5 ms·

The government can tap pretty much any call, and has been collecting meta-data on all calls, and the public does not seem to mind. I think you're overestimatin

by hodwik 11y ago

The government can tap pretty much any call, and has been collecting meta-data on all calls, and the public does not seem to mind. I think you're overestimating how much the public's indifference has to do with computer illiteracy. That's like saying gun control advocates only argue as they do because they don't understand guns. It's a really silly argument.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> That's like saying gun control advocates only argue as they do because they don't understand guns. It's a really silly argument. It's a completely valid argument in both cases. Banning only the scary-looking guns has no productive effect. And if you ask normal people whether they think government employees should be able to read steamy messages between husband and wife, the answer is going to be no. Also keep in mind that push polling is a thing. Every time you hear a statistic like "only 27% of Americans oppose mass surveillance," expect that the question was whether the government should be able to tap your phone if it was the only possible way to prevent a terrorist attack that would kill you. If you ask whether large numbers of government employees and contractors should be able to know everything about your business and sex life if it would have the same effectiveness in catching terrorists as a variety of alternative methods that would shovel fewer tax dollars into the pockets of large government contractors, you get a different answer.
- mindslight 11y ago
  > And if you ask normal people whether they think government employees should be able to read steamy messages between husband and wife, the answer is going to be no. Disagree. The person imagines a constrained government, which would only be reading private messages when there is reason for suspicion. The only time another human would be invading their privacy is in an exceptional situation that happens to others (since they themselves are good), which can be just-worlded to the required degree. And of course mass media distorts their priors to think that suspicion strongly implies guilt - a TV show would be quite boring if there were no wrongdoing. I suspect tech is so (relatively) resistant to mass surveillance because we've perceived how horribly wrong group dynamics go and, rather than accepting being compliant herd followers, found our own outlets and created our own kingdoms. We are the outliers - we will never have the majority on our side.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > The person imagines a constrained government, which would only read private messages when there is reason for suspicion. That's the point. People who support mass surveillance or encryption bans only do so because they're uninformed (or have been purposely misinformed by others). You teach regular people how it actually works and they change their tune.
    - mindslight 11y ago
      Except the chance of a human seeing those messages is still constrained. I don't think your 'average' person is creeped out by a computer analyzing their messages. To the extent some might be, they have so little digital autonomy (gmail etc) that the only way they can change that is to avoid electronic communication for the things they'd like to keep private. And the majority are clearly not doing that for the bulk of their communication.
    - griffinmb 11y ago
      My parents are okay with mass surveillance. I've tried running them through how it actually works, but it turned out that they really don't seem to care about this kind of privacy. They are very much about the idea that "if it even saves just one person" it's worth it. On the subject of encryption bans and backdoors, I explained that this would make it easier for them to be the target of hacks and fraud. This concerned them, but ultimately they are under the impression that the people handling it know more than me and I can't be correct. I don't think they are particularly out-of-the-ordinary, so I don't think the solution is a simple act of informing people. I think people who do care about this stuff largely need to accept the possibility that this isn't important to the majority of the population, and that it never will be (no matter how informed the public is). Instead, we need to continue build the tools and the infrastructure to secure ourselves regardless of policy and legislation.
      - thatcat 11y ago
        >even if it saves one person its worth it did you explain that encryption saves people too?
- Retric 11y ago
  Banning only the scary-looking guns has no productive effect. That's rather disingenuous, I am all for banning people buying howitzers and other artillery even if there just big guns. Yes, you can make them with a decent machine shop, but just because some nutjobs are highly capable does not mean they all are.
  - monocasa 11y ago
    I think he's talking about "assault weapon" bans. I don't think whether or not a rifle has a pistol grip is going to b the determining factor in preventing a mass shooting.
    - Retric 11y ago
      <Playing devil’s advocate or in this case Angel’s advocate?> It is easier to carry out a door to door mass shooting with a pistol grip. This is why assault weapons have them in the first place. Sure, it might only save a few lives, but that would be meaningful for those who lived. ;0 </enough derailing> IMO, none of that stuff was going to get passed, it's all about the political football. I am starting to think encryption may be the same game as it's a great way to drum up donations.
      - 15charlimit 11y ago
        "Assault weapons" are a fictional category consisting of "scary looking" cosmetic features on guns that are mechanically identical in every way to the oft-mentioned "normal hunting firearm" that politicians are always careful to claim they have no interest in banning.
        Retric 11y ago
        Historically, "Assault weapons" is a useful category. They where designed for close combat where shooter mobility was more important than holding a lower prone position. Granted, it's like banning the ergonomic snow shovel. Sure, it's slightly better, but it's generally not a huge difference.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  >Also keep in mind that push polling is a thing. Every time you hear a statistic like "only 27% of Americans oppose mass surveillance," expect that the question was whether the government should be able to tap your phone if it was the only possible way to prevent a terrorist attack that would kill you. Yep, this is why so many polls are BS: the questions are worded in such a way to coerce people to answer a certain way, or options are left out. It may not even be intentional; if you use the OKCupid dating site, they have thousands of questions you can answer so that it can match you up with people. I think a lot of these questions (probably most) were actually submitted by users, and many times they have terrible choices. For instance, there's one question about dogs: it asks if you want to own a dog or not. The choices are (I don't have the exact Q in front of me here) "yes, I do or would love to own a dog!", or "No, I dislike dogs". WTF? If you pick the latter, it makes you look like you hate dogs. But what if you like dogs just fine and are generally an animal-loving person, but you just don't want to own and care for a dog? I like horses well enough too, but that doesn't mean I want to buy a horse farm and fill the barn with horses. I think iguanas are cute, but I don't really want one as a pet. I think parrots are beautiful and interesting animals, but I really don't want to live with all that squawking (plus I think they should be left in the wild). But somehow because I don't want to take care of a dog, I'm suddenly a dog-hater according to this poll question. The way a poll question is designed really reflects a lot on the bias of the person writing the poll; the only way to mitigate it is to have every poll question thoroughly scrutinized by a diverse committee. But they never are, they just run the poll, collect the data, and assume it to be gospel truth.
al3xnull 11y ago
Apologies if this devolves, but I have to comment: Except that many gun control advocates do argue as they do because they don't understand guns and the processes around them. Not so silly.

by hodwik 11y ago

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

> That's like saying gun control advocates only argue as they do because they don't understand guns. It's a really silly argument. It's a completely valid argument in both cases. Banning only the scary-looking guns has no productive effect. And if you ask normal people whether they think government employees should be able to read steamy messages between husband and wife, the answer is going to be no. Also keep in mind that push polling is a thing. Every time you hear a statistic like "only 27% of Americans oppose mass surveillance," expect that the question was whether the government should be able to tap your phone if it was the only possible way to prevent a terrorist attack that would kill you. If you ask whether large numbers of government employees and contractors should be able to know everything about your business and sex life if it would have the same effectiveness in catching terrorists as a variety of alternative methods that would shovel fewer tax dollars into the pockets of large government contractors, you get a different answer.

mindslight 11y ago
> And if you ask normal people whether they think government employees should be able to read steamy messages between husband and wife, the answer is going to be no. Disagree. The person imagines a constrained government, which would only be reading private messages when there is reason for suspicion. The only time another human would be invading their privacy is in an exceptional situation that happens to others (since they themselves are good), which can be just-worlded to the required degree. And of course mass media distorts their priors to think that suspicion strongly implies guilt - a TV show would be quite boring if there were no wrongdoing. I suspect tech is so (relatively) resistant to mass surveillance because we've perceived how horribly wrong group dynamics go and, rather than accepting being compliant herd followers, found our own outlets and created our own kingdoms. We are the outliers - we will never have the majority on our side.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > The person imagines a constrained government, which would only read private messages when there is reason for suspicion. That's the point. People who support mass surveillance or encryption bans only do so because they're uninformed (or have been purposely misinformed by others). You teach regular people how it actually works and they change their tune.
  - mindslight 11y ago
    Except the chance of a human seeing those messages is still constrained. I don't think your 'average' person is creeped out by a computer analyzing their messages. To the extent some might be, they have so little digital autonomy (gmail etc) that the only way they can change that is to avoid electronic communication for the things they'd like to keep private. And the majority are clearly not doing that for the bulk of their communication.
  - griffinmb 11y ago
    My parents are okay with mass surveillance. I've tried running them through how it actually works, but it turned out that they really don't seem to care about this kind of privacy. They are very much about the idea that "if it even saves just one person" it's worth it. On the subject of encryption bans and backdoors, I explained that this would make it easier for them to be the target of hacks and fraud. This concerned them, but ultimately they are under the impression that the people handling it know more than me and I can't be correct. I don't think they are particularly out-of-the-ordinary, so I don't think the solution is a simple act of informing people. I think people who do care about this stuff largely need to accept the possibility that this isn't important to the majority of the population, and that it never will be (no matter how informed the public is). Instead, we need to continue build the tools and the infrastructure to secure ourselves regardless of policy and legislation.
    - thatcat 11y ago
      >even if it saves one person its worth it did you explain that encryption saves people too?
Retric 11y ago
Banning only the scary-looking guns has no productive effect. That's rather disingenuous, I am all for banning people buying howitzers and other artillery even if there just big guns. Yes, you can make them with a decent machine shop, but just because some nutjobs are highly capable does not mean they all are.
- monocasa 11y ago
  I think he's talking about "assault weapon" bans. I don't think whether or not a rifle has a pistol grip is going to b the determining factor in preventing a mass shooting.
  - Retric 11y ago
    <Playing devil’s advocate or in this case Angel’s advocate?> It is easier to carry out a door to door mass shooting with a pistol grip. This is why assault weapons have them in the first place. Sure, it might only save a few lives, but that would be meaningful for those who lived. ;0 </enough derailing> IMO, none of that stuff was going to get passed, it's all about the political football. I am starting to think encryption may be the same game as it's a great way to drum up donations.
    - 15charlimit 11y ago
      "Assault weapons" are a fictional category consisting of "scary looking" cosmetic features on guns that are mechanically identical in every way to the oft-mentioned "normal hunting firearm" that politicians are always careful to claim they have no interest in banning.
      - Retric 11y ago
        Historically, "Assault weapons" is a useful category. They where designed for close combat where shooter mobility was more important than holding a lower prone position. Granted, it's like banning the ergonomic snow shovel. Sure, it's slightly better, but it's generally not a huge difference.
Grishnakh 11y ago
>Also keep in mind that push polling is a thing. Every time you hear a statistic like "only 27% of Americans oppose mass surveillance," expect that the question was whether the government should be able to tap your phone if it was the only possible way to prevent a terrorist attack that would kill you. Yep, this is why so many polls are BS: the questions are worded in such a way to coerce people to answer a certain way, or options are left out. It may not even be intentional; if you use the OKCupid dating site, they have thousands of questions you can answer so that it can match you up with people. I think a lot of these questions (probably most) were actually submitted by users, and many times they have terrible choices. For instance, there's one question about dogs: it asks if you want to own a dog or not. The choices are (I don't have the exact Q in front of me here) "yes, I do or would love to own a dog!", or "No, I dislike dogs". WTF? If you pick the latter, it makes you look like you hate dogs. But what if you like dogs just fine and are generally an animal-loving person, but you just don't want to own and care for a dog? I like horses well enough too, but that doesn't mean I want to buy a horse farm and fill the barn with horses. I think iguanas are cute, but I don't really want one as a pet. I think parrots are beautiful and interesting animals, but I really don't want to live with all that squawking (plus I think they should be left in the wild). But somehow because I don't want to take care of a dog, I'm suddenly a dog-hater according to this poll question. The way a poll question is designed really reflects a lot on the bias of the person writing the poll; the only way to mitigate it is to have every poll question thoroughly scrutinized by a diverse committee. But they never are, they just run the poll, collect the data, and assume it to be gospel truth.

al3xnull 11y ago

Apologies if this devolves, but I have to comment: Except that many gun control advocates do argue as they do because they don't understand guns and the processes around them. Not so silly.