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In threads like this, Hacker News is usually in favour of the privacy invasion, and it's happening here right now. I wish everyone would understand that the que

• quaunaut 11y ago
  > But it's NOT a personal decision. > When we have a society that so willingly accepts and even desires to live in a surveillance state, well, that's a problem. This is a direct path to a totalitarian surveillance state that would be much much more invasive than anything written about in 1984. The cognitive dissonance in these two sentences is staggering.
  • cryptoz 11y ago
    How so? I don't think so. Perhaps I wasn't clear. If you make a decision about what devices to buy, on a personal level, and you think that decision only affects you (a "personal decision"), that's not correct. Your decision to buy an Echo or use Siri affects me, too, and the rest of the people around you. Every time someone decides to trade some of their privacy for some convenience, they are taking away other people's privacy too, including those of us who do not share the view that it's worth it for the convenience.
    • tedunangst 11y ago
      If my echo is listening to you, it's because you're in my house. So uh, keep out.
      • cryptoz 11y ago
        Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that your Echo was listening to me. What I was trying to say is that every purchase of an Echo is a signal to Amazon and to other big corporations that there is a market for these products. So they will improve the products and expand the market. I don't want that to happen; so it affects me in that way. Additionally, how long will it be until I basically can't go anywhere without there being an Echo in place? Must I stay at home and keep all electronics turned off, in order to avoid corporate surveillance robots? Will every cafe and grocery store also have them? Edit: I'm not allowed to answer any more questions right now, sorry to Pyxl101 and others. Hacker News tells me "you are submitting too fast, please slow down". Maybe I'll be able to come back later and answer your questions.
        • maxerickson 11y ago
          Big retailers are already running analytics on their video surveillance. This is sort of a cheap shot but I am honestly curious, how do you reconcile this point of view with your goal of building an all seeing barometer?
          • cryptoz 11y ago
            Yes, that is actually a very good question. It's true that I create weather forecasting systems that rely on barometric pressure data that's collected from smartphones, and that those systems are privacy-sensitive. It's a difficult line, of course. My goals are to reduce the effects of global climate change by better understanding the atmosphere. If we can provide more accurate wind speed information to wind farms, more accurate solar irradiation information to agriculture businesses, etc, then we can radically improve the world's preparedness for large scale global climate change. For me, the issue here is deciding which problem is more important to work on. Mitigation of disastrous effects of climate change, or choose to not use any sensor data from smartphones due to my privacy concerns. So far I have aired on the side of climate change being a bigger problem, and that I have a helpful set of work that can make a difference, so I will do my work and hope that it helps.
• dayon 11y ago
  I don't see it as people wanting to be listened to and watched. I see it as people automatically accepting new technology if it provides a novelty and / or a real benefit without considering consequences. It's also a status symbol to have the newest and coolest tech. Smart homes will simply be the new social status indicator. Technology is way too liberal, and it's leading us in a direction that we might not be able to revert back from.
• dunkelheit 11y ago
  While I agree with you, I think I am starting to suffer from a kind of "privacy violation revelations fatigue". I have read the article and thought "so here is another gimmick that steals away a bit of my privacy, so what? no big deal". And that's scary. The problem is there is no coherent programme on how to counter the privacy-encroachment trend. There is a bit of general dissatisfaction, some idealists urging us to repent and leave the clouds and a good amount of profiteers trying to benefit from that dissatisfaction. Meanwhile the forces behind this trend are organized and powerful.
  • Frondo 11y ago
    Another aspect to the problem is that honoring privacy as a human right is a social issue, not a technology issue. The place to work on solving it (and, like all social issues, it won't be "solved," just "solved for now") is in the public and political spheres. We need to talk about this. We need to have the conversations that describe "what does privacy look like" and "how can we get the benefits from these gadgets while protecting our human rights". Right now, no one's talking about a world in which you can have your cell phone listening to your conversations, while ensuring that private companies and government agencies can't make use of that willy-nilly. The place where those restrictions have to happen is in the laws we need to develop to keep them all in check. We can't go back to a primitive, disconnected world, but right now, no one's leading us forward either.
    • CaptSpify 11y ago
      > The place where those restrictions have to happen is in the laws we need to develop to keep them all in check. IMO we need that, but we also can't rely on that. Things like the NSA have shown that the laws don't really matter. Yes, we should be striving for those laws, but we should also not depend on them, when they can so easily be ignored.
    • nitrogen 11y ago
      There is a technological aspect, and that's putting the voice processing back into the device itself. We can still get the benefit of mass machine learning on failed voice samples by asking users to submit the failed sample only, playing it back for them so they know what is being sent, and deleting the sample once it has been processed. Then an updated speech model can be sent to the device. Or, just do the retraining on the device, too.
• throwaway13337 11y ago
  Privacy and security are quite similar when you think about implementation. With respect to both, it's impossible to achieve it 100%. As the amount of applications running and the nuisance to which they run increase, it gets trivial to break either. Developers have long agreed that security is an arms race you really can't win. It's easier to break into than it is to secure. What mostly stands in the way of security breaches is that it's generally frowned on to do and, failing that, is illegal. The same might need to be true (or truer) for privacy. Privacy is harder to make people understand, though, given the muddiness of the area. Privacy breaches will never be reined in, therefore. We need to deal with the new reality of ultimate transparency. This could be okay as long as everyone has the same access to that information. Private information access inequality is the issue.
• droopybuns 11y ago
  I take a slightly different tactic when arguing for privacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LGBT_people_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_violence_against_LG... It wasn't very long ago that the private lives of the LGBTQQ community risked physical violence. Even today, people risk physical violence for their personal opinions: http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/black-lives-matter-critic-fired-for-saying-all-lives-matter/ http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/black-lives-matter-critic-fired-f... Privacy is the only tool that protects in a society where free speech is not respected. So no, you probably don't have any secrets worth protecting, but others do. It's these victims that matter- and you are turning a blind eye to the defenseless when you are saying your privacy isn't important.
  • soared 11y ago
    LGBTQQ isn't speech or an opinion, but I see your point. I think the argument is still kind of ridiculous though.
    • CaptSpify 11y ago
      How is it not a speech issue?
• atmosx 11y ago
  I don't have that view of HN, it's just that most of us understand that corporations are not evil by default, they are not part of a bigger scheme that wants to enslave the world. That said, I believe that most HN are very privacy-aware. Indeed one of the reasons Echo wasn't a huge success is privacy invasion. If you read the latest threads regarding Paris Attacks, you'll see that most HN users are ready to give up security for freedom (if there ever was such a trade-off, I'm not even sure anymore).
  • Pyxl101 11y ago
    > Indeed one of the reasons Echo wasn't a huge success is privacy invasion Most modern phones passively listen to your voice too, and people carry those with them everywhere. They are present in the most intimate situations, rather than (e.g.) just in your living room. So I don't think there's a reason for people to feel differently about Echo than about Cortana on Xbox, or "Ok Google", or any other voice activated interface.
  • dingaling 11y ago
    > it's just that most of us understand that corporations are not evil by default Perhaps not evil but they are amoral. If a course of action is not illegal and would increase revenue then a company really should be doing it. Particularly if their competitors are doing so.
  • fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
    > it's just that most of us understand that corporations are not evil by default That's not an objective fact; it's kind of condescending to present it that way. I would say that they corp's are amoral. >they are not part of a bigger scheme that wants to enslave the world. Corp's act in the self-interest of the directors without regard for whether their actions increase/decrease "world enslavement".
    • walterbell 11y ago
      There are also legal differences in corporate structures, e.g. benefit corporations, https://medium.com/@ystrickler/resist-and-thrive-1d36819853ca#.ccb5nb4c4 https://medium.com/@ystrickler/resist-and-thrive-1d36819853c... "We want Kickstarter to be similarly in sync with society. Earlier this year we became a Public Benefit Corporation. This means we are legally obligated to consider the impact of our decisions on society, not just our shareholders. Though we are still a for-profit company, as a PBC it’s very different from the expectation that for profit companies maximize shareholder value above all. It acknowledges and embraces that you are a part of a larger community."
• revelation 11y ago
  There is a significant difference between private companies collecting data and the state doing wholesale surveillance. I don't particularly care for the first one, I do very much for the second. These are separate concerns. If we can't have data-driven gadgets because the state may get that data, we're solving the wrong problem: we need to get rid of the state.
  • cryptoz 11y ago
    > There is a significant difference between private companies collecting data and the state doing wholesale surveillance. I used to agree, but don't we know for certain that this is false now? With the Snowden documents, we know that the USA government, along with others, knows how valuable these private companies' data stores are and will hack their way in so that they can get access (if they're refused when they first ask politely). I no longer think there's much real difference at all between the private companies collecting the data and then actively/passively sending it to the government, vs. the government doing all the collecting and analyzing themselves. And the point that I was trying to make is that even if the private companies can collect and analyze the data safely (they can't), that still sets up a society that is willing to be watched. That is the hardest part for totalitarian governments to overcome; if you hand the USA or China or Russian governments a silver platter of a willing population that will accept the surveillance from one entity, they will accept it from another. That's a dangerous place to be.
    • mahyarm 11y ago
      A catchy way to say it: If you build it, the governments will take it.
  • fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
    >There is a significant difference between private companies collecting data and the state doing wholesale surveillance. Not under the current rules where the data are treated as "business records" and subject not only to spying while en route, but also to administrative subpoena and all sorts of other "legal" and questionably legal collection methods employed by various divisions of the state. >we need to get rid of the state. For sure, the part that wants to collect all the data needs to go.
• beachstartup 11y ago
  i understand your argument and the distinction it makes, but unfortunately i think in a societal context, that ship has sailed. the people chose to carry smartphones with them all the time, everywhere. that decision was given up without a fight, in fact it was welcomed as the best thing that has happened in the technology revolution to date. not only has the developed world already made this decision, the developing world continues to make this decision on a day to day basis, and their choice is clear; devices on everyone, everywhere.
• aeturnum 11y ago
  >This is a direct path to a totalitarian surveillance state... My critique of this argument is that it has no bounds. Totalitarian surveillance states are very possible without modern (2000+) electronic devices and have existed for a good half century. To add to that, there are many other technologies that are essential to the kind of centralized bureaucracy that totalitarian states generally use. Without electronic communication, it would be extremely difficult to disseminate policy. Without electronic storage, it would be very hard to collate descriptions of suspects and centralize information. The parts of the Catholic church of the middle ages would very much have liked to run a totalitarian state - but it was beyond the technology of the time. So, if you think we should oppose technology that allows states to survival and terrorize their citizens, there is a longer list to go after: police, vehicles, computers, electricity, etc. All of these technologies gave rise to fears that they would restrict freedom and those fears were ultimately realized. In many ways, we are far less free than people who lived in societies without electricity or cars or any of those things. However, we are also safer from many groups that used to use their freedom to take advantage of others (though not all, obviously). I agree that this kind of electronic surveillance (or, more specifically, the ability for machines to collect and collate information) is transformative. It's similar to other technologies that changed things - the telegram, electricity, plumbing, etc. It will alter the balance of power and we, as citizens, should think about how we want this technology used and not used. However, I find the idea that this technology _in particular_ is any more or less totalitarian than ones that have come before it to be silly on its face.
  • Zigurd 11y ago
    Pre-automation surveillance states were people and paper-intensive. They didn't scale. The most powerful analytics were out of their reach. They couldn't sweep up everything and discover what was important. And, in the end, they were overthrown by a combination of discontent, internal sabotage, and a variety of external influences. Be that as it may, the FBI isn't above reaching back to the old ways. They run 15,000 paid informants nationwide, backed by the information dredged up by pervasive surveillance. Parallel construction is just the beginning of what that cyberspace/meatspace combination is capable of. With the NSA and pervasive surveillance, it is possible to build an eternal, indestructible static system, governed by an elite, and with the appearance of representation.
• physcab 11y ago
  > The problem is with a big trend in society that we want to be listened to and watched, because it makes life more convenient on a personal level. I would argue that it isn't convenience that attracts people, its narcissism. Society has been surrendering their privacy for years with Facebook. We are comfortable with it. We have seen a direct connection between sharing more (location, pictures, videos, etc) and getting more (food, taxi rides, sex) So of course the next frontier is not having to share anything at all. The next frontier is listening and deciding. Its concierge services that bring you an array of options, specifically tailored to you. You are the center of their world, so as long as you keep making purchases and supplying them with information to better serve you.
• ianmcgowan 11y ago
  So in order to avoid a totalitarian state, no more personal decisions based on my own analysis of the risk/reward. Right, got it!