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The Fantasy of Opting Out

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Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#161

Post by swader999 »

danShumway wrote: post #146
shadowgovt wrote: post #142

I think it's reasonable to turn the philosophical question around and look at it from the other direction. Why should a person interacting within society have the option to opt out of surveillance? We don't imagine that in pre-industrial-age communities, people believed in a right to not be seen by, say, the butcher or blacksmith when they went in to buy meat or metalwork, or a right to not have their commerce record…

> Why should a person interacting within society have the option to opt out of surveillance? A non-exhaustive list of a few specific reasons: - Private, unregulatable actions are historically large components of social change, particularly for minority groups. - Historically, powerful groups (both governments and societies as a whole) have used surveillance to harass critics and undesirable parts of the population. -…

Yeah it would crush dissent, limit change, make us weaker as a species.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#162

Post by SysINT »

infinitezest wrote: post #130
SysINT wrote: post #88

The use of the word Privacy is misleading the conversation. We should be setting the goal to make it illegal to collect. It should be illegal for commercial entities to collect information that can be considered personally identifiable information without explicit consent. Additionally, that should not be allowed within a commercial terms of service agreement, and if automated must also provide means to remove with t…

This would be a huge step in the right direction but I think it's important to limit surveillance by government entities as well. After all, you have _no_ opt-out options where they are concerned.

I agree, however expect government regulation to be easier target commercial activities. I additionally am considering existing U.S. law that requires government agencies to perform PII analysis of all projects and have that information available via FOIA and OMB reporting. That does not cover non-U.S. entities.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#163

Post by SysINT »

yeahforsureman wrote: post #99
SysINT wrote: post #88

The use of the word Privacy is misleading the conversation. We should be setting the goal to make it illegal to collect. It should be illegal for commercial entities to collect information that can be considered personally identifiable information without explicit consent. Additionally, that should not be allowed within a commercial terms of service agreement, and if automated must also provide means to remove with t…

Consent is a poor tool for such a wide category of data. If you're looking for actual informed consent, we are talking about something either practically impossible or at least a massive strain on people's time and decision-making capabilities over things they often couldn't care less about. See e.g. F.J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, Security & Privacy, ‘Informed Consent. We Can Do Better to Defend Privacy’, IEEE (Volume 13…

In context of the cited article, the assumption is the data was already collected. My posit is that should not be allowed. I do not expect companies should be able to collect and then ask for consent. They should be subject to criminal behavior if they do so before and without explicit request.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#164

Post by shadowgovt »

danShumway wrote: post #146
shadowgovt wrote: post #142

I think it's reasonable to turn the philosophical question around and look at it from the other direction. Why should a person interacting within society have the option to opt out of surveillance? We don't imagine that in pre-industrial-age communities, people believed in a right to not be seen by, say, the butcher or blacksmith when they went in to buy meat or metalwork, or a right to not have their commerce record…

> Why should a person interacting within society have the option to opt out of surveillance? A non-exhaustive list of a few specific reasons: - Private, unregulatable actions are historically large components of social change, particularly for minority groups. - Historically, powerful groups (both governments and societies as a whole) have used surveillance to harass critics and undesirable parts of the population. -…

> Private, unregulatable actions are historically large components of social change, particularly for minority groups

I agree but I'd note there's reasons not to maximize that effect universally. Some balance is important; the Klu Klux Klan in the US is a minority group. Apart from that, I generally agree with your assessment of the benefits of the ability to have a private life.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#165

Post by [deleted] »

shadowgovt wrote: post #141

Cost of ubiquitous surveillance is going down, and at the end of the day, that's the dominant effect. Given the intersection of low cost and demonstrated utility, we're seeing a sea-change in society of significant scale, such that "opting out of surveillance" really does being to equate to "opting out of society." Imagine if you had a moral objection to, say, walking on roads. What percentage of society would you ha…

[deleted]

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#166

Post by shadowgovt »

philwelch wrote: post #151
shadowgovt wrote: post #141

Cost of ubiquitous surveillance is going down, and at the end of the day, that's the dominant effect. Given the intersection of low cost and demonstrated utility, we're seeing a sea-change in society of significant scale, such that "opting out of surveillance" really does being to equate to "opting out of society." Imagine if you had a moral objection to, say, walking on roads. What percentage of society would you ha…

Everybody in Star Trek is serving in the military and has no expectation of privacy while on duty. Plus it only tracks their commbadges. Another consideration might be: what privacy would someone have had living in a premodern or early modern village or even a small town at the turn of the century? Aside from being surveilled in our own homes by Alexa and her kind, are we worse off today?

Not to rabbit-hole too far on this, but in the Next Generation, civilian families are also aboard-ship. However, that's almost certainly modeled as "military families and contractors," and the analogue to modern life is some autonomy is understood by those groups to be given up for the privileges of direct military support (i.e. you have to abide by some policies set by the military when you're granted on-base housing).

But we're talking a fictional universe, so best not to unpack this bad analogy too far. ;)

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#167

Post by arminiusreturns »

Start taking you privacy seriously, and opting out of bad services where you can. This sometimes means not getting to be on $latestplatform, and missing a few conversations, etc. Sticking to your principles is never easy or costless. Even then, verify that what you are using isn't spying on you. That means read the EULAs and TOSs. That means packet sniff your network regularly to find potential issues. etc etc It requires work.

I think there will be a huge market for entities to help individuals without these skills do these things.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#168

Post by Izkata »

philwelch wrote: post #151
shadowgovt wrote: post #141

Cost of ubiquitous surveillance is going down, and at the end of the day, that's the dominant effect. Given the intersection of low cost and demonstrated utility, we're seeing a sea-change in society of significant scale, such that "opting out of surveillance" really does being to equate to "opting out of society." Imagine if you had a moral objection to, say, walking on roads. What percentage of society would you ha…

Everybody in Star Trek is serving in the military and has no expectation of privacy while on duty. Plus it only tracks their commbadges. Another consideration might be: what privacy would someone have had living in a premodern or early modern village or even a small town at the turn of the century? Aside from being surveilled in our own homes by Alexa and her kind, are we worse off today?

> Plus it only tracks their commbadges.

Indeed, there's a few examples where someone leaves it in their quarters when they don't want to be tracked.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#169

Post by Endy »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #152
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 means putting a motor-generator between you and the Smart Grid. Misrepresentation means..." All of that sounds exhausting. Some of it is easy... but some of those tasks would take over 10 hours to do. I've got a life to live. Plus, it doesn't really fix the problem, does it? Wouldn't it be better if we all took those hours to lobby the government to change the laws?

No, it would not be better. You are asking someone who is psychopathic and greedy to give up power, influence, control, and money. Short of forceful resistance (which isn't always necessarily violent - Gandhi used force but not violence for example), it isn't going to work.

It's also actually better if you only do the things to hide within your patience level, because the point is to lie and not be easily connected. Remember that part of why DNT is on the way out is because it set another trackable variable, working against the point. If you use Iceweasel on Linux, send a UA string of Chrome on Windows. Just look 'normal'. People with mental illnesses or alternate lifestyles have long since learned that the first and best coping mechanism to hide is to just look normal on the surface. The line from Ghostbusters comes to mind, 'Quiet, you're scaring the straights'. Look normal, keep your head down when there's no reason not to.

Make it too obvious that you're hiding, and they take it as a challenge. Just learn to hide passively.

Re: The Fantasy of Opting Out

#170

Post by [deleted] »

anigbrowl wrote: post #155
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #115

I'm very pessimistic about all this. It seems to me that the horse has already bolted: we are all under constant surveilance and there is not much we can do about it at all. Many of us don't even think it's a problem and even many who do think it is don't want to lose the benefits that are attached to the constant automated surveilance. As citizens of democratic countries we have uttely failed to protect our rights a…

Who is going to stand up against the new threat to our rights? A few dispersed academics that nobody listens to? Anonymous? Get to know your local anarchists.

[deleted]
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