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Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

economist.com

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Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#141

Post by corobo »

Qem wrote: post #51
formerkrogemp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, in retail, we used to have this software known as "secret shoppers." If they didn't see someone smiling, the store or department would be docked points on its evaluation, and you'd be hearing about it from your boss and boss's boss. Now all of us WFH minions below the lowly programmers will be subject to a smiling rictus as our cameras, microphones, and keyloggers determine productivity scores, work morale, and…

How long before somebody uses AI to permasmile your face in virtual conferences? The market is ripe for an arms race here.

Create 2 scenes in OBS, one a pure black background, one pure green. Video devices always seem to flicker between black and green when they're broken.

Click the "Start Virtual Camera" button and switch to this webcam in your conference software, flick between the two scenes semi-rapidly

"ah man, my webcam is playing up"

https://obsproject.com/

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#142

Post by scrapcode »

rubyist5eva wrote: post #102
palisade wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a new law. The Freedom To Have Our Farts Go UnHeard Act. ;D

No no no, the name of it needs to be an acronym as well. The Freedom-to Always Rip True Act.

I've always yearned the ability to come up with creative business names, product names, etc. It appears you have mastered it.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#143

Post by 6keZbCECT2uB »

aa-jv wrote: post #111
hajhatten wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I simply uninstalled ours. IT couldn't understand why. Very thankful I have an understanding manager.

IT should never be treated as more senior to Development, imho. Sure, IT guy, you can put that software on there - but I reserve the right to Ghidra it into dysfunction.

Management has the authority to set policies on how work-provided technology is used since they can fire you for not following those policies (constrained by law). Between IT and developers, this isn't a fully-ordered relation since IT has jurisdiction to enforce those policies, and developers have jurisdiction on ensuring that software meets needed quality. If your management has ill-conceived policies that prevent you from being productive at work, includes everything from McAfee hobbled NTFS to being scheduled for 9 hours of meetings in an 8 hour workday, then leave and find somewhere more productive to work or accept that you're being paid to be unproductive.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#144

Post by lodovic »

nixpulvis wrote: post #49

Security cameras at work are debatably legal under many states eavesdropping laws as I interpret the text. Of course INAL, and many places have better reason to have cameras, e.g. to curb shoplifting, but a corporate office really isn't one of those places. What am I going to do, steal some paperclips?

I always wonder - who will be looking at the footage? Your manager is obviously too busy, so there must be some department of workers checking on other workers?

Then, ownership. How can you be sure this video footage is kept safe and private? Who owns it and for how long can they keep it? Imagine a teenage child entering the wfh room while you're on a break, I can image wanting to have that video removed immediately.

Also - a home office which is surveilled this way must be decorated completely neutral; you might have an incorrect world map on the wall or a product made by a competitor in view, or perhaps a beach picture of your family to which people can be very sensitive.

I have so many objections against this.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#145

Post by Kon-Peki »

emptyparadise wrote: post #4

Feels like every damn thing that happens gets used as a pretext to enable more and more surveillance. Will we need job boards specifically for jobs that don't do surveillance too? >Last year Fujitsu, a Japanese technology group, unveiled AI software which promises to gauge employees’ concentration based on their facial expression. Just need software that punishes employees who aren't happy enough at work, then we'll…

Just make some friends in the accounting department and plant a few seeds.

Our developer systems come with 32/64GB memory, multiple TB of NVMe storage, high-end processors, discrete GPUs to drive 4 4K monitors, etc. But we save $30 via the Dell configurator by skipping bluetooth, wifi, cameras, etc.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#146

Post by lotsofpulp »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #131
SethMurphy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, some may be un-actionable, but there are actions I could take on others (e.g. flooding is not equal to flooded in my situation). Whether they are worth it is still not clear to me. As my kids a getting older it is not so important to monitor them without special circumstances. I do fail to see where wealth has anything to do with this though. Edit: Moved edit to reply that was not an option before.

ok. I'm not trying to be hostile I only brought this up because you mentioned concerns with privacy and what your children are learning to tolerate and accept re: surveillance. We feel safer with cameras but in practice there are few cases where we truly are. I think what the kids are likely to learn from this is that an authority's sense of security is a more powerful demand than their own need for privacy, somethin…

While I would not put cameras in my home, I do want a copy of the record for myself in the event something happens on my property that I could be liable for, such as a trip and fall on the sidewalk in front of my house. Or if I have to use self defense, or if cops do something unsavory, or if someone breaks in or damages car, I have evidence. It is a type of insurance that costs basically nothing.

I was already able to provide a good look at a thief’s car who stole a package from my neighbor’s doorstep to distribute around the community. And the neighbor’s camera got the theif’s face.

I also have a dash cam for the same reasons. I want to have my evidence because others will probably have theirs and my evidence can be a tool to protect me.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#147

Post by mschuster91 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #126
mschuster91 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that violence gets attention and sometimes conciliatory action like nothing else. The thing is, the government itself is violent at its core: - cops beating up peaceful protesters or executing people on the streets - cops evicting people from their homes because they can't keep up with rent - cops arresting women because of miscarriages (over 1.200 in 15 years per [1]!) and soon because they dared to…

Something else to consider, for those that don't object to violence on moral or ethical grounds, is that violence is often counterproductive. If used against powerful governments it usually results in violent crackdowns which wind up killing off and/or imprisoning the leaders of the anti-government movements. When used against weak governments, the government may topple, but what arises in its place is often even wor…

Non-violence however requires (!) a functioning democracy that listens to the citizens - one might argue that a democracy that listens to and serves the interests of all people is the only way for any progress that is achieved non-violently. For me, the rise in political violence in the US is not surprising at all given how more and more of the citizenship has been left behind and ignored by its representatives. And even the progress that happened in the US' recent history... a lot of it only happened after large scale riots (such as the Civil Rights Act 1968). Fittingly, it was MLK himself who said the famous quote "riots are the voice of the unheard".

Especially regarding revolutions against authoritarian regimes - I can't name even one major society that went through the change from an authoritarian government to a democracy without a war or revolution of some sort (even the British parliament's history has a couple of wars related to it). Usually, two or three revolutions, civil or external wars are part of any major democracy's history.

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#148

Post by SethMurphy »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #131
SethMurphy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, some may be un-actionable, but there are actions I could take on others (e.g. flooding is not equal to flooded in my situation). Whether they are worth it is still not clear to me. As my kids a getting older it is not so important to monitor them without special circumstances. I do fail to see where wealth has anything to do with this though. Edit: Moved edit to reply that was not an option before.

ok. I'm not trying to be hostile I only brought this up because you mentioned concerns with privacy and what your children are learning to tolerate and accept re: surveillance. We feel safer with cameras but in practice there are few cases where we truly are. I think what the kids are likely to learn from this is that an authority's sense of security is a more powerful demand than their own need for privacy, somethin…

Thinking about this more I agree with you and think the answer for me is to simply have the cameras off by default and only use implicitly when away and monitoring makes me feel better. They provide little, possibly negative, service during the time a household member is home. Being from a similar background as you I have a hard time with the labels rich/wealthy, so my apologies for being defensive. The wealth aspect is interesting as you pointed out because that is what I think of in the past, however now I think it is accessible for many as costs of cameras and online video storage come down. The usefulness of camera surveillance seems to diminish though when you are not trying to spy on people who have privelaged access to your home that are not household members and may or may not deserve the same level of privacy (to bring this full circle back to work surveillance).

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#149

Post by corobo »

palisade wrote: post #82

I worked at a place once where we got a memo that asked everyone to stop clipping nails and farting because the microphones installed in our desks were picking these noises up. The memo even added that if you need to fart please go to the bathroom. It wasn't a joke email, they were serious. Oh, also not many people realize this but CCTV cameras all have the capability to convey audio captured via an internal micropho…

> the microphones installed in our desks were picking these noises up

I'd have a fleet of these things in the office within a week of that memo haha

https://www.amazon.com/AnnoyingPCB-Ultimate-Productivity-Des...

I imagine the best place for these would be in the faux ceiling above a smoke detector

Re: Welcome to the era of the hyper-surveilled office

#150

Post by benfrain »

What is the reality here? If a company adds MDM software to a laptop they have given you for work and you use it at home on your home network. Is it easy enough for them (in theory) to get on to the network and look on your kids or partners devices?

Or is that tin hat thinking?

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