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Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

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Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#261
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He became well known for exposing surveillance but that instinct to portray himself as exposing government hypocrisy lead him to parrot Russian intelligence/Trump campaign attacks on Clinton and Biden long after he should have realized that the right posed a much greater threat to civil liberties and were feeding him information in service of their own campaigns, not transparency. It’s really undercut his earlier wor…

Examining Glenn's work through an ideological lens leads to this kind of rhetoric. It's why he's so good at what he does. He's crossed ideological boundaries constantly in pursuit of the truth of a matter, and in defense of the public.

To anyone on Twitter in like 2016-2019, this is a rather funny sentiment to have about him. I can remember my respect for him dissolve day by day. I didn't even remember until now if he was pro- or anti- Trump, probably neither still. But I simply remember that he slowly turned into the worst caricature of a smug Twitter media guy. Just turned into "hot take" haver and seemed to lose his own plot.

If you know you know I guess, but even then, broken clocks and all that. There was a point where he was such a cool guy to me, and I grew up a little in a good way seeing him turn into whatever he did.

It may just be Twitter's fault at the end of the day too!

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#262
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is going to work as the same as telling people to stop buying gas from Standard Oil or stop using Bell Telephone. Without government intervention you cannot break up their control.

You can start by creating a email at tuta or proton. It does not have to be 100% overnight

Tuta is just horrible, often rejecting account creation altogether. AtomicMail.io is a nice free alternative to Proton.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products It's not just hard for some though, literally their livelihood depends on it. Want to run a restaurant today? You basically must have Facebook, Instagram and Google Maps entry for enough people to discover you, probably more than half of the people we got to our restaurant who we ask, cite Google Maps as the reason they found the place, and wit…

It really depends where the restaurant is located.

Name a place it isn’t true.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#264

We have a branch of government called Congress, here are some things they used to do that made it a crime to read your mail or listen to your phone calls. 1. Postal Service Act of 1792 2. Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 Anyway, Facebook can read your DMs, Google can read your email, Ring can take photos from your camera. We can very easily make those things a crime, but we don't seem to want to d…

Its a nice outrage wave, but I have very hard time believing this will be a major topic in 2 weeks. People simply don't give a fuck en masse.

Accept that many folks are built differently than you and me and stuff like actual freedom you may be willing to lay your life for may be meaningless fart for others, especially when its not hurting them now. For example US folks voted current admin willingly second time and even after a full year of daily FUBARs the support is still largely there. If even pedophilia won't move some 'patriots' then reading some communication doesn't even register as a topic.

Also, anybody actually concerned about even slightest privacy would never, ever buy such products, not now not a decade earlier. Ie for my family I don't even see any added value of such devices, just stupid fragile something I have no control over, but it sees everything. Why?

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its an intractable problem because people now have a general expectation that everything is "free". Look at Kagi's success and compare it to Google. It doesn't even register. People need to start paying for things, because if you're not paying for it, you're not in control of it.

People pay for things and are still spied on.

[dead]

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#266
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, they would. If the administration asked Bezos, and he gets a benefit out of it. He will task his marketing team to come up with something which tries to frame it in a positive light. Knowing that even if a few people make a stink this will blow over eventually and when it rolls out, he can always say it is just about puppies and neighborhood security. Nobody cares.

> If the administration asked Bezos, and he gets a benefit out of it. He will task his marketing team On what planet would the ask be marketing copy versus straight access?

I meant that the admin would ask Bezoz for the surveillance, and he would tell his marketing team to find a frame which makes the surveillance look good.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#267

I really like this passage: >It is always the case that there are benefits available from relinquishing core civil liberties: allowing infringements on free speech may reduce false claims and hateful ideas; allowing searches and seizures without warrants will likely help the police catch more criminals, and do so more quickly; giving up privacy may, in fact, enhance security. > But the core premise of the West genera…

I think the security/liberty tradeoff is actually often a false promise. You can end up trading away liberty for nothing at all. I don't like buying into this, even to say "liberty is better, we should do that instead" because it implicitly concedes that you would really get the security on the other side of the bargain.

And if you don't get the security you were promised, it's too late to do anything about it.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#268

There’s more posts that get to the front page complaining about Apple’s frosted glass than the surveillance state being built by every other tech company

Other? No other company makes you register with the company before you can install apps on your own phone. No other company makes you send your location to it if you want to access GPS on your own phone.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#269

I really like this passage: >It is always the case that there are benefits available from relinquishing core civil liberties: allowing infringements on free speech may reduce false claims and hateful ideas; allowing searches and seizures without warrants will likely help the police catch more criminals, and do so more quickly; giving up privacy may, in fact, enhance security. > But the core premise of the West genera…

I think the security/liberty tradeoff is actually often a false promise. You can end up trading away liberty for nothing at all. I don't like buying into this, even to say "liberty is better, we should do that instead" because it implicitly concedes that you would really get the security on the other side of the bargain. And if you don't get the security you were promised, it's too late to do anything about it.

> "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" -- Benjamin Franklin

The key phrase is "a little temporary safety". 250 years ago people understood that the "security" gains were small and fleeting, but the loss of liberty was massive and permanent.

Re: Amazon's Ring and Google's Nest reveal the severity of U.S. surveillance state

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, that's the exact "loophole" I mentioned in my original comment! The government can now partner with private businesses to effectively bypass the Fourth Amendment.

Yes, that is true. But that is not a violation , which was in the first clause of your original claim. It's an end-run. If it were a violation, Courts could enjoin it. But since it's not a violation, there's nothing to enjoin.

Congratulations. By needling and carving at semantics, you win the argument! Two more Internet points for you!

It's almost like HN isn't a court and the OP was expressing their opinion that this should be illegal. . . Not relying on specific semantics for the current state of affairs?

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