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Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

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Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#91

Post by partloyaldemon »

in_absentia wrote: post #47

Many geeks are the embodiment of the "don't trust the government" / "don't trust corporations" counterculture, but when equity grants entered the equation, we architected much of the modern techno-surveillance state. Flock is an YC company. Probably a quarter of the people who frequent this site work at Meta or Google. We're always eager to say how much we dislike it, but there's so little self-reflection in our comm…

25% of hacker news readership works at meta or google? You mean 25% of meta and google reads Hn, no?

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#92

Post by in_absentia »

esseph wrote: post #66
in_absentia wrote: post #47

Many geeks are the embodiment of the "don't trust the government" / "don't trust corporations" counterculture, but when equity grants entered the equation, we architected much of the modern techno-surveillance state. Flock is an YC company. Probably a quarter of the people who frequent this site work at Meta or Google. We're always eager to say how much we dislike it, but there's so little self-reflection in our comm…

> Probably a quarter of the people who frequent this site work at Meta or Google. No, lol That would make up between 0.3% and 0.5% of the global tech workforce, if you added all of their employees together.

HN is not a forum for the global IT workforce. It's a portal attached to a VC firm, populated to a large extent by people in the SF Bay Area who work in big tech or various VC-funded startups.

I've gotten some traffic from HN before and if I recall correctly, about 30% of it was from California, followed by Washington (Seattle) and then NY.

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#93

Post by atmavatar »

autoexec wrote: post #5

Cell phones are so useful that I'm not surprised that people are willing to bug themselves and their homes with them, but wearables offer so much less while being just as invasive. I suspect that people will take the bait anyway. I don't see very many "glassholes" running around though, and there was a lot of pushback against "friend" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_(product)

The average person doesn't like being recorded without their consent. That is why they've come up with epithets like "glasshole" for people using wearables where it's very in-your-face and obvious that you're being recorded. It's also why we see as much widespread vandalization against Flock cameras.

The problem is: it's not obvious to most people your cell phone (or TV, or car, etc.) would start recording you without your consent or knowledge. It's only just starting to become common knowledge that your phone's location data is being captured and shared with everyone.

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#94

Post by joquarky »

in_absentia wrote: post #47

Many geeks are the embodiment of the "don't trust the government" / "don't trust corporations" counterculture, but when equity grants entered the equation, we architected much of the modern techno-surveillance state. Flock is an YC company. Probably a quarter of the people who frequent this site work at Meta or Google. We're always eager to say how much we dislike it, but there's so little self-reflection in our comm…

This accelerated with the crypto gold rush attracting all the brogrammers.

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#96

Post by esseph »

in_absentia wrote: post #92
esseph wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably a quarter of the people who frequent this site work at Meta or Google. No, lol That would make up between 0.3% and 0.5% of the global tech workforce, if you added all of their employees together.

HN is not a forum for the global IT workforce. It's a portal attached to a VC firm, populated to a large extent by people in the SF Bay Area who work in big tech or various VC-funded startups. I've gotten some traffic from HN before and if I recall correctly, about 30% of it was from California, followed by Washington (Seattle) and then NY.

> HN is not a forum for the global IT workforce.

What things are intended to be and what they become are often vastly different things.

There's huge amount of cross-pollination on HN, even from non-IT industry participants.

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#97

Post by autoexec »

atmavatar wrote: post #93
autoexec wrote: post #5

Cell phones are so useful that I'm not surprised that people are willing to bug themselves and their homes with them, but wearables offer so much less while being just as invasive. I suspect that people will take the bait anyway. I don't see very many "glassholes" running around though, and there was a lot of pushback against "friend" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_(product)

The average person doesn't like being recorded without their consent. That is why they've come up with epithets like "glasshole" for people using wearables where it's very in-your-face and obvious that you're being recorded. It's also why we see as much widespread vandalization against Flock cameras. The problem is: it's not obvious to most people your cell phone (or TV, or car, etc.) would start recording you withou…

It's interesting to see how people behave so differently when it's covert. When they can't see the person behind the camera it's as if becomes less real to them. I've seen videos of people screaming at someone for filming or taking photos in public while standing directly under surveillance cameras.

Even after being told about the cameras around them or the fact that every Tesla that drives past them is also recording they're still convinced the threat is the one person holding a camera. It just never occurs to them that the street photographer is not only less likely to use what they capture against them, but is also far less capable of causing harm even if they wanted to.

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#98

Post by pasteleft »

HelloUsername wrote: post #15

"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…

The whole point of the debate is that "those around them" didn't agree to send their so-called "de-identified" data to Apple. In fact, "those around them" had no chance to agree/disagree at all.

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#99

Post by dd8601fn »

Byvrsakjo10 wrote: post #60
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.

Yeah, even with Meta glasses like those things record everything that the user sees, but the flock camera situation is really concerning their cameras are everywhere and I think they can also hear what people are saying

There was a time when I was very, “taking a photograph in public of a publicly visible thing is legal and should remain so.”

Now I’m kinda feeling like this Meta glasses shit should be straight-up illegal. These really aren’t for people doing art or documenting civil rights violations or anything.

I realize it makes me a kind of hypocrite, but it’s all so creepy now.

Re: Dystopian Surveillance Is Becoming a Reality

#100

Post by pllbnk »

in_absentia wrote: post #83
pllbnk wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A regular person who happened to be smart (and possibly hardworking) has to choose between $100k regular software engineering job at a company with low social impact or $400k at a cream-of-the-crop company, which will further add on the specialist's value by the virtue of having this company's name on their CV. This is a life-changing amount of money which compounds over the years, where a person can genuinely start…

Having principles is about making choices that are difficult, not about making choices that are easy. "I didn't really want to build a panopticon, why didn't the government stop me" is not a particularly sympathetic position to take (even if true).

I guess “having principles” doesn’t scale.
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