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Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

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Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#11

Post by bad_haircut72 »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #4

> I don’t like the idea that anything I say in a public setting...could end up in a transcript summary on someone’s personal device. My friend, if there's a reporter standing behind you, it could end up on the nightly news. And it's been that way forever. Certainly, a plethora of terrifyingly broad data collection greatly exacerbates the problem, but it's not a new problem. > bla bla bla...Amazon Echo...listening in…

Every single time any article about how terrible things are / how its getting worse, someone always pipes in about how "this has always been a problem" - which is a completely useless observation that in practice only has the effect of normalizing the terribleness.

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#13

Post by lbrito »

gblargg wrote: post #9

> I don’t like the idea that anything I say in a public setting or in a conversation with others could end up in a transcript summary on someone’s personal device. Pretty minor if it's just that individual. But for certain this means there is a transcript on Apple's servers that can be subpoenaed by law enforcement, or sooner or later, searchable without a warrant.

It certainly will _not_ be just for that individual.

Believing in that would be like believing web tracking is only ever used to "enhance your browsing experience".

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#14

Post by dgoldstein0 »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #4

> I don’t like the idea that anything I say in a public setting...could end up in a transcript summary on someone’s personal device. My friend, if there's a reporter standing behind you, it could end up on the nightly news. And it's been that way forever. Certainly, a plethora of terrifyingly broad data collection greatly exacerbates the problem, but it's not a new problem. > bla bla bla...Amazon Echo...listening in…

Re smart speakers / Google Assistant etc I think there have even been some lawsuits about inadvertent recording. I think they get it right most of the time, so my impression has been the lawsuits are about the mistakes.

That all said, as a technologist in the past I could say "of course they aren't recording you and data mining your conversations" because that's obviously an expensive and complicated proposition when much cheaper forms of data mining exist. But with AI advancements I think that calculus could change - the systems that could do this are already being built for other reasons; the main reason to not do it is cost but that's being eroded.

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#15

Post by HelloUsername »

"Audio Intelligence features are private by design, combining hardware, software, and services to protect user privacy in a way that only Apple can. These features do not create or store audio recordings, and raw audio used for processing is completely inaccessible to the operating systems, apps, the user, or Apple. By design, Audio Intelligence features do not identify and attribute speakers, to protect the privacy of both the user and those around them. Siri Recap produces a brief, high-level summary of conversations — not a transcript — and is designed to exclude sensitive information like financial information or government-assigned identifiers. Live Rewind text snippets and Siri Recap summaries are end-to-end encrypted in the Siri app with iCloud syncing, and are not accessible even by Apple. Read more about how Audio Intelligence protects privacy:" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49632685

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#17

Post by lbrito »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #4

> I don’t like the idea that anything I say in a public setting...could end up in a transcript summary on someone’s personal device. My friend, if there's a reporter standing behind you, it could end up on the nightly news. And it's been that way forever. Certainly, a plethora of terrifyingly broad data collection greatly exacerbates the problem, but it's not a new problem. > bla bla bla...Amazon Echo...listening in…

>My friend, if there's a reporter standing behind you, it could end up on the nightly news. And it's been that way forever.

Can't tell if this is meant to be ironic or not. Are you seriously comparing a future consumer product to be potentially sold in the hundreds of millions with TV news reporters?

That's the most HN spin I've seen this year

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#19

Post by tsunamifury »

The core issue with mass, high detail survellance is 1) the chilling effect and 2) the construction of guilt effect

When every single thing you do is put under a microscope you will be found guilty of nearly anthing. It will be possible to construct a believable number of crimes that you commited from circumstantial evidence and/or the pile of minor offenses citizens commit every day.

The american system would defacto flip into "you are guilty, we just need to find out of what." and this becomes a way to control and witchhunt a population into silence and complaince.

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