Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#221

Post by bcjdjsndon » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 9:37 AM UTC

notepad0x90 wrote: post #169

big85 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is possible to verify your age without disclosing who you are to the site you're visiting, and without disclosing what site you visited to the government. I can't believe people are really okay with a system where you have to show your real face to access websites. Cameras on phones went from a novelty to a government mandate so you can be observed. There are various other potential methods to verify one's age,…

> The only permitted ones require your to link your real-life identity. This is a huge boon to the intelligence services and law enforcement. Then let's talk about THAT!! why is that not the discussion instead of "nah, we'll find a solution some other day, for now, let's not solve anything"?? > Even among the few permitted verification methods, These laws are still being debated, what's permitted has not been decided…

>People can see your face and make decisions when they interact with you IRL, they can't over the internet

Man you're just reaching at this point... Should we ban telephones, and written correspondence also? You're hysterical

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#222

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 9:40 AM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #18

I sometimes wonder whether the people in the tech industry who worked on things like secure boot, attestation, and DRM saw this as the inevitability open source advocates always saw it as. Did they think, as they worked to transfer final say from users to corporations, by technical means, that politicians couldn't transfer that control to themselves by political means? Did they think they could lock things down to ex…

Politicians always had that power, because it was always technically possible. To think we could have done anything to stop it once there was a will to do it is naive. If you doubt it, just look at Palantir. People like us built that - Thiel and his minions only paid their salaries.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#223

Post by trashb » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 9:43 AM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #44

rockskon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the average person think this? Perception of what other people think doesn't always line up with what they actually think.

>Does the average person think this? The average person hold all kinds of conflicting views. The average middle class parent will surveil the shit out of their children, for example. Hence the title of the article is not completely correct. The outcome of surveillance is the intent of the entity surveilling. In the case of the parent, this is likely the safety of their offspring. In the case of a state entity, it's l…

> The average middle class parent will surveil the shit out of their children, for example.

Most of those parents will argue that they have the right to do that and are actively recommending other parents to do the same. It happens so much that a local celebrity actually said the following recently (paraphrased)"As long as you live in my house I(the parent) have the right to go through your room, your stuff and your phone whenever I want".

In my country this is actually illegal as kids have a right to privacy just like the parents, though it happens so much since kids don't have the resources to sue their parents therefore people think this is normal (and kids grow up thinking it is normal).

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#224

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 9:48 AM UTC

Surveillance is a tool. It's neither right nor wrong, good or evil. It can be used to create safety (as it is by police forces, when authorized by judges, in compliance with democratically voted laws), or can be misused to create terror (and, as we've seen before, it never needed cellphones for that).

We should guard against the misuses and create enough legal frameworks to protect individuals' privacy (and aggressively uphold those protections). Private companies already do that - if I query a database for PII without proper approvals, or I query it outside the approval's boundaries, it'll take a couple minutes for me to receive something between a harshly worded e-mail and a visit from a couple large people who appear surgically incapable of smiling.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#225

Post by trashb » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 9:53 AM UTC

themoose8 wrote: post #201

Is it possible the child nudity detection could be done on-device, fully private? This wouldn't amount to surveillance. The statistics on global child porngraphy rings are quite shocking. The UK is a big market consumer for these images/streams.

Detection, even if "on-device, fully private". Is meant to notify others, the person viewing the image already knows what they are viewing. I would argue that the notifying of others of what (kind of imagery/category) you are viewing, is the main violation of privacy, even if the actual imagery is withheld.

Actually withholding the image may make it harder to fight the accusation (in court) if wrongly categorized.

For now the category argued seems to be "nude children" but what safeguards are there that prevent another category "politically sensitive"?

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#226

Post by trashb » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 9:59 AM UTC

Morromist wrote: post #137

EmbarrassedHelp wrote: post #72

What the UK is trying to do here is evil and authoritarian. Its the sort of thing people brushed off as conspiracy theories not long ago. It is completely and utterly unacceptable.

I recently talked to a brit who expressed their fear of... knives. It blew my mind. The UK has one of the lowest murder rates in the world, 5 times less than the US, but they're so incredibly afraid. They are just plain embracing a culture of paranoia, cowardice and extreme surveillance. I wouldn't care because I don't live there except the dystopian tech and business models they're developing ends up crossing the se…

Because in the UK people believe, media enhances this, they can get stabbed for little to no reason or over a small argument due to mostly due to social tensions but also poverty. In the US it seems you have a high chance of not getting stabbed/shot if you don't agitate. So I think the paranoia about knives does not correlate with the likely hood of getting stabbed but with the unpredictability of it.

I agree that this is the wrong direction to develop into.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#227

Post by trashb » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 10:03 AM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #94

Surveillance is not education, and it is education that will reap long term improvement. Education is hard but effective whilst surveillance is easy and ineffective. Guess which option politicians take?

Guess which funding is getting impacted to enable this kind of law.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#228

Post by jpfromlondon » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 10:03 AM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #215

michaelt wrote: post #18

I sometimes wonder whether the people in the tech industry who worked on things like secure boot, attestation, and DRM saw this as the inevitability open source advocates always saw it as. Did they think, as they worked to transfer final say from users to corporations, by technical means, that politicians couldn't transfer that control to themselves by political means? Did they think they could lock things down to ex…

The people in the industry that I know were/are trying to stop fraudsters, script kiddies, nasty people, and governments from trying to exploit weaknesses and take unauthorised control of devices and services. The problem with that is it generally requires a central point of trust. Sure you can allow multiple points of trust, but for the unskilled user, that means that the little lock symbol becomes unreliable (or wh…

>We as technologists need to engage with wider society and understand on their terms, the worries they have.

We were the vanguard blocking this to the public's benefit, now they've voted for it our only duty is to ourselves; to make sure the rules don't apply to us.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#229

Post by FpUser » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 10:10 AM UTC

socalgal2 wrote: post #180

trumpdong wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you are the first kind. Since the law will not change, you will continue to follow it.

> "This is the law, we must follow it" and the other kind think "This law doesn't make sense, we must change it". There's zero point in changing the law if you don't expect it to be obeyed and enforced. Those positions are not opposites.

There are laws in existence that no one even "law addicts" would follow unless brain damaged. On top of that sheer amount of laws makes on "following those" simply impossible. there are also conflicting laws. Some laws are even refused to be enforced by the police.

It is a dynamic world where respect for law, trying to change law and plainly saying: "go fuck yourself, not gonna do it" should and do coexist.

Absolutely all laws followed strictly to the letter would kill a society.

Re: Surveillance is not safety: A statement on the UK's latest threat to privacy [pdf]

#230

Post by KaiserPro » Tue, Jun 09, 2026, 10:14 AM UTC

jpfromlondon wrote: post #228

KaiserPro wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people in the industry that I know were/are trying to stop fraudsters, script kiddies, nasty people, and governments from trying to exploit weaknesses and take unauthorised control of devices and services. The problem with that is it generally requires a central point of trust. Sure you can allow multiple points of trust, but for the unskilled user, that means that the little lock symbol becomes unreliable (or wh…

>We as technologists need to engage with wider society and understand on their terms, the worries they have. We were the vanguard blocking this to the public's benefit, now they've voted for it our only duty is to ourselves; to make sure the rules don't apply to us.

I mean I get that, but don't you also see thats dangerous?

I think its perfectly winnable argument. For example we already _had_ age gating in the UK, its just it was at the network level on mobile internet. It worked and was unobtrusive.

The antidote to the OSA was to just extend that to domestic internet.

That argument was lost, and lost hard. mainly because we didn't engage properly with a believable solution.

> to make sure the rules don't apply to us.

The point is, they don't really apply to the determined. the same argument could be made for painkiller blister packs. The level of friction that the packs provide reduce drug based impulse suicide by 40% (depending on which study you reference)

The argument against it is "I can't be arsed with pressing the little shits out, I just want it easy". The Populist approach is making it prescription only.

Unless we engage properly, on the right level, then we are going to be worse off.