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Academics Against Mass Surveillance

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1–10 of 37 posts

Re: Academics Against Mass Surveillance

#2
While I agree in principle, opposing surveillance is like pissing into the wind. Privacy is becoming extinct. Soon devices and technologies will be impossible to regulate - specks of dust that record sound and location; recorders that stick to clothing, hair, skin; phones and tablets that come pre-infected in their OS and hardware.

We can oppose it, and maybe stave off for a few years, but inevitably we are all going under the microscope. Better to design new social mechanisms to protect against misuse of the data, than try and prevent its collection.

Re: Academics Against Mass Surveillance

#6

While I agree in principle, opposing surveillance is like pissing into the wind. Privacy is becoming extinct. Soon devices and technologies will be impossible to regulate - specks of dust that record sound and location; recorders that stick to clothing, hair, skin; phones and tablets that come pre-infected in their OS and hardware. We can oppose it, and maybe stave off for a few years, but inevitably we are all going…

> Better to design new social mechanisms to protect against misuse of the data, than try and prevent its collection.

The only way to achieve this, is to eliminate EVERY kind of asymmetry in society (which we should have achieved a long time ago, since we all always pretend that every life has the exact same value). If you keep any kind of asymmetry within society and accept mass surveillance, democracy is dead because mass surveillance will of course be abused to increase and further protect power monopolies.

This means, every kind of power would have to be distributed equally over every citizen. And that also means that everybody would have to receive the same amount of money per hour of work (all education being paid for by everybody, meaning entirely financed via taxes).

While that would be the perfect model and the most sane one, I doubt we are culturally mature enough to get there fast enough.

Re: Academics Against Mass Surveillance

#9

While I agree in principle, opposing surveillance is like pissing into the wind. Privacy is becoming extinct. Soon devices and technologies will be impossible to regulate - specks of dust that record sound and location; recorders that stick to clothing, hair, skin; phones and tablets that come pre-infected in their OS and hardware. We can oppose it, and maybe stave off for a few years, but inevitably we are all going…

Of course we can oppose surveillance. We can build anti-surveillance systems, and then we can demand companies to support them. Companies like Google could even use data mining in a way that doesn't infringe on user privacy. But their thinking will be "why change the status quo?".

That's why it's so important to fight for such changes, and not get trampled by the corporations and governments wishes for complete knowledge of a user/citizen. If Google doesn't like it, too bad. We'll just have to start supporting privacy-focused companies, and let Google die. That's capitalism, no? Adapt or become a dinosaur and die.

Re: Academics Against Mass Surveillance

#10
post #3

Is anyone else thinking that this is like signing up for a no-spam list? In other words, an invitation for spam?

As several of the recent 30c3 talks mentioned, the concept of "being a target" doesn't really apply when the goal is ubiquitous surveillance.
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