When someone shows up at your door claiming to be the secret service and taking all of your valuable electronics, don't you verify them in any way? Can anyone just show up at this guy's apartment with a suit and a "warrant" and start grabbing anything they like? It would be perfect karma if this happened to the author by someone else doing their own "art" project. I bet the author will understand there's no need for his consent.
People Staring at Computers (2021)
91–100 of 130 posts
Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The police forces were created to protect property and 'the system', not people, and that's what they continue to do. I think it's rather naive to consider otherwise. Somewhere along the way we were fed this childish mythology about the importance of the individual, which is definitely captivating, stirring one's imagination with sparks of creativity, but the truth is that institutions and 'the system' are the bedr…
In these discussions, there's always an implicit assumption of certain intentions being the "real" ones. Statements like "police were created to..." first imply that there was a creator whose intentions define the police through incarnations, a kind of "god of police," and, more likely, if it was not a single individual, it is a "pantheon of police" composed of its creators and sustainers. And then we have the image…
Do you get upset when people say "evolution does X"?
It's the same thing, it doesn't really matter if the process is clean or tumultuous, it's a reasonable heuristic to understand the status quo.
Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)
#93Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
The illegality of it might be clear cut, but the immorality of it is not. And why should the store owner be furious, and not amused, or embarrassed? It's just things, nobody got hurt. It is a very libertarian idea that violence against property is morally the same as violence against a person.
Right... but who's interest should the law here represent? There is no single common interest: this guy wants to install spyware and hijack pictures of customers for his own ends; apple doenst want that; customers dont want that (or even, of course, know about it!). So "immorality"-wise, who here are you empathising with? I, as a customer entering a store, do NOT want any burden to go and google whether that store ha…
A better question to start with is "where does the law fit into this?"
What is the material consequence of this action? How does this affect people's lives? Why is that something that needs legislation?
I'm not implying that there are no consequences, I'm curious how you interpret the issue.
Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
since he had legal access to the computer, I don't think what he did is legally want different than running OBS on your own computer.
He did not have legal "access" to the computer; this isnt how the law, or even basic common sense, works. Apple made store computers available for demo, installing spyware on them clearly violates the level and kind of authorisation apple was providing. THe law makes these distinctions. But likewise, so does anyone with half a brain. You cannot come into my house an d install a keylogger on my PC, even if I make it a…
odd how merely the existence of a mechanism to try and attempt to prevent access falls under DRM, the the non-existence of such a mechanism apparently doesn't imply permission.
Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple made store computers available for demo and he didn't bypass any protection to run the software, and there isn't any agreement you have to sign to use one of the demo computers that lists what you are and aren't allowed to do with them. I agree this is on the edge, but looking through the CFAA, it isn't obvious to me which if any section applies here.
The thing with authorization is... well... you can have authorization to go to a public park. But carving up a park bench is very much not authorized. You can be "able" to do something when the public has access to it. However the ethics of altering property that belongs to somebody else tends to lean from anywhere from "okay if you have permission" to "heavily illegal". Anybody can install spyware on a public comput…
Do I have authorization to sketch highly-accurate versions of people's faces in that public park?
Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
In these discussions, there's always an implicit assumption of certain intentions being the "real" ones. Statements like "police were created to..." first imply that there was a creator whose intentions define the police through incarnations, a kind of "god of police," and, more likely, if it was not a single individual, it is a "pantheon of police" composed of its creators and sustainers. And then we have the image…
Do you get upset when people say "evolution does X"? It's the same thing, it doesn't really matter if the process is clean or tumultuous, it's a reasonable heuristic to understand the status quo.
I'm not upset in either case, but that's another good example of the problems in attributing personified intelligence to an abstraction. Especially in the early days, people tended to substitute "God" with "evolution" and shoehorn evolutionary processes into areas where they didn't apply because they used to attribute them to God. This still happens! Sometimes, it's just "the universe."
This was usually based on the further misunderstanding that evolution represents a progression from lower to higher life forms. For example, Engels was especially influenced by the idea that political processes followed Darwinian principles and that societies inevitably move from lower to higher forms, leading toward perfection in communism. In the U.S.S.R., science fiction assumed that aliens would all be Marxists because it was a fundamental law of the universe.
Even in the case of evolution, there are minds with intentions. Our ancestors wanted certain things, and the ones who were able to get them passed on their programming to the next generations.
Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
My answer would be that individual intentions are ultimately the only thing that matters, but they are shaped by cultures which use abstractions to communicate and connect. Social control means learning which abstractions will stick, like finding a catchy tune, but the most memorable ideas aren't always the best. When an internalized abstraction leads to negative consequences, people tend to rebel against it and find…
Who decides when the “tune” of an abstraction becomes stale? The people, but which people? And how is it determined that an institution is yielding negative or positive results?
Every individual makes this judgment all the time. When people notice a problem with their ideologies, sometimes they will just ignore the issues, and other times they will decide to rebel. When enough people make that choice not to follow the tune, there's a revolution. That's why power is so precarious. It's hard to get people to dance to the same tune forever.
Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing with authorization is... well... you can have authorization to go to a public park. But carving up a park bench is very much not authorized. You can be "able" to do something when the public has access to it. However the ethics of altering property that belongs to somebody else tends to lean from anywhere from "okay if you have permission" to "heavily illegal". Anybody can install spyware on a public comput…
Do I have authorization to sketch highly-accurate versions of people's faces in that public park?
Public park yes, but in an Apple store is a different question entirely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_panorama#Laws_aroun...
Re: People Staring at Computers (2021)
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right... but who's interest should the law here represent? There is no single common interest: this guy wants to install spyware and hijack pictures of customers for his own ends; apple doenst want that; customers dont want that (or even, of course, know about it!). So "immorality"-wise, who here are you empathising with? I, as a customer entering a store, do NOT want any burden to go and google whether that store ha…
A better question to start with is "where does the law fit into this?" What is the material consequence of this action? How does this affect people's lives? Why is that something that needs legislation? I'm not implying that there are no consequences, I'm curious how you interpret the issue.
> What is the material consequence of this action
Almost none. Which is why there was no further prosecution.
> Why is that something that needs legislation
Because this is very similar to other acts that could have worse consequences. Consider instead of "installed funny spyware on apple laptops" was replaced with "installed funny spyware on ATMs".