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25 years of mass surveillance is enough

schneier.com

241–250 of 385 posts

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could make this statement about any group at all. Yes, that's the point > And then once you realize people are in multiple groups, the whole thing devolves into chaos. You have bad priors. That would only happen if groups could only have singular and simple goals. It requires those goals to be mutually exclusive. Because as soon as they overlap, even just a little, cooperation becomes an effective strategy. Hel…

Nobody is suggesting nobody or group cooperates on anything ever. This comment could go in the definition section of "strawman". My comment was in response to the idea that there is "a conspiracy of the elite". It's just an absurd idea to anyone who has spent time in the world working with people, both "elite" and non "elite". In the bay area you'll find thousands and thousands of people who have worked at a company…

But the comment above wasn't about an explicit conspiracy, with billionaires meeting in dark rooms colluding. It was about implicit, uncoordinated conspiracy, where objectives align. My comment is defending the latter

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#242

I find it ironic that in the US, there's this social movement against Flock cameras - which have shown real results in tracking down criminals - while everyone walks around all the time with a personal tracking device in the form of a smart phone. That's wayyyy more invasive than cameras along roads.

Stop posting this bullshit argument. the people arguing against Flock are the same people who argue for privacy rights around cellular phone data, availability of encrypted messaging etc. It's thanks to them that the government still needs to get a warrant instead of just doing a search.

Anyone making this argument of yours is also smart enough to be aware of the privacy efforts. Pretending not to know about them is bullshit.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to contradict itself. You first claim that there's no organization but then you claim billionaires have no power because of the more powerful above them. Hierarchy is organization, so which is it

No, nothing above them. No power. That's the point. In a couple years Trump will be gone and he'll be kowtowing to others and so on. There is no group in charge. No one is in charge.

If that is true then we all are in charge and it is up to all of us. As you agreed elsewhere, cooperation exists.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#244

I suspect that Mass Surveillance is here for good, and the real project is to regain control of who gains the power and benefits. There are dozens if not 100s of ways that mass surveillance can improve human life. There are also as many where it can be abused to create suffering. I think the real issue is we're trending to the latter. In order to safely continue down this path we (USA) need: 1. EU style governmental…

power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. technology is unlocking unprecedented levels of power. make no mistake mass surveillance = power, nothing else. any benefit to society is accidental, not the goal. we don't need this kind power in hands of nobody.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The red scare of the 1950s was ridiculous enough, but at least the Soviet Union was an actual threat. We are now at a point where “pro-transgender” is the new threat?

Sure, if you conveniently drop the qualifying word "radically". But that's not what was said. What was said specifically included the word "radically" for a good reason. Radical anything is a threat.

This is the kind of sarcasm on HN that will draw a ton of comments. Good job on really nailing the psyche of the HN community.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to hand wave away all the negative effects of mass surveillance. Car theft is bad, but sleepwalking into dictatorship is worse. There’s also plenty of options for solving car theft that aren’t dystopian.

Your phone in your pocket is a much more powerful surveillance device. That's my point, it's just pure hivemind to freak out about traffic cameras. I find it pretty dystopian that CVS has to lock up cheap products because society has failed to punish criminals.

CVS has to lock up products because society has failed to reward hard working people with a living wage.

Claiming a society exists while at the same time claiming "fuck you, i got mine", isn't so much a society as "every person for themselves", which, ironically is what you're actually complaining about.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is suggesting nobody or group cooperates on anything ever. This comment could go in the definition section of "strawman". My comment was in response to the idea that there is "a conspiracy of the elite". It's just an absurd idea to anyone who has spent time in the world working with people, both "elite" and non "elite". In the bay area you'll find thousands and thousands of people who have worked at a company…

But the comment above wasn't about an explicit conspiracy, with billionaires meeting in dark rooms colluding. It was about implicit, uncoordinated conspiracy, where objectives align. My comment is defending the latter

Maybe I'm overindexing on "they steer" and "effective strategy" - it still reads that this group has way more control and deliberate planning than they do.

And, "implicit, uncoordinated conspiracy" is an oxymoron. The word "conspiracy" has a definition.

If all you are saying is "sometimes billionaires are aligned" - sure. Sometimes politicians are aligned. Sometimes teammates are aligned. If one wants a platitude with some predictive power "people are self interested" is going to work more often.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is suggesting nobody or group cooperates on anything ever. This comment could go in the definition section of "strawman". My comment was in response to the idea that there is "a conspiracy of the elite". It's just an absurd idea to anyone who has spent time in the world working with people, both "elite" and non "elite". In the bay area you'll find thousands and thousands of people who have worked at a company…

But the comment above wasn't about an explicit conspiracy, with billionaires meeting in dark rooms colluding. It was about implicit, uncoordinated conspiracy, where objectives align. My comment is defending the latter

Exactly, there is no conspiracy, there’s just multiple actors moving predictably in the same direction, and sometimes coordinating weakly. I don’t know how my comments could have been read otherwise.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the comment above wasn't about an explicit conspiracy, with billionaires meeting in dark rooms colluding. It was about implicit, uncoordinated conspiracy, where objectives align. My comment is defending the latter

Maybe I'm overindexing on "they steer" and "effective strategy" - it still reads that this group has way more control and deliberate planning than they do. And, "implicit, uncoordinated conspiracy" is an oxymoron. The word "conspiracy" has a definition. If all you are saying is "sometimes billionaires are aligned" - sure. Sometimes politicians are aligned. Sometimes teammates are aligned. If one wants a platitude wit…

“People are self interested” works fine as long as you extend the analysis to include the class dimension. People in a specific class are generally going to advocate on behalf of that class, because it benefits them to do so. No conspiracy needed.

Re: 25 years of mass surveillance is enough

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Muslim. Born in the US. I've seen politicians and right wing public figures call my entire faith anti-American. One of them just had a nice memorial for their one-year since their death. The term may have had an agreed upon meaning at some point, but not anymore. Edit: it seems like most right-wing people conflate "non-Christian" with "anti-American". i don't know what's worse; the fact that these people say and…

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> your faith is also a political institution

This is half-right. Islam does have its own political system, but the faith is largely divorced from that system.

I'm fairly active in my mosque and ive met a lot of community members running for various levels of public office. None of them are calling for Islamic jurisprudence, and none of the policies they promote are obviously "anti-American," unless you consider a higher standard of living for the lower and middle class or higher accountability for the ruling class anti-American. I suppose historically speaking those concepts are anti-American but whether that's a good or bad thing can be left as an exercise to the reader.

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