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Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

wired.co.uk

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Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#51

Post by grkvlt »

HenryBemis wrote: post #27
slackuser wrote: post #10

Sorry, but can somebody give a full explanation why is it so bad? And if you want want you can just not to use this kiosks, right?

I have an issue, when e.g. Argos is using my phone's wifi antenna (even when I'm not connected to their network) to track where do I walk within their stores. I do accept the fact that any cell signal provider can also track my movements since I am using their antennas. I do perfectly understand that the STATE (law, justice, etc.) can also track my movements, and does so, using due process (I hope). But a private cor…

OK, would you have a problem with Argos using CCTV to track you via ML that identifies different individuals and records their path through the store? What about CCTV that is displayed on a monitor and a minimum wage drone views, and records people's paths through the store manually? The outcome is the same in all three cases - Argos has data about how individuals are using their property, and can use that data for whatever purpose, probably making the stores more efficient and increasing profits. You can always wear several different masks and keep changing your clothes as you walk around a shop if you're worried bout being tracked, or maybe just don't shop there?

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#52

Post by goblins »

y4mi wrote: post #44
goblins wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read just the abstract is seems that current implementations of Mac address randomisation is essentially useless rather the Mac address randomisation itself. Hopefully in the future the implementation will improve. Until then WiFi is off.

Youre still being tracked by your phone service provider though.

Only as far as it goes. Tracking isn't as fine grained. Service providers main concern is the service. Can you be tracked this way? Yes, but not as easily as this is talking about

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#53

Post by KirinDave »

There is something very important in working out our tolerance to surveillance vs the utility that is absolutely impossible to get without risking surveillance.

I can't really articulate it yet, but reading this article it occurs to me how really the old phone system didn't offer much more in the way of privacy (every phone call was recorded), but it offered more in the way of obscurity. Now that our information systems and techniques are good enough that obscurity is increasingly becoming unreachable (even by design), we need to come to terms with what that really means.

It feels like a big loss, but every time I sit down to analyze what we've really lost, I never can identify anything actually valuable to me in contrast to the privacy rights that we already struggle to maintain.

But also, a consequence of a networked society is that people can cooperate to create systems that have remarkably disproportionate collecting capacity. In the same sense that the consequence of an industrialized society is that people can cooperate to create disproportionate manufacturing capacity. No amount of rules, conservative independence, liberal appeal, or public outcry can change that fundamental truth. Nor can we undo the march of technology without a fundamentally cataclysmic restructuring of the world's economy.

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#54

Post by bayerrr »

icc97 wrote: post #41

This level of surveillance is a shame given that by luck of never being invaded by the Nazis there's no ID cards in the UK. Somehow also people managed to stop attempts to get ID cards introduced. It might even be because of this. That is, it's easy for other European governments to track people as they have to carry ID at all times. Because the UK government are worried about the lack of this, they go down the CCTV…

As a German, you could not be more wrong with your idea about ID cards. ID cards are not used to track your movement. There is no need to show an ID to the police unless they have suspicion that you committed a crime and confront you. There are no passport controls along roads. There is a huge difference between the scales at which passport controls and CCTV can be executed, too, because passport controls require work by a police officer, whereas CCTV can be automated with face recognition. Our police is understaffed, too, you rarely see them.

Whenever you use your ID card it is to buy alcohol or enter a concert, and police do not check the ID, but an employee of the venue. The employees just check the date of birth if you look like a young person, and sometimes if the picture is matching your face.

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#55

Post by mrexroad »

gaius wrote: post #35
HenryBemis wrote: post #26

Briton are 95% comfortable with massive surveillance. The "average Joe" has the "I got nothing to hide" and that "go get them paedophiles", which are very true statements. We are talking about a nation that has 4,200,000 [1] cameras surveilling them and nobody bats an eye about this. For some reason, Britons have decided (or was forced to them and they didn't push back) that privacy is not necessary, so, let them hav…

Briton are 95% comfortable with massive surveillance. Here's a true story, a few years ago I was supervising a diver training session at a swimming pool in London, it was closed to members of the public at the time. My locker was broken into, my phone, tablet, credit cards, car keys and bizarrely a load of Mexican money I happened to have in my wallet was stolen, as were a couple of other lockers. Thank God I hadn't…

Clearly the answer is to upgrade several million cameras to 4K, 60fps, IR at night models. Then all can do facial recognition, APNR, etc.

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#56

Post by tinbucket »

rco8786 wrote: post #48
Spooky23 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who spend a grand on a phone tend to buy other things.

...but the product is free WiFi.

I think the real product is the data of the person using the 'free' WiFi. The WiFi is a service designed to gain access to that product. In that instance, the data of someone spending £1,000 on a phone is more valuable than the data of someone using a PAYG iPhone 4S.

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#57

Post by magnetic »

KirinDave wrote: post #53

There is something very important in working out our tolerance to surveillance vs the utility that is absolutely impossible to get without risking surveillance. I can't really articulate it yet, but reading this article it occurs to me how really the old phone system didn't offer much more in the way of privacy (every phone call was recorded), but it offered more in the way of obscurity. Now that our information syst…

> I can't really articulate it yet, but reading this article it occurs to me how really the old phone system didn't offer much more in the way of privacy (every phone call was recorded)

Can you explain a bit more what you mean here? Where are you to make this statement (UK like the article?)? Are you just talking about calls on public phones? When you say "recorded" do you mean metadata only, or the actual audio?

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#58

Post by Spearchucker »

goblins wrote: post #50
linkmotif wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is face recognition.

Current quality for the majority of CCTV is probably not good enough for facial. May be gait recognition is more feasible.

There's an interesting article in last month's Economist. They show resolution that let's an operator recognise a face a mile up the road. That was in Islington.

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#59

Post by slackuser »

aluhut wrote: post #15
slackuser wrote: post #10

Sorry, but can somebody give a full explanation why is it so bad? And if you want want you can just not to use this kiosks, right?

Since someone already explained, would you mind explaining why the part about data in the article didn't strike you as bad in the first place?

Probably because there i know that my data have been already sold.

McDonald will sell my data when i use they WiFi. My network provider will sell my data, my phone provider. Fitness company also will sell me.

Facebook consider me as a product for 5-6 years already.

I think in modern society it is a normal thing

Re: Stop replacing London’s phone boxes with corporate surveillance

#60

Post by dvdhnt »

HenryBemis wrote: post #26

Briton are 95% comfortable with massive surveillance. The "average Joe" has the "I got nothing to hide" and that "go get them paedophiles", which are very true statements. We are talking about a nation that has 4,200,000 [1] cameras surveilling them and nobody bats an eye about this. For some reason, Britons have decided (or was forced to them and they didn't push back) that privacy is not necessary, so, let them hav…

Okay, I'm going to toss out downvote material because I think it's important to say.

> Briton are 95% comfortable with massive surveillance.

I think Americans are actually 99% comfortable with massive surveillance but can't admit it because of our culture. We consume reality TV like no one's business, watch YouTube to see people do dumb things in real life, and just in general, feel the urge to record and capture everything.

The 1% we disagree with is when it happens to be us doing something we didn't want anyone to see because it's embarrassing or causes us some kind of hardship e.g. pay a fine for breaking a law.

Personally, even if I have something to hide, it's my responsibility to hide it, or to stop doing it, and therefore, the public good shouldn't be hindered because I'm a crappy person.

If we could implement a CCTV system with ACTUAL checks and balances i.e. used my authorities, regulated by a public authority, and monitored by some third-party NON-CORPORATE watchdog, I'll vote for it as often as they'd let me.

If it's 1% more effective at stopping sexual assaults, preventing kidnappings, or protecting us from mass shootings, then it's 100% worth it.

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