7 ms·

>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 eve

>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.
- Sir_Substance 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) Would you like an arbitrary line in the sand? Sure, let me give you one. The crime you're trying to stop has to affect at least 0.0001% of the population before I'll even consider lowering the quality of life of 99% of the population to protect against it. 0.0001% is an order of magnitude over the percentage of the US population that got murdered or manslaughtered in 2015, if you were counting.
  - supergeek133 10y ago
    But what is your line in the sand for then? Collecting the data? Or allowing people to access it via warrant?
    - Sir_Substance 10y ago
      Even having the discussion. It's default "no and fuck off" until then.
      - kefka 10y ago
        Unfortunately, that assumes that "you" have that choice. Individually, I'm sure you can rip out, mutilate, deface, damage or what have you to devices that report fine-grained time-series data. But the moment you go anywhere else, you're being recorded, watched, monitored, measured, and recorded. It's already being done, and it's way past time that we do have that discussion. Because without string and stark dialogue, we'll end up with "We're not doing anything wrong, so why should we care?" kind of responses. Or worse yet, people won't understand what something like accurate TS data from power input can lead to.[0] And as an addition on the above comment, I also wrote a CPU-bound facial recognition app. I wrote it initially for a convention that we have for our hackerspace every year... But it took me a week to do in my spare time, using open source libs (OpenCV, QT). This stuff is just getting more ubiquitous.[1] [0]: http://www.hennebert.org/download/publications/isspa-2012-machine-learning-approaches-for-electrical-appliance-classification.pdf http://www.hennebert.org/download/publications/isspa-2012-ma... MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES FOR ELECTRIC APPLIANCE CLASSIFICATION [1]: https://github.com/jwcrawley/uWho https://github.com/jwcrawley/uWho
andrewmutz 10y ago
I think the parent comments are a separate issue from concerns about the NSA. Most people would agree that warrantless access to all data everywhere is a bad thing (smart water meter or not). In this case, there are traditional limitations on law enforcement (requirement of a warrant) and a specific crime that has been committed. In my opinion, using a warrant to get the data from the water usage device is no more problematic than using a warrant to search the house.
- prawks 10y ago
  I think that's a difficult comparison to make because you can reasonably secure your house against unwanted entry and it's fairly likely that breaches could be detected. Obviously malicious law enforcement could still circumvent that just as they could a warrant depending on their level of capabilities and your house's security, but there isn't a similar path to securing your water usage data against warrant-less searching. Its security is wholly in the hands of a third party and any security breaches are essentially invisible to you. That said, we're both painting in broad strokes.
stormcrowsx 10y ago
So we shouldn't collect data that might help solve a major crime because someone might commit a minor crime like stalking? We're trading the potential to solve a major crime for the potential for a minor crime of stalking to happen. As long as we require that a warrant be involved in getting the data and there are punishments in place for accessing without a warrant I'd feel safe with them collecting it.
- canadian_voter 10y ago
  "Minor crimes" like stalking can lead to major crimes like murder. There are 2 major issues here: 1) The information might be used "off-label" for all sorts of personal and political reasons. There are countless examples of this in history. 2) The standard of evidence must remain high. Circumstantial evidence has been, and continues to be, used to convict innocent people of crimes. Giving the authorities what amounts to a mountain of circumstantial evidence could allow them to build a case out of thin air. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he must be guilty: he entered the bar two minutes after the victim, and left a minute after they did. He took an Uber along the same route and exited at the same address. 3 minutes later the murder weapon was purchased by a man matching his description a block away." ... and so on. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -- Cardinal Richelieu (disputed, but classic) Imagine what can be done with a lifetime of data from hundreds of sensors?
  - stormcrowsx 10y ago
    1) Which is why the data shouldn't be accessible without a warrant and there should be stiff punishments if it is accessed without one. We shouldn't stop all the other advances that come from the technology of these sensors and the help they could provide in solving very real crimes. 2) There's already plenty of avenues for circumstantial evidence already, this is the reason we have lawyers and judges to argue over and prevent evidence that isn't solid

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.

Sir_Substance 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) Would you like an arbitrary line in the sand? Sure, let me give you one. The crime you're trying to stop has to affect at least 0.0001% of the population before I'll even consider lowering the quality of life of 99% of the population to protect against it. 0.0001% is an order of magnitude over the percentage of the US population that got murdered or manslaughtered in 2015, if you were counting.
- supergeek133 10y ago
  But what is your line in the sand for then? Collecting the data? Or allowing people to access it via warrant?
  - Sir_Substance 10y ago
    Even having the discussion. It's default "no and fuck off" until then.
    - kefka 10y ago
      Unfortunately, that assumes that "you" have that choice. Individually, I'm sure you can rip out, mutilate, deface, damage or what have you to devices that report fine-grained time-series data. But the moment you go anywhere else, you're being recorded, watched, monitored, measured, and recorded. It's already being done, and it's way past time that we do have that discussion. Because without string and stark dialogue, we'll end up with "We're not doing anything wrong, so why should we care?" kind of responses. Or worse yet, people won't understand what something like accurate TS data from power input can lead to.[0] And as an addition on the above comment, I also wrote a CPU-bound facial recognition app. I wrote it initially for a convention that we have for our hackerspace every year... But it took me a week to do in my spare time, using open source libs (OpenCV, QT). This stuff is just getting more ubiquitous.[1] [0]: http://www.hennebert.org/download/publications/isspa-2012-machine-learning-approaches-for-electrical-appliance-classification.pdf http://www.hennebert.org/download/publications/isspa-2012-ma... MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES FOR ELECTRIC APPLIANCE CLASSIFICATION [1]: https://github.com/jwcrawley/uWho https://github.com/jwcrawley/uWho

andrewmutz 10y ago

I think the parent comments are a separate issue from concerns about the NSA. Most people would agree that warrantless access to all data everywhere is a bad thing (smart water meter or not). In this case, there are traditional limitations on law enforcement (requirement of a warrant) and a specific crime that has been committed. In my opinion, using a warrant to get the data from the water usage device is no more problematic than using a warrant to search the house.

prawks 10y ago
I think that's a difficult comparison to make because you can reasonably secure your house against unwanted entry and it's fairly likely that breaches could be detected. Obviously malicious law enforcement could still circumvent that just as they could a warrant depending on their level of capabilities and your house's security, but there isn't a similar path to securing your water usage data against warrant-less searching. Its security is wholly in the hands of a third party and any security breaches are essentially invisible to you. That said, we're both painting in broad strokes.

stormcrowsx 10y ago

So we shouldn't collect data that might help solve a major crime because someone might commit a minor crime like stalking? We're trading the potential to solve a major crime for the potential for a minor crime of stalking to happen. As long as we require that a warrant be involved in getting the data and there are punishments in place for accessing without a warrant I'd feel safe with them collecting it.

canadian_voter 10y ago
"Minor crimes" like stalking can lead to major crimes like murder. There are 2 major issues here: 1) The information might be used "off-label" for all sorts of personal and political reasons. There are countless examples of this in history. 2) The standard of evidence must remain high. Circumstantial evidence has been, and continues to be, used to convict innocent people of crimes. Giving the authorities what amounts to a mountain of circumstantial evidence could allow them to build a case out of thin air. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he must be guilty: he entered the bar two minutes after the victim, and left a minute after they did. He took an Uber along the same route and exited at the same address. 3 minutes later the murder weapon was purchased by a man matching his description a block away." ... and so on. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -- Cardinal Richelieu (disputed, but classic) Imagine what can be done with a lifetime of data from hundreds of sensors?
- stormcrowsx 10y ago
  1) Which is why the data shouldn't be accessible without a warrant and there should be stiff punishments if it is accessed without one. We shouldn't stop all the other advances that come from the technology of these sensors and the help they could provide in solving very real crimes. 2) There's already plenty of avenues for circumstantial evidence already, this is the reason we have lawyers and judges to argue over and prevent evidence that isn't solid