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U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#31

Post by Aunche »

maxerickson wrote: post #7
ancode wrote: post #4

If only they had the power to actually enact legislation

This sort of cynicism is confusing. Bringing attention to an issue is an obvious component of enacting legislation when there are many different topics competing for that attention in the legislature. If it was a resolution passed by the full house calling on Amazon to be nice guys, well then okay, be as cynical as you want about that.

>when there are many different topics competing

The number one thing competing from legislature's time is creating soundbytes that make them seem tough. So many bills are intentionally politically infeasible because people vote for politicians based on what they say rather than what they accomplish. They don't have any time left to learn about areas that they aren't particularly passionate about, so they'll just listen to that intelligent-sounding Amazon lobbyist has to say about how a bill would destroy a million jobs.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#32

Post by leecb »

mistrial9 wrote: post #24
LogonType10 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon delivery vans scan nearby WiFi networks for SSIDs and tag that with geolocation. Amazon knows all about your home network .

Google pioneered this on mass-scale, I dont doubt it

Skyhook started doing this in 2003; their technology was used in earlier iPhone models to determine location without using GPS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyhook_Wireless

EDIT: used by iPhone OS until version 3.2: https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-DGB-16945

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#33

Post by [deleted] »

maxerickson wrote: post #7
ancode wrote: post #4

If only they had the power to actually enact legislation

This sort of cynicism is confusing. Bringing attention to an issue is an obvious component of enacting legislation when there are many different topics competing for that attention in the legislature. If it was a resolution passed by the full house calling on Amazon to be nice guys, well then okay, be as cynical as you want about that.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#34

Post by AnthonyMouse »

LogonType10 wrote: post #23
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really interesting to see, on the one hand, the claim from the former Alexa engineer that they're not doing this and take privacy seriously, and on the other hand, the claim that they're government surveillance devices. Because it's possible that they could both be true. The engineers take privacy seriously, think they're preserving it well, and then the man from the government comes in and PRISMs their servers…

You know it's a crackpot theory when it's so unfalsifiable as to be absurd. You think one person--just one person--can manage the data of millions of people, the backups, the government requests, the exporting, and the IT troubleshooting? That's awfully convenient, and I expect you'll never be proven wrong and have to feel dumb for believing it.

The rest of the people work for the government, not the corporation? All they need is someone inside the company whose job it is to keep other people inside the company from finding out. It's the same model as police use for informants and intelligence services use for espionage.

It's also kind of pointless to talk about how to falsify a class of thing we have affirmative evidence is happening. When we found out about PRISM, the heads of the companies said they didn't know anything about it. So either they were lying or their subordinates successfully kept it a secret from them.

Moreover, the interesting question isn't whether it's happening right now. It's that given we know it can happen, how do we prevent it from happening? For example, by using software with published source code that runs on your own device instead of someone else's.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#36

Post by r00fus »

Brendinooo wrote: post #13

A reminder that no one's making you use Amazon, especially the Alexa stuff. I invested in Mycroft to try and kickstart a privacy-focused alternative; the hardware isn't there yet but they've made good strides on the software side. You can invest too! https://www.startengine.com/mycroftai Make the world we want to live in.

> A reminder that no one's making you use Amazon, especially the Alexa stuff.

What happens when you kid's friends use and they visit? What happens when everything is "Alexa enabled" and comes on by default?

Voting with your wallet doesn't work against sufficiently large vendor who's willing to lose money to achieve their goals.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#37

Post by x0x0 »

loteck wrote: post #8

Despite the day to day situation in congress, it seems inevitable that in the short to mid term, the US will have to stand up new privacy legislation in order to maintain participation in the digital economy. The question will be how they define privacy, and who will write the law. If activism doesn't interest you and you're looking for a reasonable shortcut, follow the work/proposals of Sen. Ron Wyden. He employs ac…

We already have a de-facto national privacy law. It's the CPRA and it takes effect 1 Jan 2023.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#38

Post by nixpulvis »

x0x0 wrote: post #37
loteck wrote: post #8

Despite the day to day situation in congress, it seems inevitable that in the short to mid term, the US will have to stand up new privacy legislation in order to maintain participation in the digital economy. The question will be how they define privacy, and who will write the law. If activism doesn't interest you and you're looking for a reasonable shortcut, follow the work/proposals of Sen. Ron Wyden. He employs ac…

We already have a de-facto national privacy law. It's the CPRA and it takes effect 1 Jan 2023.

Am I missing something? This is a California law, no?

Who is this "we" you speak of? Defacto-laws degrade my concept of structure in society.

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#39

Post by whimsicalism »

loteck wrote: post #8

Despite the day to day situation in congress, it seems inevitable that in the short to mid term, the US will have to stand up new privacy legislation in order to maintain participation in the digital economy. The question will be how they define privacy, and who will write the law. If activism doesn't interest you and you're looking for a reasonable shortcut, follow the work/proposals of Sen. Ron Wyden. He employs ac…

I'm curious how you expect the random people on HN to affect change by "following" someone's proposals sans activism?

It seems like a "reasonable shortcut" around activism would involve... actually accomplishing things? Otherwise I can just say staying at home is a "reasonable shortcut" to getting to work. It's certainly much shorter, but it doesn't really accomplish the task at hand, no?

Re: U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon

#40

Post by [deleted] »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #6

US lawmakers can't even take on robocallers and spammers, so I don't have much faith in their ability. When they are willing to actually impose harsh criminal liability on companies and employees like they do for citizens, then things like this won't be an issue.

[deleted]
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