4 ms·

It sounds like you're saying that because it can't be 100% effective, we shouldn't do it at all. You could say the same about having a lock for your front door,

by blowski 10y ago

It sounds like you're saying that because it can't be 100% effective, we shouldn't do it at all. You could say the same about having a lock for your front door, but I bet you've got one.

throwawayawaya 10y ago
I have a lock so that if I am burgled my insurance will pay out.
toyg 10y ago
The lock on my door is basically a legal seal: the door itself is often so flimsy, you could probably kick it in, but because there is a lock, you can't then claim you entered by accident or that you assumed it was ok to enter. This is why effectiveness is relatively secondary. This sort of surveillance, on the other hand, is supposed to be all about effectiveness... But it ain't.
CWuestefeld 10y ago
No, I think you're taking it too far. We only need to conclude that the minimal benefits from the proposal (i.e., few attackes would actually be averted) are vastly outweighed by the extreme cost to our civil liberties. There do exist more reasonable compromises. For example, we as a society have already said that you can search someone's property if you get a court order. That's a smaller cost, because the authorities are forced to go through a supervised process before anyone's privacy is in jeopardy, and it's still sufficient to find the evidence in a huge proportion of cases. But the proposal on the table is extreme. It affects everyone's privacy, before there's even a notion that a crime has been considered.
- blowski 10y ago
  Other people - probably the majority of the UK population based on opinion polls and elections - weigh the balance differently. We (HN readers) are probably in the extreme minority, and we are not necessarily right.
  - EdHominem 10y ago
    The opinions of laymen only carries weight with those proposing idiotic solutions. Burning down the house to kill a spider is stupid no matter how many people vote for it.

by blowski 10y ago

It sounds like you're saying that because it can't be 100% effective, we shouldn't do it at all. You could say the same about having a lock for your front door, but I bet you've got one.

throwawayawaya 10y ago

I have a lock so that if I am burgled my insurance will pay out.

toyg 10y ago

The lock on my door is basically a legal seal: the door itself is often so flimsy, you could probably kick it in, but because there is a lock, you can't then claim you entered by accident or that you assumed it was ok to enter. This is why effectiveness is relatively secondary. This sort of surveillance, on the other hand, is supposed to be all about effectiveness... But it ain't.

CWuestefeld 10y ago

No, I think you're taking it too far. We only need to conclude that the minimal benefits from the proposal (i.e., few attackes would actually be averted) are vastly outweighed by the extreme cost to our civil liberties. There do exist more reasonable compromises. For example, we as a society have already said that you can search someone's property if you get a court order. That's a smaller cost, because the authorities are forced to go through a supervised process before anyone's privacy is in jeopardy, and it's still sufficient to find the evidence in a huge proportion of cases. But the proposal on the table is extreme. It affects everyone's privacy, before there's even a notion that a crime has been considered.

blowski 10y ago
Other people - probably the majority of the UK population based on opinion polls and elections - weigh the balance differently. We (HN readers) are probably in the extreme minority, and we are not necessarily right.
- EdHominem 10y ago
  The opinions of laymen only carries weight with those proposing idiotic solutions. Burning down the house to kill a spider is stupid no matter how many people vote for it.