after IED planters. Basically once an event is alerted (ex truck stolen; someone abducted, etc) they backtrack or fwdtrack movements and see where perps came from or went to.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#84

Post by dang »

almostdeadguy wrote: post #39
tlb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that people haven't commented "this is bad" doesn't mean lots of people don't think it's bad. But such comments don't change anything, and the site guidelines specifically discourage them because they just add noise. Insulting people, however, tends to derail any useful discussion.

The site guidelines and moderation policies are intended to steer the comments towards as prissy, non-critical, de-politicized conversations as possible. Anger is a perfectly reasonable part of political discourse, and political discourse and thought is an important part of being a person in the world w/ agency. I think most would agree that there's a "beating a dead horse" point in comment sections, but the amount o…

You have some good points and I agree with most of this, but you're overestimating the capacity of a large, open internet forum to host intelligent angry discussion. This isn't about being prissy, it's about not dying a death of boredom. Flamewars get stupider and more tedious as they burn, and each one turns the site a bit more into hell. So we take a broken-windows-theory approach.

If you think otherwise, I'd like to see an example of an large, open internet forum having intelligent no-holds-barred political debate. In my opinion you're underestimating how dumb that gets, and how quickly. For the sort of conversation you're talking about to be high-quality, you need a community that is closed and vastly smaller. This has been the case with that sort of debate in the past—for example, exchanges in journals or between writers in opposing journals.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#85

Post by bob7834 »

lonelappde wrote: post #74
bob7834 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve maintained for a long time that the only reason we have a “war on terror” is that the ability of the “war on drugs” to strip us of our civil liberties had mostly run its course by 2001. These are the political issues I care most about. I really hoped Obama would curtail the surveillance state. For 8 years I thought “soon, he will try to rollback the patriot act.” That never happened. Instead, we got assisinated…

> Hollywood leans strongly toward lionizing rogue cops/gestapo agents who trample civil rights. Hollywood, like Legislatures, are giving the majority of the public what they want.

Given that Hollywood profits are at a two decade low[1], it’s not clear that’s true.

[1]https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/why-hollywood-as-we-...

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#86

Post by ashton314 »

Cheesy, but this reminds me of Captain America: Winter Soldier with the massive gunships that target anyone considered to be a “threat”.

The government seems to make the case that this is “necessary” to stopping crime. Is it? I’m sure it makes it really easy to catch criminals—but what’s wrong with increasing the police force/improving non-technological techniques/etc.?

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#87

Post by wmeredith »

mgamache wrote: post #82

I am not advocating this in the US or anywhere, but how would one disable a surveillance balloon as an act of civil disobedience if necessary (without ending up in jail)?

IANAL but acts of civil disobedience usually mean that you refuse to do something peacefully. I’m not sure that there’s a way to passively disarm something.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#88

Post by pdkl95 »

turk73 wrote: post #56
state_less wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said the obvious before, but technology is going to make mass surveillance relatively easy. Natural protections are no more. We have to reaffirm our liberties and not tolerate unreasonable search. Also, let's cut out the criminality when it comes to drugs. The rationality this rests on can be chopped out from under it if we just regulate the drug industry better. Give drug users the drugs with limitations, which…

The only way to do what you suggest is...you know. That's the only thing that will roll it back even a little. I'm available whenever, but I have no misconceptions about how brutal it will be. Just locally where I live I've watched the total state moving forward. Police are moving in unmarked/low marked vehicles a la Gestapo, intersections all suddenly have cameras, I've read articles about how LE have tracked people…

> technology is going to make mass surveillance relatively easy

> a la Gestapo

In 2013 Tom Scott made an incredibly prescient sketch of our grim surveillance-state future. It absolutely terrifying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIuf1V1FhpY

It's terrifying because it's the power of Stasi-style informants modernized into a simple Uber-like app. No more scary clandestine meetings, now you can inform on your friends, family, and neighbors with one click from the comfort of your own home.

Similar to the "social credit" system, Tom's "Oversight" could work, because they both efficiently incentivize close peers against each other. "You should stop spending time with your friend John. I heard him talking like a dissident recently... that could damage your Social Credit rating!"

> enters with their phone

Which is exactly why I follow Dan Geer's advice[1] and don't carry around a tracking device. He's been trying to warn us for years[2], and we still aren't listening[3].

[1] https://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/06/cia-cybersecurity-gur...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT-TGvYOBpI (transcript: http://geer.tinho.net/geer.blackhat.6viii14.txt )

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbDEbfijxNY (transcript: http://www.bsidesdc.org/history/geer.html )

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#89

Post by anigbrowl »

davisr wrote: post #6
davisr wrote: post #5

I don't comment much, but I feel compelled to mention how this currently has a 36:1 vote-to-comment ratio. The kinds of thing the US military is testing on their own people is horrific, and it's our duty as American citizens to oppose this kind of surveillance. I sometimes feel I'm talking to a ghost. It is truly terrifying that my fellow Americans are selling themselves out. Ring will let the government, Amazon, and…

The most important thing one can do is write, AND call, their legislature. Don't ever shut up about it. Does it stand a chance against corporate lobbyists? Probably not, but it leaves one with a clear conscience.

The most important thing you can do is put your body in the way of the machine. Sure, writing persuasive letters is good, but what actually moves the needle is showing up at public meetings, making noise, engaging in civil disobedience, and risking arrest or worse. Reasoned argument is unfortunately not an effective political lever unless you have some sort of power (eg political, financial, military) with which to bear down upon it.

Re: Pentagon testing mass surveillance balloons across the US

#90

Post by salawat »

Well, this is extremely disturbing.

We're reaching a point where we're going to have to start realizing we cannot systematically apply our own laws due to the ramifications of total awareness.

The availability of information will quickly outstrip the capacity of the system to crank through it.

Just today I was discussing with colleagues that it's positively mortifying the way people have trivialized their own children's privacy through things like smartphones with tracking software, and hidden camera's everywhere.

I don't understand how much our societal fabric has decayed that anyone could be even remotely comfortable with the magnitude of advancement in and propagation of surveillance technology, and the relative lack of progress in other verticals, or other facets of civil life.

To what end? Why do this? Why enable such avenues capable of completely undermining society's capability to evolve? Once you have the capacity to track minority faction movements perfectly, the stage is set for violent suppression of politically disruptive movements.

It is one thing to not have the capability to do so; it is completely another to have the capability to do so and to not use it. One can survive the overly ambitious being in a position of power. The other can't.

I don't know as the path our society is going down will be even remotely feasible to course correct. One can only hope.

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