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

greenwald.substack.com

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

#361

Post by mark_l_watson »

stogot wrote: post #282
mark_l_watson wrote: post #22

Great writeup. Glenn mentions that he stopped using Gemini. While I still use Gemini for technical research and occasional coding/design work via Antigravity, for all day to day queries and prompts I have switched to using Proton's Lumo that is really quite good: use of a strong Mistral model and web search is 100% private, and while chat history is preserved for a while it is stored and processed like Proton Mail. M…

I wasn’t aware of the 100% private web search, I’ll have to look. How well does this work?

Try it for free. I pay $10 a month for unlimited use.

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

#362

Post by [deleted] »

mathgradthrow wrote: post #337
Terr_ wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside, the original meaning of Franklin's words are less-inspiring but perhaps more-interesting. He's saying the local democratic legislature must not give up its "freedom" to pass laws taxing the powerful Penn dynasty which almost owns Pennsylvania. He wants to reject a deal offered by the Penns: A big lump of money for temporary military security now, in exchange for an agreement that they can never be taxed ever a…

That's not an aside. The quote is pernicious because of its attribution to Ben . People invoke it without ever asking themselves if its true because they think of it as the hard won wisdom of a great man.

[deleted]

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

#363

Post by robotnikman »

tokyobreakfast wrote: post #271
hermannj314 wrote: post #252

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…

Everyone has known Google reads your email since day one. In the early days they would spin it as a good thing: "that's why the spam filtering is great!" Why is everyone suddenly outraged Ring has access to your footage? These cloud-connected cameras...hosted on someone else's servers. It's literally how they work. "But I didn't think they would use the video in a way I didn't personally approve after giving it to th…

We have known all of this for over a decade now, ever since the Snowden leaks revealed some very damning things. The public has unfortunately decided they do no care it seems...

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

#364

Post by joquarky »

shevy-java wrote: post #201
devsda wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it is probably not the American way but the only way to address this problem is to make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware. Unfortunately, the status quo also means the US (and its tech giants) has real power and control over other countries' technology sector. So, no party in America will make or enforce laws that will change th…

In my opinion there is a too strong connection now between these private corporations and "politicians". Everyone can be bribed. The only way I see a change possibility is for people to think about how to change this collectively. Pushing for open source everywhere would be one partial strategy that could work in certain areas.

How do we accomplish such abstract goals when 54% of U.S. adults aged 16–74 read below a sixth-grade level?

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

#365

Post by superb_dev »

Terr_ wrote: post #316
zugi wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " 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.

Aside, the original meaning of Franklin's words are less-inspiring but perhaps more-interesting. He's saying the local democratic legislature must not give up its "freedom" to pass laws taxing the powerful Penn dynasty which almost owns Pennsylvania. He wants to reject a deal offered by the Penns: A big lump of money for temporary military security now, in exchange for an agreement that they can never be taxed ever a…

I don’t find that to be less inspiring

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

#366

Post by bigbadfeline »

mathgradthrow wrote: post #337
Terr_ wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside, the original meaning of Franklin's words are less-inspiring but perhaps more-interesting. He's saying the local democratic legislature must not give up its "freedom" to pass laws taxing the powerful Penn dynasty which almost owns Pennsylvania. He wants to reject a deal offered by the Penns: A big lump of money for temporary military security now, in exchange for an agreement that they can never be taxed ever a…

That's not an aside. The quote is pernicious because of its attribution to Ben . People invoke it without ever asking themselves if its true because they think of it as the hard won wisdom of a great man.

> The quote is pernicious because of its attribution to Ben.

It's not pernicious for any reason because it's absolutely true in general, Franklin was simply using a general piece of wisdom to justify particular government actions.

Yes, using it that way was an improvisation and a bit of a stretch, but the real issue here is why he needed to resort to it - that's a rabbit hole that pretty much goes to the bottom of today's problems which we're handling in a much worse manner than him back then.

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

#367

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

pear01 wrote: post #311
hermannj314 wrote: post #252

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…

Get money out of politics (reverse citizens united) and enact term/age limits for all public offices. These problems will be solved. Most Americans agree on most things. Don't let the politicians who benefit off of dividing us fool you. An agenda that focuses on reform outside of the usual finger pointing game of partisan politics and promises to enact these reforms without fear or favor will win. Any such agenda mus…

And we can get there with ranked-choice voting. We really need to press hard until we get it.

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

#368

Post by AtlasBarfed »

wordsunite wrote: post #32

I know it seems hard, but just stop using Google, Amazon, Meta products. Tell everyone you know to stop using their products. They have all been acquiring and amassing surveillance for years through their products and now they're just double dipping with AI training to sell you more of it. The more you can get people to realize and disconnect the better. I wish more people would use AI to build alternatives with a cl…

Other people are using them.

You are surrounded by people using them.

Therefore, you are subject to the mass surveillance they encode.

And by NOT using them, you mark yourself as dangerous.

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

#369

Post by wredcoll »

slopinthebag wrote: post #359
wredcoll wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"pursuit of the truth" is an ideology. What are you trying to say here? Glenn is, essentially, hypocritcal because he ignores things that go against his predetermined narrative. Does he post true things sometimes? Sure, but is it really worth filtering through the rest?

I think what they are saying is a common sentiment among people who don't belong in any of the major political camps. It's a common experience to take heat from all sides because, surprisingly, neither "side" in politics is perfect nor particularly virtuous.

But we're not criticizng him for not registering for the democratic national convention or the republican one or whatever you think "belonging to a political camp" even means (what does it mean, exactly?)

He's being crticized for repeating lies and refusing to post truths.

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

#370

Post by mindslight »

verisimi wrote: post #100
calibas wrote: post #96

It's a clear violation of the 4th Amendment, but the government acts like they've found a "loophole" because it's private businesses doing the spying.

If corporations and government are acting together, this is fascism (according to Mussolini). It seems that is already the case. It's just we call it 'democracy'. Perhaps 'crypto-fascism' is the right term.

"Inverted totalitarianism" is the term you're looking for, although with Trumpism we're flipping to just straightforward totalitarianism. "Crypto-fascism" is applicable to Surveillance Valley's fake strain of "libertarianism", which is more accurately described as corporate authoritarianism.
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