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Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

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Re: Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

#41

Post by john_strinlai »

gruez wrote: post #22
sph wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not parents demanding 'age verification' laws.

That's not supported by the polling. >From everything you have seen and heard, do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring age verification to access websites that may contain pornographic material?* >80% support https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/52693-how-have-britons-rea... >The Essential poll found majority support for a range reforms to improve online safety including: [...] enforcing age verifications fo…

it really difficult to take this polling at face value. average people typically hear only one side of the argument: "age verification will stop kids from accessing harmful sites".

they don't hear about all of the potential downsides, knock-on effects, chilling effects, etc. unless they are part of niche groups like HN. and even if they do, in passing, they often lack the technical knowledge to really understand the implications.

i.e., they are consenting, but it isn't informed consent.

i imagine there would be an interesting picture if these numbers were presented in buckets by occupation, or by results in tech competency test, etc.

(similarly, as an example, my opinion in a poll about some complex medical procedure would not be very informed. i would be relying solely on what i hear on the news or read in a quick article, with no fundamentals to really assess and form an opinion of my own)

Re: Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

#42

Post by egorfine »

qwertox wrote: post #38
egorfine wrote: post #19

reddit started asking KYC yesterday. You (and me) can bitch all you want, but reddit has well prepared for us whining and being sad will change nothing. Mark my words: KYC will be required on HN in about two years. Not because dang will want it, but because that's the direction the world is going to.

> us whining and being sad will change nothing For me, ditching Reddit was what changed.

Yeah... I have been reading threads upon threads of normies who discussed how to take better pictures of their passports to submit to Persona in order to keep using reddit.

We are clearly the minority and reddit is happy to pay the price of us leaving the platform.

Re: Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

#43

Post by cyanydeez »

speak_plainly wrote: post #37

Governments are casting a wide a net but it all seems aimed at a foreign influence and espionage Cold War going on. The thought of using this for crime in most countries is tertiary and the real reasons for implementing these systems are so embarrassing to their respective governments that they will rarely mention what's actually going. In Canada there has been two recently large omissions, one is the Chinese governm…

America, however, is definitely trying to tear down the wall between domestric and foreign surveillance.

Re: Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

#44

Post by gruez »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #28
gruez wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not supported by the polling. >From everything you have seen and heard, do you support or oppose the recent rules requiring age verification to access websites that may contain pornographic material?* >80% support https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/52693-how-have-britons-rea... >The Essential poll found majority support for a range reforms to improve online safety including: [...] enforcing age verifications fo…

Support is not the same thing as demand.

That just seems like a cheap way to wriggle out of any inconvenient poll numbers. Most people support access to abortion? Well how many people actually demand it? Most people support medicare for all? Well how many people actually demand it?

Re: Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

#45

Post by pixl97 »

vlian2088 wrote: post #8
panny wrote: post #4

Mass surveillance is bad, until I'm in charge of it. -- Parents demanding "age verification" laws

>Parents demanding "age verification" laws I keep seeing this claim, but where is it coming from?

I think part of it has been that parents have been sold the 'only way' is age verification laws. As part of being a parent you're responsible for what your child does, even online. But monitoring everything they do is nearly impossible as kids are pretty sharp and will find that friend whos parents let them do anything and use their electronic devices. This presents itself as a 'valid' solution for the type of people that don't think about the ramifications of it. I mean, we have to have ID to buy cigs and alcohol and numerous other things, so why would this be bad?

Re: Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

#46

Post by amiga386 »

DrScientist wrote: post #17
sevenzero wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of this is actually to "catch" terrorists? Its mostly for surveillance, intimidation, suppression. Usually it's the state that defines who a terrorist is, and usually terrorists are ALL people opposing the current regime.

Case in point - in the UK you can currently be put into prison for a long stretch under terrorism charges for holding up a sign with just 4 words.

The four words you're referring to are "I support Palestine Action", and there's nobody in prison "for a long stretch" just for saying that.

There have been over 3000 people arrested for showing support for this proscribed organisation, and over 700 charged, but none actually prosecuted yet. It was only just decided two weeks ago that the government's act of proscribing Palestine Action was lawful.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/15/arrested-pro...

Obviously, I think the Terrorism Act shouldn't silence speech like it does. Palestine Action are a pack of bumbling thugs, and the government's real reason for proscription is that those idiots successfully broke into an RAF base. Egg on face for military so government strikes back with proscription.

The law does allow for these sorts of penalties you describe. But I think you will find that if the CPS does prosecute these cases, especially against people who literally stood in front of police stations and displayed those four words and no more, i.e. they dared the government to prosecute them for speech, I don't think they will be "put in prison for a long stretch". They may not even be prosecuted at all. They would have to do more, i.e. actually break into places and physically damage them, like Palestine Action have repeatedly done, to get a long prison sentence. But the threat of prison for speech is there in the law, that's why I don't like that law.

Re: Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

#48

Post by qwertox »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #34
goalieca wrote: post #6

VPNs are great and all but many that are well advertised here in North America are a huge source of attacks, abuse, etc. so it’s pretty desirable just to block them. They sometimes have agreements with residential ISPs to get around the bans.

The largest provider of residential ISP, BrightData, has installed them on smart TVs made by Samsung and LG, millions of them, unknown to the people who purchase and use the TVs.

[dead]

Re: Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

#49

Post by esseph »

vivzkestrel wrote: post #10

- does anyone have actual proof that surveillance does not effectively curb terrorism or something along those lines? - i keep seeing the same arguments everywhere "ThEy WaNt To CoNtRoL Us" etc - how do you propose catching terrorists then?

"Terrorists" are by far the least likely to cause me a problem directly in the US. I'm more likely to die by police or be imprisoned by the State than I am to die in a terrorist attack.

Re: Countries are competing to see which can carry out mass surveillance the best

#50

Post by z3t4 »

Cider9986 wrote: post #39
bsenftner wrote: post #20

sure, I'll just right on your service, with the ability to see and sell everything I do...

VPNs shift trust from your ISP to the VPN provider. I trust Mullvad 100x more than my ISP, so it's a good decision to use Mullvad and it benefits my privacy. It's not like your ISP or Mullvad can see content of sites, either they can just see the DNS requests. What ISP sees without a VPN: news.YCombinator.com, apple.com, Wikipedia.com What ISP sees with a VPN: Mullvad server What VPN sees when you use it: news.YCombi…

You also need to trust the root certificates that they don't give key access to the VPN or ISP
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