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The Fantasy of Opting Out

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Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#41

Post by hirako2000 »

ddiq wrote: post #16
chillwaves wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should have used one of those examples instead.

Doesn't seem to matter, since that comment is getting downvoted as well. I guess technologists don't want to see the future they're creating, and would rather just come up with tactics that barely defend against the surveillance we have now.

Technologists are for hire. They get paid. They need to get paid for something. They do see the future it's creating, some of them build tools (for free) to counter what they or they peers are building.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#42

Post by cousin_it »

onion2k wrote: post #38
cousin_it wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that argument proves too much. To a user browsing the web, clicking a link that says "check out this nice article" signifies intention/consent to read that article, not to suffer the effects of all possible JS tripwires including pwning their computer and such.

This is the point I was making about misuse of data. Thinking usage analytics on a website is a tripwire is quite extreme. Thinking that building a complete profile of someone based on their activity on lots of websites is a tripwire is quite reasonable. Hence the difficulty in defining what 'spying' really is.

If by analytics you mean something like a hit counter from the 90s, which doesn't require recording user sessions, then I agree with you. But if it's recording user sessions, I think it's a good idea to require consent for that.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#43

Post by rauhl »

rapnie wrote: post #15
ddiq wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think this story is limited to, or even about, political correctness, you are mistaken. It could be your insurance rates going up for jaywalking, even with no cars around. It could be your credit score dropping if you have too many drinks at a bar. It's about your personal activities all being tracked, measured, and in the end, controlled by corporations.

I don't know why you are downvoted. Think the dangers are real with social credit systems on the rise. Much has been written on them, e.g. > The social credit system is used to punish citizens for bad behavior with numerous blacklists preventing them from traveling, getting loans or jobs, or staying in hotels, and even by limiting internet access. https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-b... Maybe…

> I don't know why you are downvoted.

I don’t agree with the downvoters at all, but I think it’s fairly obvious why he’s being downvoted: either folks think he’s wrong that such a thing is possible, or folks think he’s right but don’t care (i.e., they think that the society he describes is desirable, or at worst neutral).

I don’t think that his described society is impossible, and indeed we already see a slow, less-regimented version of that playing out.

I cannot emotionally understand someone who would find such a society desirable, but intellectually it kind of makes sense: one needs to be just authoritarian enough to want to control non-violent behaviour, while just naïve enough not to realise that there are aspects of one’s own behaviour which would be controlled, too (i.e., every one of us disagrees with the majority on at least one or two items).

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#45

Post by worldsayshi »

pdkl95 wrote: post #12

> Obfuscation may be our best digital weapon. From Dan Geer's talk "Cybersecurity as Realpolitik" (which everyone should hear[1]/read[2]): >> There are so many technologies now that power observation and identification of the individual at a distance. They may not yet be in your pocket or on your dashboard or embedded in all your smoke detectors, but that is only a matter of time. Your digital exhaust is unique hence…

Misrepresentation is a good way to improve the training data sets for intelligence agencies.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#46

Post by axilmar »

Most of the actions referred to in the article are mundane: you left your home, you got cash from the ATM, you used the subway, etc. I can't see how that can be used for anything against us.

The real problem is the internet: when we express our political interests online, when we visit certain sites, a profile is built for us about not what we do but what we believe in.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#48

Post by 1996 »

pdkl95 wrote: post #12

> Obfuscation may be our best digital weapon. From Dan Geer's talk "Cybersecurity as Realpolitik" (which everyone should hear[1]/read[2]): >> There are so many technologies now that power observation and identification of the individual at a distance. They may not yet be in your pocket or on your dashboard or embedded in all your smoke detectors, but that is only a matter of time. Your digital exhaust is unique hence…

Beautiful

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#49

Post by ddiq »

hirako2000 wrote: post #40
ddiq2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It already is implemented in America. Political dissidents are harassed by airport security, get their bank accounts closed and credit cards canceled, are banned from services like AirBNB, and get railroaded in the courts.

Source?

Chase Bank shuts down prominent conservatives https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/chase-bank-conservati...

AirBnB seeks out and blocks people going to the American Renaissance conference https://gizmodo.com/airbnb-doesnt-want-extremists-on-its-pla...

Credit cards cancel payments to "hate" groups https://nypost.com/2017/08/16/credit-cards-are-clamping-down...

These are all political censorship against people or groups that aren't doing anything illegal, and the standards are applied differently based on ideology rather than any objective standard.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#50

Post by imgabe »

> But if we are nearly as observed and documented as any person in history, our situation is a prison that, although it has no walls, bars, or wardens, is difficult to escape.

The defining characteristic of a prison is a loss of freedom. What is it that you want to do that these technologies are preventing you from doing?

It's unlikely that we're going to put the technology genie back in the bottle. Instead we need to preserve freedom by sharply curtailing government and corporate power, and demanding radical transparency from any organization that is collecting data.

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