Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data • Hacker News Board

Re: Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

#11

Post by atmosx » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 8:34 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #3

Meet Jack. Or what the government could do with all these planes >Article showing how half of San Francisco gets bombed This argument can only hold on water by having a complete lack of faith in the rule of law. The biggest issue I have with this is that this describes a massive , coordinated system to use all this location data in ways that are way outside the legal framework in place by the initial court order from…

> Just because the data is at the NSA doesn't mean they can use it however they want, just like how Google would run into some problems if it tried to sell the contents of your e-mails to somebody.

I am not sure you are listening, what is happening around you.

> This anger at the NSA should also be directed at the congressmen voting for these laws of large scope in the first place. Hopefully we can get rid of NSLs too. But the NSA is just doing the most it can with the tools we give it (which is what we expect). And rule of law is actually working, we just have some shitty laws.

It's working for whom? Presumably these laws require a little bit less privacy for a more secure country. I didn't see Boston bombings avoided. If the answer to this is please give us more privacy, to avoid this in the future, I'd say no.

Re: Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

#12

Post by rtpg » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 8:46 PM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #11

rtpg wrote: post #3

Meet Jack. Or what the government could do with all these planes >Article showing how half of San Francisco gets bombed This argument can only hold on water by having a complete lack of faith in the rule of law. The biggest issue I have with this is that this describes a massive , coordinated system to use all this location data in ways that are way outside the legal framework in place by the initial court order from…

> Just because the data is at the NSA doesn't mean they can use it however they want, just like how Google would run into some problems if it tried to sell the contents of your e-mails to somebody. I am not sure you are listening , what is happening around you. > This anger at the NSA should also be directed at the congressmen voting for these laws of large scope in the first place. Hopefully we can get rid of NSLs t…

>It's working for whom? Presumably these laws require a little bit less privacy for a more secure country.

The fisa court is an example of laws working in our favor. Before the fisa court, the executive could basically do what it wanted wrt "terrorist/spy" suspects. It's only after Congress intervened that we got something that tries to strike a balance between the need to investigate sensitive subjects and the need to have somebody check executive privelege.

>I didn't see Boston bombings avoided. A patient at a hospital goes in for surgery and dies on the operating table. Is medicine useless?

You have absolutely no way of measuring how much security a set of laws has given us, short of going back in time and replaying the same universe without the laws. And even then, these events are so dependent on singular events that it's hard to say what would work.

A related argument is how only X people died in Boston, while 100X people died in car crashes in the past week. Except that the Boston bombings are a singular event, and it only takes one/two arrests to stop X people from dying. 100X car deaths is probably 50X different accidents, each due to varying causes. Of course we'll want to go after the "small big wins". It seems easier to tackle.

If you think that, as a society, we can stop a somewhat constant N bad things from happening, then it's only normal for us to run after the biggest bad things and try to stop that, even if there's X tiny problems, with X much larger than N, that are easier to deal with.

Re: Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

#13

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 8:47 PM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #11

rtpg wrote: post #3

Meet Jack. Or what the government could do with all these planes >Article showing how half of San Francisco gets bombed This argument can only hold on water by having a complete lack of faith in the rule of law. The biggest issue I have with this is that this describes a massive , coordinated system to use all this location data in ways that are way outside the legal framework in place by the initial court order from…

> Just because the data is at the NSA doesn't mean they can use it however they want, just like how Google would run into some problems if it tried to sell the contents of your e-mails to somebody. I am not sure you are listening , what is happening around you. > This anger at the NSA should also be directed at the congressmen voting for these laws of large scope in the first place. Hopefully we can get rid of NSLs t…

[deleted]

Re: Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

#14

Post by john_b » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 8:54 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #4

I understand the importance of focusing on the government, but I think use of this sort of data should be restricted for everyone, not just the government. What happens when employers realize that you can filter out less desirable employees by correlating the movements of their social groups and cross-referencing it against credit history databases? We fear what the government can do with the data, but as a practical…

This is what bothers me about most of America's large tech companies' recent opposition to various NSA programs. They pioneered many of the techniques (albeit independently...usually) yet now point their fingers at the government.

Re: Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

#15

Post by ninjac0der » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 8:55 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #4

I understand the importance of focusing on the government, but I think use of this sort of data should be restricted for everyone, not just the government. What happens when employers realize that you can filter out less desirable employees by correlating the movements of their social groups and cross-referencing it against credit history databases? We fear what the government can do with the data, but as a practical…

History indicates to me that they're one and the same and will work together for the common goal of fleecing the masses.

Re: Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

#16

Post by angersock » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 8:58 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #3

Meet Jack. Or what the government could do with all these planes >Article showing how half of San Francisco gets bombed This argument can only hold on water by having a complete lack of faith in the rule of law. The biggest issue I have with this is that this describes a massive , coordinated system to use all this location data in ways that are way outside the legal framework in place by the initial court order from…

This argument can only hold on water by having a complete lack of faith in the rule of law.

A lack of faith pretty well justified at this point.

I appreciate the annoyance at "oh noes teh NSA!", but this article exactly points out the problem: local, not state or federal, authorities are where this will be an issue.

Everyone is busy hopping on the "fuck the NSA" bus, and that conveniently draws fire from the numerous local police departments that are expanding their own reach.

Don't get distracted--the same data is just as dangerous (if not more dangerous) in the hands of local officials than some folks at an alphabet-soup agency.

Re: Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

#17

Post by john_b » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 9:01 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #3

Meet Jack. Or what the government could do with all these planes >Article showing how half of San Francisco gets bombed This argument can only hold on water by having a complete lack of faith in the rule of law. The biggest issue I have with this is that this describes a massive , coordinated system to use all this location data in ways that are way outside the legal framework in place by the initial court order from…

> "This argument can only hold on water by having a complete lack of faith in the rule of law. The biggest issue I have with this is that this describes a massive , coordinated system to use all this location data in ways that are way outside the legal framework in place by the initial court order from the FISA court."

The article title includes "What the Government Could Do With All That Location Data". The emphasis is on what is technically possible, not on what is legal. Given the vast expansion of legal authority to collect and use data on American citizens over the past decade, the article rightly looks at what is possible tomorrow based on the data of today, because what is legal tomorrow cannot be predicted accurately.

I entirely agree that the anger over the Snowden revelations should be first directed at the US congressmen responsible for authorizing these programs in the first place. However, much of what they authorized wasn't even public information until Snowden came along, so your argument that we should not worry much about the infrastructure of the surveillance state because the laws of that state prohibit such surveillance is undermined by the enormous secrecy with which it operates. We don't even know how some intelligence agencies interpret the laws that have been written. In an environment filled with so much legal uncertainty, knowing what is technologically possible, and knowing what the incentives surrounding that technology are, is extremely valuable.

Re: Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

#18

Post by CodeMage » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 9:05 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #5

Setting aside morality for a moment, that's a pretty cool little system there. What havoc would be wrought if such a system were public? Heh, the mind reels.

Really? You want to know what havoc can be wrought by misuse of information sharing? Here: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/sexting-shame-and-s...

Re: Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

#19

Post by diminoten » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 9:10 PM UTC

CodeMage wrote: post #18

diminoten wrote: post #5

Setting aside morality for a moment, that's a pretty cool little system there. What havoc would be wrought if such a system were public? Heh, the mind reels.

Really? You want to know what havoc can be wrought by misuse of information sharing? Here: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/sexting-shame-and-s...

I was thinking more along the lines of a per-county twitter feed:

    SUSPECTED DRUNK DRIVER HEADING EASTBOUND I-29 LICENSE WVY-3455

Or just generally knowing where everyone is at all times. I know you're out of your home currently, so I could go rob it. But then you'd see I was in your home without permission, so I'd be easily caught. But then I guess I wouldn't have to lock my door, because everyone is accountable.

Besides, those kids are operating under the false assumption that privacy still exists. Once you know you're being watched, you behave differently.

Re: Meet Jack. Or, What The Government Could Do With All That Location Data

#20

Post by rtpg » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 9:11 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #16

rtpg wrote: post #3

Meet Jack. Or what the government could do with all these planes >Article showing how half of San Francisco gets bombed This argument can only hold on water by having a complete lack of faith in the rule of law. The biggest issue I have with this is that this describes a massive , coordinated system to use all this location data in ways that are way outside the legal framework in place by the initial court order from…

This argument can only hold on water by having a complete lack of faith in the rule of law. A lack of faith pretty well justified at this point. I appreciate the annoyance at "oh noes teh NSA!", but this article exactly points out the problem: local, not state or federal, authorities are where this will be an issue. Everyone is busy hopping on the "fuck the NSA" bus, and that conveniently draws fire from the numerous…

do local police have access to this data though? Maybe I've missed something, but the cell phone data has been through PRISM, and that local police doesn't have access to this sort of information.