Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance • Hacker News Board

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#141

Post by fsflover » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

jnsie wrote: post #134

scottLobster wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key issue in your analogy being that we know T1D will actually have long-term consequences if left untreated. We don't yet know the cost of "lack of privacy". Part of me wonders if privacy advocates will be on the same level as doomsday preppers in a few decades, at least in the Democratic world. It's not that they were wrong to prepare for nuclear war given the information available during the Cold War, it's jus…

I agree with your points and think "convenience" is an oft misused term in this context. It is "inconvenient" for me to go downstairs to pick up my Uber Eats delivery. It is nothing short of toil to do the multitude of things required to guard privacy/kidneys. I'll add, with regard to T1D, that I am fortunate enough to have an endocrinologist who is effectively an expert tasked with staying up to date with the scienc…

Electronic Frontier Foundation is one such privacy-helping nonprofit one can trust.

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#142

Post by eloff » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 8:02 PM UTC

manquer wrote: post #130

eloff wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does sound closer to the the relationship between the state and say a defence contractor company. That doesn't mean everything the company does is to support the objectives of the state, or approved by the state, but it does mean they're not unaffiliated either.

Refusal to allow to sue on grounds that they are already regulated by the government ministry is basically saying their client list/operations is approved by the government ?

It's basically just that the Israeli ministry of defence has to approve their sales because the software is classified as a weapon.

You can't conflate that with the company being an extension of the state though, as the GP did.

They're separate entities with separate objectives. A reasonable comparison would be to Lockheed Martin or Raytheon in the US.

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#143

Post by smashah » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

sudosysgen wrote: post #135

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some axis irrelevant to the issue at hand Someone asked why Israel is considered a "beacon of democracy" in the region. That opens the conversation to why liberal democracies elevate it over the region's autocracies. The tolerance it shares with other liberal documents is germane.

There are straight up dictatorships that protect gay rights and democracies that don't. I don't see why it's a relevant axis.

This tactic of dipping your true intentions in the aesthetics of progress is new and designed to trick people with a north-star cause to sympathize with the oppressor.

Unfortunately it only takes a few brain cycles for even the simplest of persons to realise that upholding apartheid because #girlpower is a sad stretch and a half.

It's relevant because the goal is to delegitimize criticism of apartheid and it's export of oppression to its neighbours.

There is no other point of relevance to my original comment and, in all honesty, it amounts to blatant propogandising. I'll just leave it at that.

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#144

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

smashah wrote: post #143

sudosysgen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are straight up dictatorships that protect gay rights and democracies that don't. I don't see why it's a relevant axis.

This tactic of dipping your true intentions in the aesthetics of progress is new and designed to trick people with a north-star cause to sympathize with the oppressor. Unfortunately it only takes a few brain cycles for even the simplest of persons to realise that upholding apartheid because #girlpower is a sad stretch and a half. It's relevant because the goal is to delegitimize criticism of apartheid and it's export…

> It's relevant because the goal is to delegitimize criticism of apartheid and it's export of oppression to its neighbours

It's equally reductive to ignore those progressive elements on account of certain elements of repression.

It doesn't make them less murderous. And it doesn't de-legitimize criticism. But reality doesn't offer perfect choices. Every government is flawed; most have redeeming values. We must balance the former against the latter. Armchair enthusiasts can imagine perfect options, but reality isn't that forgiving to decision makers.

Israel's unregulated spyware, bordering on terrorism, is an international issue. Its apartheid state is an international issue. But the freedoms it affords a large number of its citizens stands in sharp contrast to its neighbors. That, too, is of international interest. Acknowledging that is not a diversion and does not de-legitimize the criticism--it contextualists it.

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#145

Post by dnautics » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #140

dnautics wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think deference to authority is inherently human, there are plenty of humans who resist authority to various degrees independent of socialization. It might be a "median" human quality though

There is a difference in belief that the authority is good in general and accepting the existing authority; when I talk about deference to authority, I mean the former, but it doesn't always translate to or imply the latter. I think it is a useful value (and so it evolved in humans), because it forms the basis of parent-child relationship and the transfer of culture. So as young, we reluctantly defer to authority of…

> as young, we reluctantly defer to authority of our parents and other elders

Do you spend much time around children?

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#146

Post by cwkoss » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

mihaaly wrote: post #62

advael wrote: post #57

There's no way to stop shit like this from happening at scale if we keep making exceptions for law enforcement and international espionage Until people stop accepting busting drug dealers by tapping their phones, they're going to keep getting journalists and other random people having their phones tapped too. The hard line we need to take is that there is no legitimate use of this capability

I usually have an aversion to these clear cut principles and no exceptions here, in controlled situations we need tools to protect society, firarms are bad, arresting people should be avoided, track someone is a violation of privacy, but we need strongly controlled cases where we use it. Also forbidding it will not stop suveillance when it brings benefit to some.

Fundraising for the development of surveillance products would be much more challenging if there was no legal use for it. Right now, companies are encouraged to build whatever they think LEO and counter-terrorism would find useful, and people get shocked when they realize its also being sold to authoritarian third-world governments to use against political activists.

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#147

Post by smashah » Mon, Jul 19, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #144

smashah wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This tactic of dipping your true intentions in the aesthetics of progress is new and designed to trick people with a north-star cause to sympathize with the oppressor. Unfortunately it only takes a few brain cycles for even the simplest of persons to realise that upholding apartheid because #girlpower is a sad stretch and a half. It's relevant because the goal is to delegitimize criticism of apartheid and it's export…

> It's relevant because the goal is to delegitimize criticism of apartheid and it's export of oppression to its neighbours It's equally reductive to ignore those progressive elements on account of certain elements of repression. It doesn't make them less murderous. And it doesn't de-legitimize criticism. But reality doesn't offer perfect choices. Every government is flawed; most have redeeming values. We must balance…

It is not equally reductive because one reduction serves to perpetuate oppression, apartheid and empowers regimes that are the architects of roadblocks to progress. And the other reduction aims to remove the obstacles to dismantling all the above.

The only way the contextualisation is relevent to the original comment is if there's some value in appending this racist myth that "if those Arabs had their say then women would be on leashes and gays would be made into smoothies on-sight". Ironically, the contextualisation is the status quo. The contextualisation is a direct result of, among other things, Israel and it's complicit export of cyber oppression weapons.

And before someone claims that this is separate from the state, just consider that the export license would not be granted for a sale which would be detrimental to Israel's interests as a state. The base deduction is that it's in the interest of the state to keep its neighbours citizens in-check and for Israel to be known worldwide to be an exporter of these exact tools.

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#148

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 2:31 AM UTC

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #48

pattusk wrote: post #3

I don't think the problem is with the "lie" that the innocent need not fear surveillance. Most people will agree that mass-surveillance will negatively affect some people that are indispensable to healthily functioning liberal society: journalists, activists, academics, public figures... The problem is that even if most people don't subscribe to the "nothing to hide" argument in general, they do not care about themse…

"Having unsuccessfully tried to make family and acquaintances more aware of privacy issue, I can confidently sat that "nothing to hide" argument is nothing next to the "I don't care" attitude." You can express as much "confidence" as you like in saying that but as it stands, this is nothing more than another personal anecdote. If you were sure about your anecdotally-based conclusion, then what would be the purpose of…

    s/sacrafice/sacrifice/

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#149

Post by pasabagi » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #63

gingerlime wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, exactly. My mum, sister, brother and sister-in-law were all listed on the latest facebook leak (with ~500mil others). Yet none of them could be bothered to switch their phone number or get off facebook or whatsapp (even though they got signal and communicate with me on it once I moved away from whatsapp)… I feel pretty helpless to help them understand the risks. Or they just don’t calculate the risk vs hussle th…

In your opinion, what are the practical risks to them? What actual interference in their daily lives has the FB leak caused or is likely to cause, which would justify e.g. the effort and inconvenience of switching their phone number? Has anyone abused the data leak against them in some way? If not, how likely is that someone would actually do so?

Acquaintances of mine had the personal data used to give a believable aura to automated blackmail attempts ('we know what porn you're watching', etc). Which didn't work, but still, it's quite threatening having some random python script from Macedonia knowing a bunch of details about your private life.

Re: Huge data leak shatters the lie that the innocent need not fear surveillance

#150

Post by pasabagi » Tue, Jul 20, 2021, 5:00 AM UTC

Popegaf wrote: post #124

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The figth will only start after enough innocent surveillance victims are harmed in the real world (i.e. their data is leaked or worse) Sadly I doubt even this will happen. I lived in China and watched the CCP built their digital surveillance state. Like others say most people don't care because they have comfortable lives and/or are concerned with other issues they find more pressing. And so what if the government…

The reason people don't think it's bad to lose their privacy, is the same as why they don't take climate change seriously: the effects are more than a year out. Most likely they won't even feel the effects directly in their lifetime. On another note, have Chinese citizens ever been "free" since the one party system?

Freedom is not a binary state. In the UK, new laws are being brought in to ban demonstrations that cause annoyance. Does that make the UK unfree? It makes some people less free, but is it sufficient? Again, in the UK, the first-past-the-post voting system is widely understood to produce governments that don't reflect voter desires. Is that enough to say the country is not a democracy? It makes it less democratic than, say, PR countries like Germany.

I think authoritarianism is often as much about norms as it is about actual legal structures - and while the legal structures in China have changed just a little, the norms of government behaviour have shifted an enormous amount in the last ten years.