Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#61

Post by Comevius » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 11:16 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #40

Comevius wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already live in a world where surveillance changed the way people think and act, causing us to suppress non-conformist opinions. It is why mass surveillance exist in the first place, to foster collective conformity. Unfortunately we are prone to accept authoritarianism these days. The more economical and ecological uncertainties there are the more we desire order and stability, no matter the cost. For many having…

> We already live in a world where surveillance changed the way people think and act, causing us to suppress non-conformist opinions. I don't see many people suppressing non-conformist opinions anywhere. Rather, I see people defiantly shouting their non-conformist opinions from the rooftops at every opportunity. Spend an hour on Twitter or Facebook and tell me anyone is suppressing any of their radical hot takes on a…

Disinformation and propaganda don't yield democratic resilience, usually there is an authority figure behind them and believers who conform for the certainty, stability, simplicity. These opinions don't require privacy, on the contrary they depend on the network effect.

I'm talking about things like how the ethic of responsibility and academic freedom is in decline. For example when it comes to mass surveillance computer scientists and cryptographers are culpable.

https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1162

"A creeping surveillance that grows organically in the public and private sectors, that becomes increasingly comprehensive, entwined, and predictive, that becomes an instrument for assasination, political control, and the maintenance of power - well, this vision doesn't merely seem possible, it seems to be happening before our eyes."

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#62

Post by mihaaly » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 11:17 AM UTC

advael wrote: post #57

There's no way to stop shit like this from happening at scale if we keep making exceptions for law enforcement and international espionage Until people stop accepting busting drug dealers by tapping their phones, they're going to keep getting journalists and other random people having their phones tapped too. The hard line we need to take is that there is no legitimate use of this capability

I usually have an aversion to these clear cut principles and no exceptions here, in controlled situations we need tools to protect society, firarms are bad, arresting people should be avoided, track someone is a violation of privacy, but we need strongly controlled cases where we use it.

Also forbidding it will not stop suveillance when it brings benefit to some.

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#63

Post by PeterisP » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 11:21 AM UTC

gingerlime wrote: post #54

pattusk wrote: post #3

I don't think the problem is with the "lie" that the innocent need not fear surveillance. Most people will agree that mass-surveillance will negatively affect some people that are indispensable to healthily functioning liberal society: journalists, activists, academics, public figures... The problem is that even if most people don't subscribe to the "nothing to hide" argument in general, they do not care about themse…

yes, exactly. My mum, sister, brother and sister-in-law were all listed on the latest facebook leak (with ~500mil others). Yet none of them could be bothered to switch their phone number or get off facebook or whatsapp (even though they got signal and communicate with me on it once I moved away from whatsapp)… I feel pretty helpless to help them understand the risks. Or they just don’t calculate the risk vs hussle th…

In your opinion, what are the practical risks to them? What actual interference in their daily lives has the FB leak caused or is likely to cause, which would justify e.g. the effort and inconvenience of switching their phone number? Has anyone abused the data leak against them in some way? If not, how likely is that someone would actually do so?

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#64

Post by redis_mlc » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 11:22 AM UTC

theelous3 wrote: post #26

melomal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, literally every time I see these articles I just think of the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite... I remember being questioned on terrorism charges outside St. Pauls Cathedral, alongside my friends by about 20 police with 4 vans. They told us that we need to leave London (lived outside of it) and they will watch us to ensure that we leave, if we do not then there will be furthe…

1. How can you say this without giving more context? 2. Presuming you aren't a terrorist or doing something so almost terroristish you were violating a public order statute - why wouldn't you just refuse?

If you live in the US, then the UK will seem strange to you:

- UK has pre-crime policing

- anybody can file a hate charge, etc. based on socials

- self-identifying trans people (a man claiming to be a woman) are sent to women's prisons automatically. You can guess what happens then - Disneyland for male predators. (This is starting to happen in the US.)

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#65

Post by advael » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 11:23 AM UTC

mihaaly wrote: post #62

advael wrote: post #57

There's no way to stop shit like this from happening at scale if we keep making exceptions for law enforcement and international espionage Until people stop accepting busting drug dealers by tapping their phones, they're going to keep getting journalists and other random people having their phones tapped too. The hard line we need to take is that there is no legitimate use of this capability

I usually have an aversion to these clear cut principles and no exceptions here, in controlled situations we need tools to protect society, firarms are bad, arresting people should be avoided, track someone is a violation of privacy, but we need strongly controlled cases where we use it. Also forbidding it will not stop suveillance when it brings benefit to some.

Society managed to not collapse for quite a long time without the ability to spy on every aspect of someone's life. Does the capability existing suddenly make it necessary? I don't buy this argument at all

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#66

Post by gingerlime » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 11:28 AM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #63

gingerlime wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, exactly. My mum, sister, brother and sister-in-law were all listed on the latest facebook leak (with ~500mil others). Yet none of them could be bothered to switch their phone number or get off facebook or whatsapp (even though they got signal and communicate with me on it once I moved away from whatsapp)… I feel pretty helpless to help them understand the risks. Or they just don’t calculate the risk vs hussle th…

In your opinion, what are the practical risks to them? What actual interference in their daily lives has the FB leak caused or is likely to cause, which would justify e.g. the effort and inconvenience of switching their phone number? Has anyone abused the data leak against them in some way? If not, how likely is that someone would actually do so?

I guess identity theft is the most likely risk? but who knows? and humans are pretty bad at calculating such risks. Changing your phone number is a pretty concrete hassle though, and I guess none of them estimated it worth the hassle… It’s just some anecdata to support the parent’s point.

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#67

Post by roenxi » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 11:28 AM UTC

deregulateMed wrote: post #55

throwaway81523 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ultimate trajectory of liberal democracy is towards anarchism. It's more like towards feudalism, and that's what the surveillance helps achieve. That's why surveillance is dangerous.

>towards anarchy Yet every democracy seems to tend toward dictatorships according to history. But I agree the idea behind liberalism is individuals, which anarchy makes sense. Given I have 3 to 5 government layers, Federal, State, city, HOA, and international law, I'd certainly prefer to get rid of a few of these layers due to corruption.

> Yet every democracy seems to tend toward dictatorships according to history.

How could a democracy end if not dictatorship? I suppose sinking beneath the waves is an alternative, but that is pretty rare.

If you want to have some fun reading up on Wikipedia's list of Empires [0], take some time to appreciate that the Republic of Venice being the longest-lived Western European empire. And I'm no expert in Venetian history (especially being as they have so much of it), but it seems to have had some solid democratic elements for around 700 years.

Democracies have a messy, difficult to categorise staying power. I hear stories about Kings and Emperors, but nobody talks about the enduring-like-weeds powers that don't have neatly defined figureheads but are hotbeds of prosperity. Look at Switzerland working through the World Wars for example. Really a minor miracle at that time in that place.

And world's largest empire (the British) spawned numerous highly successful democracies.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_empires

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#68

Post by fighterpilot » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 11:29 AM UTC

krapp wrote: post #56

fighterpilot wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these are anonymous platforms where people are unafraid to speak their mind due to that anonymity. Also the existence of loud people on these platforms isn't evidence that the number of people self-censoring hasn't increased. A small, loud group of people is enough to create the effect that you see. Polling suggests that the number of people self-censoring has increased. It's especially common among college e…

It is circumstantial evidence, but I wouldn't expect an increase in radical activity on social media to occur in a society in which most people are afraid to express their views due to fear of omnipresent surveillance. Some people are self-suppressing, a lot of people aren't. And what is it that people are afraid to say? That they only believe in two genders, or innate gender roles? That the US should return to the g…

This[1] is a survey of college students. About 25-30% are self-censoring on campus, and rates are higher among conservatives. This is a pretty well established finding across multiple polls of both college-age and working-age people.

> I'm not aware of any mainstream Conservative beliefs that are suppressed in general discourse

Not in "general discourse" (if by that you mean anonymous social media), but if you work for a tech company, many mainstream conservative beliefs are not to be discussed in public. Consider the James Damore memo, which he got fired for and which most conservatives would agree with. Or imagine being a Trump supporter in a tech company, and wanting to put a Trump poster on your wall/cubicle compared to a Biden/Hillary poster. You might not get fired, but there's enough stories of social ostracism that people probably won't want to do that. Or consider having the opinion that gender = sex and therefore pronouns should correspond to sex, which is what most conservatives think, and something that they'd get fired over. Self-censorship is a rational thing to do in such a climate.

A left-leaning person would probably self-censor in a heavily conservative industry (e.g. oil & gas), too. I don't really have a reference point in such industries about how stifling the climate would be for them, but I don't think this is a phenomenon that's unique to one side of the spectrum. It's mostly a consequence of heightened polarization.

[1] https://2cnzc91figkyqqeq8390pgd1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#69

Post by yesenadam » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #58

@dang: my comment has been deleted. Did the mods do this or is it some kind of shadow ban?

Email hn@ycombinator.com to get answers to questions like these. I suspect the answer is that it wasn't posted in the first place, or something weird like that. Mods don't delete comments.

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#70

Post by andrepd » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 11:33 AM UTC

Santosh83 wrote: post #4

pattusk wrote: post #3

I don't think the problem is with the "lie" that the innocent need not fear surveillance. Most people will agree that mass-surveillance will negatively affect some people that are indispensable to healthily functioning liberal society: journalists, activists, academics, public figures... The problem is that even if most people don't subscribe to the "nothing to hide" argument in general, they do not care about themse…

Because the 'time and effort required to maintain my privacy' part requires immediate and sustained and rigorous action and sacrifice of various comforts, all for a nebulously perceived, personally theoretical risk. The ultimate trajectory of liberal democracy is towards anarchism. But humans are anything but evolutionarily suited for that. We are biologically built to function in a hierarchy, even if the top of that…

>The ultimate trajectory of liberal democracy is towards anarchism

Interesting you would say that, by all accounts the current trajectory of bourgeois liberal democracy is towards towards concentration of power and neo-feudalism.