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

theguardian.com

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

#151

Post by PeterisP »

pasabagi wrote: post #149
PeterisP wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Acquaintances of mine had the personal data used to give a believable aura to automated blackmail attempts ('we know what porn you're watching', etc). Which didn't work, but still, it's quite threatening having some random python script from Macedonia knowing a bunch of details about your private life.

One thing that works is the scams where if someone is traveling (more common pre-Covid..) and their friends/relatives get a message from them saying that they're in trouble (for example, with corrupt local cops) and need some money right now. But that mostly feeds off not leaks, but generally available social media data, as that's always fresh.

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

#152

Post by raxxorrax »

Cycl0ps wrote: post #139
raxxorrax wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think all these cameras would have a positive effect on the crime index. London is just average compared to other European cities, so you might just want to skip spending billions on surveillance in the first place. https://www.numbeo.com/crime/region_rankings_current.jsp?reg...

>Is this much less accurate than governmental statistics? In some countries, governments have a detailed statistics based on a number of reported crimes per capita. Those surveys are particular good in comparing crime between two cities in that country, but are not so good in cross country comparison for the following reasons: By its own admission this isn't a good metric

True, it depends on individual methods for data collection. Still, there should be some evidence for the effectiveness of video surveillance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London doesn't really reflect a significant influence. It is falling slightly, just analogous to almost any other European city or capital.

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

#153

Post by Popegaf »

pasabagi wrote: post #150
Popegaf wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason people don't think it's bad to lose their privacy, is the same as why they don't take climate change seriously: the effects are more than a year out. Most likely they won't even feel the effects directly in their lifetime. On another note, have Chinese citizens ever been "free" since the one party system?

Freedom is not a binary state. In the UK, new laws are being brought in to ban demonstrations that cause annoyance. Does that make the UK unfree? It makes some people less free , but is it sufficient? Again, in the UK, the first-past-the-post voting system is widely understood to produce governments that don't reflect voter desires. Is that enough to say the country is not a democracy? It makes it less democratic tha…

> I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures

That sounds like a reasonable take. I like it. I wonder how many Chinese are actually OK with the system as it is and how many aren't.

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

#154

Post by trompetenaccoun »

Popegaf wrote: post #153
pasabagi wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom is not a binary state. In the UK, new laws are being brought in to ban demonstrations that cause annoyance. Does that make the UK unfree? It makes some people less free , but is it sufficient? Again, in the UK, the first-past-the-post voting system is widely understood to produce governments that don't reflect voter desires. Is that enough to say the country is not a democracy? It makes it less democratic tha…

> I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures That sounds like a reasonable take. I like it. I wonder how many Chinese are actually OK with the system as it is and how many aren't.

What pasabagi wrote is a very good summary of the situation, I agree with that.

As for how many people support the system it's impossible to say right now because people can't speak their mind anymore since Xi took power, it's gotten dangerous. Before when the internet was still relatively uncensored the majority of the comments regarding the government was negative. If it hadn't been they'd not have needed such a massive censorship apparatus in the first place, don't you think? Internet users were mainly younger people though. From my experience in real life I'd say it might have been about 50/50 support vs opposition. Not that it's in any way representative.

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

#155

Post by DicIfTEx »

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…

> I think there is some sort of a Tverskyan study to be done here about expected value and perceived risk. Overall for most people the equation is always: (probability of data being mishandled) * damage It's about security advice more broadly rather than specifically privacy, but you might find the paper “So Log, And No Thanks for the Externalities: The Rational Rejection of Security Advice by Users” by Cormac Herley interesting: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...

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

#158

Post by manquer »

eloff wrote: post #142
manquer wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusal to allow to sue on grounds that they are already regulated by the government ministry is basically saying their client list/operations is approved by the government ?

It's basically just that the Israeli ministry of defence has to approve their sales because the software is classified as a weapon. You can't conflate that with the company being an extension of the state though, as the GP did. They're separate entities with separate objectives. A reasonable comparison would be to Lockheed Martin or Raytheon in the US.

Regulation is to approve the sale to specific national governments. Not just a genetic you can sell or not permit.

Lockheed Martin is not going to sell to China right ? So saying say for example sales of weapops to Saudi Arabia used to kill civilians in Yemen is not supported by U.S. does not hold water. US also absolutely is responsible for any weapons being sold to countries with questionable government and human rights practices

In both cases they are complict and responsibile for failing to regulate adequately. Israel is additionally responsible as they are also shielding the company from being sued.

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