Live data from Hacker News

How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]

thereader.mitpress.mit.edu

51–60 of 273 posts

Re: How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]

#51
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a shop won't accept cash, I just leave.

You weren't transacting at all in Toronto during COVID then. This is the endgame of surveillance capitalism: submission, or opting out. Few can, or care enough to, do the latter.

I'm as concerned about the surveillance state as anyone but let's keep our history constrained by fact. I live in Toronto too and it was still true that for many, many places cash was fine. Cash discounts are super common in various parts of the city and this was still true during COVID.

Re: How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You weren't transacting at all in Toronto during COVID then. This is the endgame of surveillance capitalism: submission, or opting out. Few can, or care enough to, do the latter.

I'm as concerned about the surveillance state as anyone but let's keep our history constrained by fact. I live in Toronto too and it was still true that for many, many places cash was fine. Cash discounts are super common in various parts of the city and this was still true during COVID.

> let's keep our history constrained by fact. I live in Toronto too

This is hilarious. Toronto has no respect for facts, it has shown it will just fabricate histories out of whole cloth.

Nevertheless I'm tired of people citing anecdata and personal experience when upthread I have linked to a CBC article discussing a Bank of Canada report "arguing that cash-based transactions have plummeted from 54 per cent in 2009 to 10 per cent as of 2021."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/canada-sleepwalking-in...

Re: How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]

#53

Entire generations of people who were never alive to remember a world where their every movement and utterance was not being tracked by the advertising/surveillance industrial complex. It's just considered normal now. The west is very sick.

You spelled world wrong. China has their social credit, EU has their cameras, America has Palantir, Starlink has internet everywhere, 5G can be used as radar, age verification is being deployed globally, ect... Babylon reborn. Edit: UK not EU

UK: hold my beer...

Re: How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we pretending this isn't a global phenomenon?

Of course all governments want to control every move and thought of their citizens. It makes governing easier. We expect that in autocracies. I don't know about The West as a bloc, but at least the USA was supposed to have respect for the basic individualistic privacy and freedom of the average citizen. We've allowed that to largely evaporate. The differences between the US and something like the PRC are rapidly erod…

> Of course all governments want to control every move and thought of their citizens. It makes governing easier. We expect that in autocracies.

Are you implying that all governments are autocracies? Rather pessimistic view, in my opinion.

Re: How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]

#55
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a shop won't accept cash, I just leave.

You weren't transacting at all in Toronto during COVID then. This is the endgame of surveillance capitalism: submission, or opting out. Few can, or care enough to, do the latter.

> You weren't transacting at all in Toronto during COVID then.

There's always someone will to take cash. It's still king, despite the naysayers.

Re: How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations, you are the 1 in 10. This is why we don't use anecdata. > Even a report commissioned by the Bank of Canada suggests it's time to protect access to money. > That report, titled "Social policy implications for a less-cash society," recommends legislative action, arguing that cash-based transactions have plummeted from 54 per cent in 2009 to 10 per cent as of 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/…

doesn't matter what the proportion is. the fact is i can still use cash, despite your very bold claim otherwise. whats your goal with the misinformation, anyways?

[flagged]

Re: How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we pretending this isn't a global phenomenon?

Overseas, cash is king. In Canada, and also in San Francisco, you can only tap your credit card because cash carries COVID [0]. [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cash-coronavirus-questions-an...

Credit cards are more convenient.

1. Double tap power button on a phone you are already holding

2. Tap the reader

Versus

1. Find an ATM

2. Take your wallet out of your pocket

3. Take your card out of your wallet

4. Spend a minute withdrawing cash from the ATM

5. Put the cash in your wallet

6. Put your wallet in your pants

7. Go to the actual place you want to spend money

8. Take your wallet out of your pocket

9. Take cash out of your wallet

10. Hand it over

11. Wait to receive change

12. Put the change in your wallet

13. Put your wallet in your pocket

If you want cash to make a resurgence you need to figure out how we can make a digital version of it.

Re: How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

doesn't matter what the proportion is. the fact is i can still use cash, despite your very bold claim otherwise. whats your goal with the misinformation, anyways?

[flagged]

>Why don't you just misgender me next while you're making assumptions?

what...?

>until people derailed it

by people, do you mean you? you are the one that brought up "overseas" vs. canada/san fran and made the false claim that you cant use cash in canada.

Re: How Mark Klein told the EFF about Room 641A [book excerpt]

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we pretending this isn't a global phenomenon?

Overseas, cash is king. In Canada, and also in San Francisco, you can only tap your credit card because cash carries COVID [0]. [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cash-coronavirus-questions-an...

The US adopted credit cards before the rest of the world, so we ended up with a worse network (essentially ossified at v1 when later adopters got v2 or v3).

Corona paranoia incentivized upgraded to tap-to-pay, but it was already prevalent in other parts of the world. It was more ubiquitous in Singapore in 2019 than it is in the US even now.

Post reply on HN