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ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

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Re: ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

#111

Post by stephantul »

ianbutler wrote: post #41
stephantul wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I guess I mean the pubic in general. I also don’t necessarily mean willfully creating technology that can be abused. For example, we all stood by when we let Twitter and other US-based social media become the main way politicians communicate with the public. This has, in my opinion, had disastrous consequences on how they communicate and actively blocks politicians from achieving consensus. This is to say that y…

I think that expecting the public to reason through the myriad n-order effects that were going to happen from the whiplash of technology in the last 30 years is a little much. However, I think a lot of people in tech could and did see those consequences coming and were pretty vocal about it. So, I don't think we all did stand by, we exercised what limited power we had. I don't want to seem accusatory here and I don't…

You are right, I do acknowledge their efforts but did not do so here, which I should have.

I don't necessarily mean to berate the public, but rather the politicians, who saw that they could use social media/big tech for their own personal gain, and the media, who went along with the narrative that putting all our public communication into privately owned platforms was good for democracy. And maybe our own governments and institutions (speaking from a EU perspective) for dropping the ball in protecting us.

I think Evgeny Morozov's 2010-ish writing was prophetic in this regard.

Re: ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

#112

Post by surgical_fire »

School-Cotton wrote: post #100
surgical_fire wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing voluntary when your options are homelessness and starvation. The bank won't accept your morals in lieu of money when accepting mortgage repayments. Thankfully I don't live in the US and I don't work for anything even remotely related to this. I don't know if I would have the fortitude in the current US job market (based on what I read here) to threat the well being of the wife and daughter by taking p…

Okay, I'll accept your point for those software engineers that have a choice between working at an immoral company or "homelessness and starvation". Thankfully, that isn't most of them. Despite the job market not being as good as it used to be, the vast majority of software engineers in the US could still find another job to pay the bills before becoming homeless and starving.

If that's the case, great then. I did work for a company I find morally objectionable in the past (i.e.: evil), and I eventually found my way out.

At the time I was still paying rent and needed employment to keep my visa. I also had little savings, and an ill parent that depended on me. I certainly couldn't take the principled stance of "fuck this, I'm out".

My point is that if you are in the position to take a principled stance, good for you. Maybe you already own your home, maybe you had time to accumulate savings, maybe you can do a few interviews and land a less evil job even in the current market (and perhaps a pay cut won't be a massive blow in you life). All that is awesome, but also a position of relative privilege.

Prescribing principled stance as universal without recognizing this is just cruelty though.

Re: ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

#113

Post by michaelsshaw »

whatever1 wrote: post #34

It’s quite obvious that all of these seemingly paranoid about privacy, were not that paranoid after all. For the software builders the conclusion is that we should not store ANY identifiable data.

Please do not stop using our product. Download this proprietary app. You can't (legally) know what it does. Please download and execute it. Please don't google the FSF or EFF. Please.

Re: ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

#114

Post by runsWphotons »

runsWphotons wrote: post #108
elnatro wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, enlighten me a non-American, what laws allow shooting and killing civilians on broad light on the USA?

When an officer has reasonable suspicion that a civilian poses a threat to his life, he can shoot them. Once police start shooting they are trained to continue shooting until the target is incapacitated. That's the law. Whether the recent shootings you saw meet that standard is up for debate.

Also the officer should believe this threat is imminent.

Re: ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

#115

Post by superb_dev »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #92
viraptor wrote: post #55

Since there's quite a few people here working at US companies with access to lots of user data, but they may not have decision making capacity, I just thought I'll link the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, out of context and for no reason at all https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/... If some data is shared with an external entity, it likely needs to be included in a few usual disclaimers, with a…

[flagged]

It’s so hard to believe people posting in support of ICE aren’t trolls or bots. Are you watching them commit obscene crimes in broad daylight?

Re: ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

#116

Post by michaelsshaw »

anonym29 wrote: post #31
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about blocking ads, but blocking tracking. If you connect to internet you are being tracked even though you block known tracking URLs. e.g. Hacker news uses no tracking url but uses Cloudflare which tracks the user across sites for things like bot detection.

You are not powerless. https://0xacab.org/dCF/deCloudflare

I love your URL!

Re: ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

#117

Post by dns_snek »

andsoitis wrote: post #70
testfrequency wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re not awake already, you support what’s happening. Blind, which I realize is a bit of the wild west, is full of racist anti-immigration/pro ICE hatred. Obviously, you can see where users work/worked, and it’s every company you could imagine. The sad reality is that a lot of people will do what they can to support racist agendas, possibly even motivate them to work at certain companies as it feels moralizing t…

> you support what’s happening. I don’t know that things are that black and white. Do you feel the same about the billions of consumers who buy and use the products these companies make?

No because employees are making the actual thing that inflicts harm while consumers' actions are completely diffused and many steps removed from the harm they cause. That's why ad-tech is so effective in the first place.

Consumer pays $1.10 for a can of coke, $0.10 of that goes to ad-tech, the consumer watches some coke ads, ad-tech pays $0.05 to the publisher and the consumer receives $0.05 in benefits in the form of "free ad-supported content" (which they already paid $0.10 for).

The only way for consumers to avoid this is to just stop spending money with any brand that advertises online, which is completely unrealistic and a much taller ask than asking employees to give up their deal with the devil (and work for just about anyone else except big tech).

Re: ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

#118

Post by michaelsshaw »

andsoitis wrote: post #74
anonym29 wrote: post #38

Don't forget - Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Oracle, etc are all proud partners of the US intelligence community, which includes DHS and ICE. When the NSA asked these companies to participate in an unconstitutional and unlawful program (as ruled by a federal judge) called PRISM, they didn't fight, they eagerly complied. They kept their compliance secret. They lied about it to citizens, to their users, to their cu…

What phone do you use?

Pixel 8 Pro with Graphene.

Re: ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

#119

Post by surgical_fire »

RGamma wrote: post #95
surgical_fire wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing voluntary when your options are homelessness and starvation. The bank won't accept your morals in lieu of money when accepting mortgage repayments. Thankfully I don't live in the US and I don't work for anything even remotely related to this. I don't know if I would have the fortitude in the current US job market (based on what I read here) to threat the well being of the wife and daughter by taking p…

Dilapidating the world for an easy buck is gonna bite you and/or your kids eventually. We have reached technological sophistication where certain kinds of mistakes are not allowed if civilization as we know it is to survive.

When the bank reposseses the house because you are not paying the mortgage, this will bite you and your kids too.

You can call it an "easy buck", and it is just coping. An easy way to make some poor schlemiel creating a miserable report with user location data during his sprint into a greedy bastard that is just enriching his bank account out of the suffering of plenty.

Re: ICE seeks industry input on ad tech location data for investigative use

#120

Post by BoredPositron »

frumplestlatz wrote: post #92
viraptor wrote: post #55

Since there's quite a few people here working at US companies with access to lots of user data, but they may not have decision making capacity, I just thought I'll link the Simple Sabotage Field Manual, out of context and for no reason at all https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/... If some data is shared with an external entity, it likely needs to be included in a few usual disclaimers, with a…

[flagged]

If you think enforcing the laws is the problem you are ignorant.
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