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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 repo

by 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

Sir_Substance 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. There are a variety of ways that this can be done, most of them revolving around visibility and community education. Stop using facebook, stop buying voice assistants. Refuse to sign up for accounts that require your personal data. Be offended. Tell cashiers in shops on no uncertain terms that they don't need your email address to sell you things. Be a leader by telling people around you that you have consciously made these decisions, and /why/ you have made them. Attach your public key whenever you email someone. Inevitably, someone will ask what the attachment is. Use it as an excuse to tell them about encrypted email. Be the change you want to see in the world. Early next month I'll be getting an old stock but new in box feature phone from the UK. it's from 2011, it cost me $30 including shipping. It has a browser, SMS, a phone and /nothing else/. I look forward to showing off my new phone to everyone at work and explaining I ditched my Galaxy ace 4 because I didn't feel in control of it. It's partially a token gesture, I can still be tracked via the GSM connection, but it's a talking point. It keeps the problem in peoples faces. The US government doesn't give a shit about the legality of what they're doing. They have a "secret court" that no one is allowed to ask about that is "authorizing" all the things they are doing. Clearly, you're not going to win them over by town hall debates. What we need is gentle but powerful groundswell opinion against surveillance, the kind that threatens election results. P.S, you can also move to places where this shit doesn't happen. I moved from Australia to Iceland, and at least 30% of my reasoning to do so was that Australia is actively turning into a surveillance state.
- kefka 10y ago
  > There are a variety of ways that this can be done, most of them revolving around visibility and community education. Indeed. But I also think, that much of this community education and "awareness" has gotten people to ignore these types of things. A lot of it comes down to "ehh, whatever" or similar "convenience > privacy". Facebook's a problem child. You have an account even when you don't have one, because other people put things up there and link to you. Indeed, having an account allows some modicum of control of other user-posted junk, whereas not having an account = no control. Facebook also has network effect going for it; easy to chat on, and easy to see events and parties around. And being "that guy" means you're likely forgot about events. I'd love a viral solution to claw away from Fb and get my friends on. Ello seemed to be a good candidate but quickly turned into a shithole. I'll honestly have to look into Diaspora and its user-friendliness. Because again, network effects rule. > Be the change you want to see in the world. Indeed. I try to be. I have my own IoT infrastructure. Built it myself. I have a few different buildings I do stuff in, and use Tor to tie my network together. I've documented what I've done here: https://hackaday.io/project/12985-multisite-homeofficehackerspace-automation https://hackaday.io/project/12985-multisite-homeofficehacker... > The US government doesn't give a shit about the legality of what they're doing. Absolutely agree, being a US citizen. I am looking at emigrating elsewhere. Iceland was a consideration, as was a few other countries in Europe. But it also feels like trading one set of problems for another set of problems.

by kefka 10y ago

Sir_Substance 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. There are a variety of ways that this can be done, most of them revolving around visibility and community education. Stop using facebook, stop buying voice assistants. Refuse to sign up for accounts that require your personal data. Be offended. Tell cashiers in shops on no uncertain terms that they don't need your email address to sell you things. Be a leader by telling people around you that you have consciously made these decisions, and /why/ you have made them. Attach your public key whenever you email someone. Inevitably, someone will ask what the attachment is. Use it as an excuse to tell them about encrypted email. Be the change you want to see in the world. Early next month I'll be getting an old stock but new in box feature phone from the UK. it's from 2011, it cost me $30 including shipping. It has a browser, SMS, a phone and /nothing else/. I look forward to showing off my new phone to everyone at work and explaining I ditched my Galaxy ace 4 because I didn't feel in control of it. It's partially a token gesture, I can still be tracked via the GSM connection, but it's a talking point. It keeps the problem in peoples faces. The US government doesn't give a shit about the legality of what they're doing. They have a "secret court" that no one is allowed to ask about that is "authorizing" all the things they are doing. Clearly, you're not going to win them over by town hall debates. What we need is gentle but powerful groundswell opinion against surveillance, the kind that threatens election results. P.S, you can also move to places where this shit doesn't happen. I moved from Australia to Iceland, and at least 30% of my reasoning to do so was that Australia is actively turning into a surveillance state.

kefka 10y ago
> There are a variety of ways that this can be done, most of them revolving around visibility and community education. Indeed. But I also think, that much of this community education and "awareness" has gotten people to ignore these types of things. A lot of it comes down to "ehh, whatever" or similar "convenience > privacy". Facebook's a problem child. You have an account even when you don't have one, because other people put things up there and link to you. Indeed, having an account allows some modicum of control of other user-posted junk, whereas not having an account = no control. Facebook also has network effect going for it; easy to chat on, and easy to see events and parties around. And being "that guy" means you're likely forgot about events. I'd love a viral solution to claw away from Fb and get my friends on. Ello seemed to be a good candidate but quickly turned into a shithole. I'll honestly have to look into Diaspora and its user-friendliness. Because again, network effects rule. > Be the change you want to see in the world. Indeed. I try to be. I have my own IoT infrastructure. Built it myself. I have a few different buildings I do stuff in, and use Tor to tie my network together. I've documented what I've done here: https://hackaday.io/project/12985-multisite-homeofficehackerspace-automation https://hackaday.io/project/12985-multisite-homeofficehacker... > The US government doesn't give a shit about the legality of what they're doing. Absolutely agree, being a US citizen. I am looking at emigrating elsewhere. Iceland was a consideration, as was a few other countries in Europe. But it also feels like trading one set of problems for another set of problems.