8 ms·

Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder? The police are still getting it with a warrant and presumably from physical access to the device

by Hondor 10y ago

Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder? The police are still getting it with a warrant and presumably from physical access to the device, so it's not the same worry as bulk monitoring.

Filligree 10y ago
In the case of a murder, it's a good thing. The risk is always the chance of abuse, and although in the case of water stats it's hard to imagine how you'd abuse it, having more information always means a higher chance. Ideally we'd want to get the benefits without the abuse, but that requires a solid bureaucracy and strong rules.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  You can tell when someone's home or not from utility usage.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Godel_unicode 10y ago
    Timers and automation are a thing.
    - Symbiote 10y ago
      Those patterns would be easily detected in the dataset. I tried logging my electricity use. You can easily see what time I wake up each day, when I get home, whether I watch TV or not, whether I cook using the microwave or the hob. It doesn't show up on my graph, but I'd bet from the data you can see exactly when I go to bed, since I plug in my phone (+1W) and switch off the last light (-5W). Within all this, the fridge compressor turning on and off is easily ignored.
      - ansgri 10y ago
        Thus you have a training dataset. Train a statistical model, and with enough programmability in your smart home it will be easy to forge a rather normal-looking pattern in your absence. And I'd probably use some special fire-proofed energy dissipation device instead of the more powerful real ones (e.g. the hob). EDIT: the internet surfing patterns are another story. But you can probably VPN to your home through some newly-installed network interface and access the net as if you were there.
        Godel_unicode 10y ago
        Exactly so. And then there's the corollary of times you come home, walk around back and drink beer on the patio watching the sunset with friends and eating takeout.
      - WalterBright 10y ago
        Yes, by the exact amount of current used, the logger can tell what you've got on at any moment. It can be correlated with water usage as well. It'll log how many times you flush, and whether you brush your teeth. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the government tries to require a device that logs all our conversations at home. It'll be sold as "crucial for law enforcement". The Echo is a technological marvel. But who's to say Amazon doesn't get a "national security letter" one day where they're forced to send a patch to the machine to have it log everything? Some day, if I'm bedridden or some such, I'd welcome an Echo in the house. Until then, I'd rather get up and turn a manual switch. I could use the exercise anyway :-)
        throwawayy24 10y ago
        They're not going to have to patch what you can touch because they already want for themselves the information the government is going to request.
      - jat850 10y ago
        May I ask how you collected this data? I am extremely interested in doing the same. For me right now, my power usage is "stuff goes on, money goes out".
    - kakarot 10y ago
      Circumvention is not the solution. It doesn't solve the problem for Average Joe.
  - supergeek133 10y ago
    You've always been able to make this guess from lights on/off, windows, etc. It might have become easier to some people.
Quarrelsome 10y ago
its a fine line. There is a great fear of false positives from such inference. Let us imagine for a second that there is a legitimate reason for that water use that he doesn't wish to disclose because it would incriminate him for something else? Hypothetically speaking if you were doing some grey-hat, "illegal" probing/hack at the time of a murder the police question you about; admitting to your actual activity could result in more time behind bars than a murder. If this activity was somehow vaguely recorded and correlated with an activity of the murderer then you have a serious problem.
- fixermark 10y ago
  "A legitimate reason for that water use that he doesn't wish to disclose because it would incriminate him for something else" is an odd definition of "legitimate." ;)
  - lotsofpulp 10y ago
    Just because something is legally a crime doesn't mean it's not legitimate.
    - panzagl 10y ago
      Actually, that's exactly what it means.
      - pdkl95 10y ago
        No, it doesn't. Legitimacy (or ethics) is not derived from law (or the reverse). It's possible to be guilty of a crime (by the law) for legitimate reasons. These extenuating circumstances are improper generalizations or other imperfections in the law.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
Sir_Substance 10y ago
>Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder? Recording everyones data everywhere just in case it might be relevant to an extremely rare event like a murder is very dangerous. The use of NSA recording capabilities by employees to digitally stalk victims of their affection (LOVEINT) is a clear example of how badly this kind of collection can go wrong.
- dmd 10y ago
  Your first statement is correct, but not because of what you said in your second. Google "ubiquitous law enforcement" for some good reading.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    That was an excellent read, as Vernor Vinge usually is. I've certainly used anti-surveillance arguments like "what if some employee misuses the data", and I mean them, but it's not my fundamental objection. On a much deeper level, I worry about surveillance as an inherent harm. Partly as the death of privacy (a right in itself, to me), largely as a de facto power transfer to the state. I think Seeing Like a State is right when it argues that states depend on 'legibility'. If it can't be logged, measured, or predicted, it can't be handled on the statistical level where states have to operate. And so everything that increases the legibility of our lives eases the real power of the state, without any need to expand its legal power.
    - pdkl95 10y ago
      > Seeing Like a State is right when it argues that states depend on 'legibility'. http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burning-world/ http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burn...
- supergeek133 10y ago
  So how much do we hold back technology and the use of it to protect against people committing crimes with it (as mentioned above) This data when used properly (which is probably the case 90%+ of the time) helps to make the world better, or provides efficiency for the company who uses the tools.
scarygliders 10y ago
There has to be a line drawn somewhere, lest we end up with putting GPS trackers and video recording devices on each and every person. That's obviously a slippery-slope argument, but it's not outwith the realms of possibility that if I can think of doing something like that, politicians (especially those!) can think of it as well.
- kombucha2 10y ago
  > lest we end up with putting GPS trackers and video recording devices on each and every person. ....phones?
  - jasonkostempski 10y ago
    That's at least voluntary. For now...
    - fixermark 10y ago
      As long as it's voluntary, it's fine. We should keep educating people about the risks as long as we don't curtail what people can do with the technology voluntarily.
    - jononor 10y ago
      "Voluntary" is easy to say, but the environment heavily suggests certain choices. A (mobile) phone is these days used or needed for authentication: banking, email, real time communication and social media. Having to forgo those things is not without drawbacks.
imagist 10y ago
1. It doesn't come from physical access to the device: the device is accessed wirelessly. 2. The water company collects all this data from everyone with the device. 3. As the Mirai botnet showed, it's not just the government who might have access to that data.
kanzure 10y ago
> Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder? You might trust the current custodians of $BACKDOOR, but do you trust all future possible custodians that have dominion over that role? Keep in mind that nothing is technically restricting them to look only at possible murder.
stephenboyd 10y ago
The Amazon Echo records data from all of its users, not just the murderers. It's creeping close to bulk monitoring.
- throwawayy24 10y ago
  It is bulk monitoring. My four kids each have a google tablet. My autistic daughter has learned a lot through "OK, Google", which means everything said in my household for the past six years is sitting on Google's servers, waiting for America's Stasi to commandeer it. Frankly, it's bullshit that Google didn't know what was going on, or that I didn't either.

by Hondor 10y ago

Filligree 10y ago

In the case of a murder, it's a good thing. The risk is always the chance of abuse, and although in the case of water stats it's hard to imagine how you'd abuse it, having more information always means a higher chance. Ideally we'd want to get the benefits without the abuse, but that requires a solid bureaucracy and strong rules.

WalterBright 10y ago
You can tell when someone's home or not from utility usage.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  Timers and automation are a thing.
  - Symbiote 10y ago
    Those patterns would be easily detected in the dataset. I tried logging my electricity use. You can easily see what time I wake up each day, when I get home, whether I watch TV or not, whether I cook using the microwave or the hob. It doesn't show up on my graph, but I'd bet from the data you can see exactly when I go to bed, since I plug in my phone (+1W) and switch off the last light (-5W). Within all this, the fridge compressor turning on and off is easily ignored.
    - ansgri 10y ago
      Thus you have a training dataset. Train a statistical model, and with enough programmability in your smart home it will be easy to forge a rather normal-looking pattern in your absence. And I'd probably use some special fire-proofed energy dissipation device instead of the more powerful real ones (e.g. the hob). EDIT: the internet surfing patterns are another story. But you can probably VPN to your home through some newly-installed network interface and access the net as if you were there.
      - Godel_unicode 10y ago
        Exactly so. And then there's the corollary of times you come home, walk around back and drink beer on the patio watching the sunset with friends and eating takeout.
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      Yes, by the exact amount of current used, the logger can tell what you've got on at any moment. It can be correlated with water usage as well. It'll log how many times you flush, and whether you brush your teeth. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the government tries to require a device that logs all our conversations at home. It'll be sold as "crucial for law enforcement". The Echo is a technological marvel. But who's to say Amazon doesn't get a "national security letter" one day where they're forced to send a patch to the machine to have it log everything? Some day, if I'm bedridden or some such, I'd welcome an Echo in the house. Until then, I'd rather get up and turn a manual switch. I could use the exercise anyway :-)
      - throwawayy24 10y ago
        They're not going to have to patch what you can touch because they already want for themselves the information the government is going to request.
    - jat850 10y ago
      May I ask how you collected this data? I am extremely interested in doing the same. For me right now, my power usage is "stuff goes on, money goes out".
  - kakarot 10y ago
    Circumvention is not the solution. It doesn't solve the problem for Average Joe.
- supergeek133 10y ago
  You've always been able to make this guess from lights on/off, windows, etc. It might have become easier to some people.

Quarrelsome 10y ago

its a fine line. There is a great fear of false positives from such inference. Let us imagine for a second that there is a legitimate reason for that water use that he doesn't wish to disclose because it would incriminate him for something else? Hypothetically speaking if you were doing some grey-hat, "illegal" probing/hack at the time of a murder the police question you about; admitting to your actual activity could result in more time behind bars than a murder. If this activity was somehow vaguely recorded and correlated with an activity of the murderer then you have a serious problem.

fixermark 10y ago
"A legitimate reason for that water use that he doesn't wish to disclose because it would incriminate him for something else" is an odd definition of "legitimate." ;)
- lotsofpulp 10y ago
  Just because something is legally a crime doesn't mean it's not legitimate.
  - panzagl 10y ago
    Actually, that's exactly what it means.
    - pdkl95 10y ago
      No, it doesn't. Legitimacy (or ethics) is not derived from law (or the reverse). It's possible to be guilty of a crime (by the law) for legitimate reasons. These extenuating circumstances are improper generalizations or other imperfections in the law.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

Sir_Substance 10y ago

>Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder? Recording everyones data everywhere just in case it might be relevant to an extremely rare event like a murder is very dangerous. The use of NSA recording capabilities by employees to digitally stalk victims of their affection (LOVEINT) is a clear example of how badly this kind of collection can go wrong.

dmd 10y ago
Your first statement is correct, but not because of what you said in your second. Google "ubiquitous law enforcement" for some good reading.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  That was an excellent read, as Vernor Vinge usually is. I've certainly used anti-surveillance arguments like "what if some employee misuses the data", and I mean them, but it's not my fundamental objection. On a much deeper level, I worry about surveillance as an inherent harm. Partly as the death of privacy (a right in itself, to me), largely as a de facto power transfer to the state. I think Seeing Like a State is right when it argues that states depend on 'legibility'. If it can't be logged, measured, or predicted, it can't be handled on the statistical level where states have to operate. And so everything that increases the legibility of our lives eases the real power of the state, without any need to expand its legal power.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    > Seeing Like a State is right when it argues that states depend on 'legibility'. http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burning-world/ http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burn...
supergeek133 10y ago
So how much do we hold back technology and the use of it to protect against people committing crimes with it (as mentioned above) This data when used properly (which is probably the case 90%+ of the time) helps to make the world better, or provides efficiency for the company who uses the tools.

scarygliders 10y ago

There has to be a line drawn somewhere, lest we end up with putting GPS trackers and video recording devices on each and every person. That's obviously a slippery-slope argument, but it's not outwith the realms of possibility that if I can think of doing something like that, politicians (especially those!) can think of it as well.

kombucha2 10y ago
> lest we end up with putting GPS trackers and video recording devices on each and every person. ....phones?
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  That's at least voluntary. For now...
  - fixermark 10y ago
    As long as it's voluntary, it's fine. We should keep educating people about the risks as long as we don't curtail what people can do with the technology voluntarily.
  - jononor 10y ago
    "Voluntary" is easy to say, but the environment heavily suggests certain choices. A (mobile) phone is these days used or needed for authentication: banking, email, real time communication and social media. Having to forgo those things is not without drawbacks.

imagist 10y ago

1. It doesn't come from physical access to the device: the device is accessed wirelessly. 2. The water company collects all this data from everyone with the device. 3. As the Mirai botnet showed, it's not just the government who might have access to that data.

kanzure 10y ago

> Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder? You might trust the current custodians of $BACKDOOR, but do you trust all future possible custodians that have dominion over that role? Keep in mind that nothing is technically restricting them to look only at possible murder.

stephenboyd 10y ago

The Amazon Echo records data from all of its users, not just the murderers. It's creeping close to bulk monitoring.

throwawayy24 10y ago
It is bulk monitoring. My four kids each have a google tablet. My autistic daughter has learned a lot through "OK, Google", which means everything said in my household for the past six years is sitting on Google's servers, waiting for America's Stasi to commandeer it. Frankly, it's bullshit that Google didn't know what was going on, or that I didn't either.