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Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

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Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#61

I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. Tell everyone you know to stop using their products. They have all been acquiring and amassing surveillance for years through their products and now they're just double dipping with AI training to sell you more of it. The more you can get people to realize and disconnect the better. I wish more people would use AI to build alternatives with a cl…

I'm not sure its necessarily that simple. For example, because of the job market for software engineers I have moved to new cities multiple times during my adult life. As a result, my social network is highly fragmented and without Facebook it would be incredibly difficult for me to manage.

So for me "stop using Facebook" sound similar to saying "burn all of your family photos and throw away your ability to talk to many of the people who are important to you."

I don't say this to necessarily mean that you are completely wrong, just to point out that opting out of these companies can be more complicated than it may initially appear.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No marketing team would willingly do this and it's insane to think otherwise.

And yet this went up. I understand it’s easy to just say “marketing teams don’t understand anything,“ but I have worked with many and they are incredibly sensitive to negative feelings/reactions. They get it wrong but they tend to air on the side of caution which means the vast majority of the time they avoid situations like this incredibly intentionally.

> on the side of caution which means the vast majority of the time they avoid situations like this

They'll avoid negative perception because this is their job, the message is still arbitrary.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#63

I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. Tell everyone you know to stop using their products. They have all been acquiring and amassing surveillance for years through their products and now they're just double dipping with AI training to sell you more of it. The more you can get people to realize and disconnect the better. I wish more people would use AI to build alternatives with a cl…

>I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products.

I noticed your own app's website [0] hosts videos on YouTube [1] and uses Stripe as a payment processor [2], which is hosted on AWS. You also mentioned that your app is vibe coded [3]; the AI labs that facilitated your vibecoding likely built and run their models using Meta's PyTorch or Google's TensorFlow.

"Just stop using" makes for a catchy manifesto in HackerNews comments, but the reality is a lot more complicated than that.

[0] https://wordsunite.us/

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbCM99cz9W8

[2] https://wordsunite.us/terms

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45644698

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#64

At this point, it's fair to assume that if the US government wanted to surveil you to a nefarious end, they absolutely could, easily, using things you bought to make your life more convenient. The keys then become: 1) Implementing policies discouraging them from doing so at the societal level and 2) Implementing force behind those policies at the personal and societal level DHS isn't getting paid right now because Kr…

Sadly ICE and CBP is still getting paid because it was already funded by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. [1]

So while some parts of DHS aren't funded, and it does give Democrats bargaining power, it could still end up in a situation like the October 2025 shutdown where they don't get meaningful change.

TSA employees won't get paid which could impact air travel. Probably not as bad as when FAA employees weren't getting paid but if it's bad enough the pressure for Democrats to cave again will be high.

[1] https://www.cato.org/blog/one-big-beautiful-bill-made-ice-sh...

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#65

This type of centralization breeds authoritarianism. See also the Iran protests. There’s too many single points of failure in technology. These systems become sources of oppression inevitably. How do we build a resilient system that doesn’t rely on single platforms?

> How do we build a resilient system that doesn’t rely on single platforms?

by making sure that compatibility is enshrined into law, so that competition occurs, rather than walled gardens.

It has to start at the top - gov't has to mandate it.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#66
I can say from direct experience Apple is not any better and at times much worse as they actively lie about their security measures by obscuring loopholes left open for direct government access as well as they cooperate with little to no push back.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#67

I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. Tell everyone you know to stop using their products. They have all been acquiring and amassing surveillance for years through their products and now they're just double dipping with AI training to sell you more of it. The more you can get people to realize and disconnect the better. I wish more people would use AI to build alternatives with a cl…

>I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. I noticed your own app's website [0] hosts videos on YouTube [1] and uses Stripe as a payment processor [2], which is hosted on AWS. You also mentioned that your app is vibe coded [3]; the AI labs that facilitated your vibecoding likely built and run their models using Meta's PyTorch or Google's TensorFlow. "Just stop using" makes for a catchy…

Someone commented on a HN threads on just de-googling and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account.

Just not using it is really unrealistic for the average person at this moment

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#68
post #39

I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. Tell everyone you know to stop using their products. They have all been acquiring and amassing surveillance for years through their products and now they're just double dipping with AI training to sell you more of it. The more you can get people to realize and disconnect the better. I wish more people would use AI to build alternatives with a cl…

That is going to work as the same as telling people to stop buying gas from Standard Oil or stop using Bell Telephone. Without government intervention you cannot break up their control.

I agree that government restrictions usually help if they're implemented well, but part of the issue is the government is benefiting from this kind of thing.

Also, most people don't actually need something like Amazon. Not to minimize the level of investment in it, but I don't see Amazon or Google as being quite the same as Bell or Standard Oil. Maybe between Google and Apple there's some kind of duopoly like that?

My impression is people don't value — either because they don't understand or minimize — things that protect privacy and anonymity. This is a standard refrain on these kinds of forums and elsewhere — "your typical person doesn't know or care about [feature X that preserves privacy, choice, and autonomy], they just want something that works and is fun". It's been belittled as unfashionable or paranoid or performative or something, when it's really something that's had short term costs that pale in comparison to the long-term costs.

I'm not saying governments don't need to be on the "right side" but I think people need to see security as involving not just encryption and so forth, but also decentralization, anonymity, demonopolization, and censorship resistance. It needs to be seen as part of the product or service benefits.

A lot of this reminds me of stuff from the 90s, when network security was ignored for awhile for customer convenience's sake. It seems really similar now, only the thing that's been ignored is like user control and privacy or something like that.

I think the thing that's surprising to me, for example, is that it takes a Super Bowl ad for people to realize that maybe there are downsides to letting a monopoly have access to video throughout the neighborhood everywhere.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#69
post #23

He’s not wrong but screw Glenn Greenwald. I assume his solution will be to back the current or next strongman, because strongman rule will save us? It’s like the “don’t tread on me” militia crowd voting by like a 90% margin for a regime that is now enacting every single one of the things they’ve been afraid of for 50 years: masked cops, opaque detention centers, assaulting (and murdering) people for legally exercisin…

I don’t see where you’re coming from. Greenwald is constantly pointing out abuses of power and hypocrisy in government. Have you actually read what he writes? He is in no way a fan of totalitarian strongmen.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#70
post #50
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rampant crime is largely made up.

Compared to other major western countries, the US has a serious problem with violent crime in particular.

If you remove like 250sq mi of land from that stat you can cut the violent crime stat by 90%.

There are some neighborhoods with more murders in a month than some whole states see in a couple years.

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