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The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#181

Post by krapp »

code_duck wrote: post #128
krapp wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because governments can have you silenced, arrested, tortured or killed, whereas tech companies can at best only ban you from their platforms, or not target ads or content to you.

Governments have many ways to get information about people from tech companies, though. Legal, illegal, quasi-legal, in aggregate or about individuals, direct from the company, or through interception. Sometimes the companies volunteer it, sometimes they are required to share it, sometimes a government just takes it. Not thinking of only the US here. I assume if Meta, for instance, has data about me, the US Governmen…

Sure, when government and big tech cooperate, especially off the books, all bets are off. But if one is comparing what a tech company can do with your data versus a government obviously a tech company is less of a threat even in the specific case of it giving your data to a government. It's still the government that's going to send the goon squad after you.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#182

Post by Havoc »

vineyardmike wrote: post #82
Havoc wrote: post #70

People desire the sensors and metrics and integration etc...not the Amazon overlord part. The article pitches it as something people willingly embrace which doesn't seem correct to me. Its more like reluctantly accept due to the benefits. I'm personally hoping that a lot of this becomes more accessible via the Matter protocol

> ..not the Amazon overlord part. If anything the really successful implementations of this generally are overlord free. You can quibble about how trustworthy apple should be, but people generally consider them more trustworthy. Especially due to their "on device only" stance. They're also the most successful smart-watch and biometric tracker. They're also making great progress on the voice assistant front too. > mor…

> Matter just isn't there yet, and doesn't mandate local only

I was under the impression that it does make ability to do only mandatory?

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#183

Post by jefftk »

cr4nberry wrote: post #176
pannSun wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't like it, just don't buy it? The remainder of his post explains why such an individual solution isn't enough: it doesn't stop society as a whole slipping further into total surveillance, until eventually it swallows you as well. Either compelled by law, or non-negotiable contract, or by a large fraction of your friends owning surveillance devices, catching you in their crossfire.

> The remainder of his post explains why such an individual solution isn't enough: it doesn't stop society as a whole slipping further into total surveillance, until eventually it swallows you as well. Either compelled by law, or non-negotiable contract, or by a large fraction of your friends owning surveillance devices, catching you in their crossfire. I can't prove this, but I'm convinced that there's a bunch of pe…

> What problem does Alexa solve that your phone or computer can't? And why is it necessary to give a device the privilege to have a microphone on 24/7 to solve it?

Note that your phone also defaults to having its microphone on 24/7.

The problem that this solves, for people that use it, is that it removes a lot of friction from computer interaction. "[Hey Siri / Ok Google / Alexa] set a timer for twenty minutes" takes much less time and effort, and even works with messy hands when you're cooking.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#184

Post by christophilus »

nicbou wrote: post #168
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #32

"What does it mean when one's life becomes completely legible to tech companies?" Does it mean something different than if one's life becomes completely legible to a government. If yes, then why.

Limited scope. Apple does a few things, Google a few more. Neither can imprison me or bar me from half of society in quite the same way as the government does. If Apple goes all out on me, it sucks. If the government does, it's deadly.

My guess is that if a company has gone all out on you, it only takes a warrant for the government to have everything the company has. I prefer to keep both firmly in check.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#185

Post by jefftk »

Gigachad wrote: post #83
cr4nberry wrote: post #80

There's something weird about wearables and also recent advances in home surveillance. I see people posting here that the customers don't want surveillance, they want metrics. But, like... why? What's the appeal? People will spend hundreds of dollars on something like an Apple watch, and all it really does is make texts and calls slightly more convenient (I don't buy it) and give you little metrics to look at. People…

One thing the watches really do well is they make it much easier to notice a call or message in a loud environment. Before getting a smartwatch, you'd easily miss a call if your phone is in your pocket/bag and you are in a crowded/noisy space. You basically always notice if its a vibrating watch unless you have your hands on something vibrating. But yes, largely the Apple Watch doesn't enable new activities. It just…

> It just makes a whole lot of common ones easier and faster with less pulling you phone out.

Which also reduces distraction for many people, since often when you get your phone out you end up getting into various time consumption apps that aren't actually how you intend to be spending your time.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#186

Post by christophilus »

wnoise wrote: post #30
infogulch wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference between a smartwatch and an ankle monitor ... The real difference is who can access and control the generated data . An ankle monitor's purpose is explicitly to send your location history to the government. A smartwatch's purpose is ostensibly to help you record your activities so you can analyze and optimize your life, which on its own is not unreasonable, but in reality there is little separating t…

I don't see a feasible way to ensure individual sovereignty over data you generate, without more regulation.

My data is on my SSD managed by an operating system whose source code I can read whenever I want. If I’m feeling extra paranoid, I can monitor my network traffic to make sure my machine hasn’t been compromised.

Nothing goes to the cloud. Nothing leaves my home without my consent.

If you really want sovereignty over your data, you keep it non digital.

My main problem is the crappy medical software complex that you have no control over. Visited a doctor any time in the last decade? Great. Your most personal details are scattered all over a bunch of insecure systems.

At any rate, I have zero trust in the government’s ability to help here. Their incentives are misaligned with mine. It’s rare to find a legislator who really wants more privacy for the average citizen.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#187

Post by saagarjha »

sokoloff wrote: post #10
ewzimm wrote: post #5

If there were an Amazon Prison option, I wonder how many people would choose it. Need to serve time? Skip the cell and stay home with a robust suite of real-time behavior analytics to ensure compliance. Conversations are processed locally and scanned for restricted subjects with advanced AI. A special Amazon Prison store offers a full suite of approved products with automatic payments, accessible with Alexa, and cust…

If I had the choice to serve a sentence in real prison or Amazon Prison, I’m 100% on Team Jassy.

That’s just called being a SDE in AWS.

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#188

Post by scott_w »

ALittleLight wrote: post #114
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is there any evidence to backup the approached you propose as effective, efficient, or desirable in any way? Especially since you seem to advocate flogging, which is a form of torture. And advocate executions, which grants the government ultinate tyranical power over a citizen. And when a mistake is made, and the innocent is executed, this mistake can never be corrected. Such mistakes are quite conmon, as apparently…

I don't believe our current system (in the US) is based on evidence, so I see no reason to limit alternatives to being backed by evidence. I've never had the opportunity to run my own justice system, so no, I can't say how well it works. I think corporal punishment is vastly more humane and prefer it largely for humanitarian reasons. If we were torturing prisoners, and I proposed we stopped, would you ask for the evi…

Since you're proposing society tortures and kills people without evidence that it'll make things better (and in spite of the evidence that it clearly doesn't), you're essentially saying "let's torture and kill people for fun."

If you followed that logic out, what makes you better than a murderer or violent criminal?

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#189

Post by DennisP »

sneak wrote: post #141
DennisP wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to walk by on the sidewalk and snap a couple pictures of my house, or even take a little video, I agree that's totally fine. But a surveillance camera that's there 24/7, uploading everything to Amazon's cloud, doesn't seem like the same sort of thing to me. In theory at least that can mean Amazon knows when I arrive and leave, all the time.

Several large corporations as well as the US federal government law enforcement agencies know when you arrive and leave, all the time. A bunch of small/private companies do too, because your client IP on the background app refreshes from your phone changes from residential isp to mobile phone isp. Amazon is the least of the worries on that front.

And I'm not a fan of that, either. But my point is that the rights of street photographers have nothing to do with constant automated surveillance.

(And my original point was that this is not just about people who choose to be surveilled themselves.)

Re: The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

#190

Post by wink »

Roark66 wrote: post #121

People can enjoy the benefits of AI assistance without having their privacy violated. Running ML models on edge devices will become the norm whenever possible. Then we will allow such devices like Alexa to talk to web endpoints to get data, but not to submit any info the other way. I definitely can see a whole new niche of software called "privacy protection firewalls" that would sit on the network between "Alexa" an…

Sounds like a smart and easy solution, but how do you think this will have any remote chance of being doable?

Your gadget communicates with the outside world, let's assume HTTP+TLS. Ok, so you need to MITM it. Does it speak plaintext? Ok, how do you know a=1234234&b=30487234807 does not say anything about your habits? Does it speak a binary protocol? Now you need to reverse that.

No. Either I trust the device or I don't.

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