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She was chatting with friends in a Lyft. Then someone texted her what they said

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Re: She was chatting with friends in a Lyft. Then someone texted her what they said

#22
I hope what is happening in the US right now, with people getting deported for writing Op-Eds criticizing US foreign policy, is a temporarily thing and not the direction we are heading into.

But if it isn't temporarily, we should expect surveillance like discussed in this article to grow and our opinions to be monitored in a more pervasive fashion. It is a relatively trivial matter from a technology standpoint to feed in live feeds of opinions from FB, X, WhatsApp, BlueSky, as well as advertising data collections (from TVs, Taxi's etc) into a LLM powered summary of people's opinions and views and threat factors to the regime.

I could see a scenario where companies like Palantir create such a system for domestic usage in the US, and we should be honest that the big cloud providers like AWS and GCP and Microsoft would jump at the chance to host those systems, lots and lots of $$$ for them in this. This is just applying the technology in the US that has been pre-tested by Israel against the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It can definitely suppress dissidents and solidify state control.

This is just extrapolating into trends as a thought experiment that I hope are just temporary blips in the US's commitment to free speech and right to disagree with the government.

Re: She was chatting with friends in a Lyft. Then someone texted her what they said

#24
post #11
post #2

This seems a bit of an overreaction. If im entering a gas station, I assume Im being recorded. Same should be true for a cab or rideshare.

If you are entering a gas station you are only for ~5 min. In a cab you are sometimes for half an hour - If somebody call you during a ride it's weird to tell "sorry I will call you later because I'm in a cab and being recorded honey" I'm not sure if this is in US but at least in EU you are only allowed to record video without audio with security cameras.

> EU you are only allowed to record video without audio with security cameras.

Audio recording with security cameras is not prohibited everywhere in the EU, it is heavily regulated. Organizations must ensure compliance with GDPR.

Re: She was chatting with friends in a Lyft. Then someone texted her what they said

#25

With LLMs and the new transcription models it’s too easy for an individual to implement mass surveillance. You could easily plant listening devices around a cafe and pick up every conversation. I don’t think we’ve properly internalized this as a society. While I’m not saying to be paranoid everywhere you go, I do this there should be reasonable expectation of being tapped in higher value areas where people like to ca…

The last Lyft I took had two big stickers on the rear passenger-side window warning that by getting into the car, I give consent to being videotaped and audio recorded. But what are you going to do? Not get in? Then you have to pay a no-show fee, and eventually get banned from the app.

> But what are you going to do? Not get in?

Not call a Lyft the next time.

Re: She was chatting with friends in a Lyft. Then someone texted her what they said

#26

With LLMs and the new transcription models it’s too easy for an individual to implement mass surveillance. You could easily plant listening devices around a cafe and pick up every conversation. I don’t think we’ve properly internalized this as a society. While I’m not saying to be paranoid everywhere you go, I do this there should be reasonable expectation of being tapped in higher value areas where people like to ca…

The last Lyft I took had two big stickers on the rear passenger-side window warning that by getting into the car, I give consent to being videotaped and audio recorded. But what are you going to do? Not get in? Then you have to pay a no-show fee, and eventually get banned from the app.

Either “vote with your wallet” , which large companies love as it gives them the power (they have a bigger wallet), or vote with your vote and elect representatives which stop this.

Re: She was chatting with friends in a Lyft. Then someone texted her what they said

#27

With LLMs and the new transcription models it’s too easy for an individual to implement mass surveillance. You could easily plant listening devices around a cafe and pick up every conversation. I don’t think we’ve properly internalized this as a society. While I’m not saying to be paranoid everywhere you go, I do this there should be reasonable expectation of being tapped in higher value areas where people like to ca…

you should be paranoid everywhere you go, not in a tin foil hat way... but in a "don't say things aloud you wouldn't want to be recorded" way

Re: She was chatting with friends in a Lyft. Then someone texted her what they said

#28

I hope what is happening in the US right now, with people getting deported for writing Op-Eds criticizing US foreign policy, is a temporarily thing and not the direction we are heading into. But if it isn't temporarily, we should expect surveillance like discussed in this article to grow and our opinions to be monitored in a more pervasive fashion. It is a relatively trivial matter from a technology standpoint to fee…

> Could see a nightmare scenario where companies like Palantir create such a system for domestic usage in the US.

I can guarantee you such a system already exists.

Re: She was chatting with friends in a Lyft. Then someone texted her what they said

#30

Absolutely disgusting, collecting advertising data is out of control. I'm never taking a Lyft again.

Same. Even assuming there was human error (the driver), it is TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE that from a technical standpoint the recording of private conversations is possible. I can never trust Lyft again as long as they materially allow the recording of conversations.
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