5 ms·

Expecting groups of people (tech companies or government) to purposefully do something that is disadvantageous to their bottom line, for nothing more than ideal

Expecting groups of people (tech companies or government) to purposefully do something that is disadvantageous to their bottom line, for nothing more than ideals, is a pipe dream. The real question is personal and harder to answer: "Do I really need this information technology? Is it making my quality of life any better than my ancestors?" The more I ponder this question, the more I'm convinced I could live an equally happy and fulfilling life outside of the majority of consumer technology that has been introduced in the last 20 years. I benefit from a career creating that technology, but I'm partaking in it less and less once I clock out.

f_allwein 9y ago
Well, the example given here is Transport for London, which is almost impossible to travel without using an Oyster smart card. So yes, pushing for legislation along the lines proposed in the article would make sense.
- fortythirteen 9y ago
  Would a government that has a CCTV on every street enact legislation to limit its surveillance abilities? I agree that it's a good ideal, it's just incredibly naive to think that it will be achieved. Even if legislation were passed, it would very likely make things worse, in that the government wouldn't stop surveilling - they would just do it even more covertly.
  - confounded 9y ago
    There’s already quite a bit of legislation about how CCTV can be used in the UK. Our democracies have lots of problems, but they basically work, and on issues like this, the main issue is apathy. I’m a firm believer that if people are informed and they care legislation like the above could be enacted.
    - fortythirteen 9y ago
      > on issues like this, the main issue is apathy Is it? Or is it the notion that if you scream about something you don't like enough, someone else will fix it, through legislation, so you can stop worrying about it? And, of course, that legislation will work perfectly and never be abused or radically reinterpreted a generation down the line. I'm for the belief that if you don't like something then don't partake in it - short of it being something being physically forced on you.
      - confounded 9y ago
        > is it the notion that if you scream about something you don't like enough, someone else will fix it, through legislation, so you can stop worrying about it? This notion is often called collective action, and it’s how most of the social change of the last couple hundred years was achieved in the US (and elsewhere), from black people and women attaining the right to vote, to the end of child labor, to gay marriage, to the existence of weekends. This 'screaming' is the basis of representative democracies; the system of government that we live under. > if you don't like something then don't partake in it - short of it being something being physically forced on you. In every country I'm aware of, surveillance of at least some physical space is non-optional, and could be called 'forced'. The dichotomy of "physically forced" and (by implication) 'voluntary' doesn't seem useful. Very few of the current and hypothetical problems with surveillance are because it's physically-forced on people; it's that a cost-benefit equation is engineered to make it practically irresistible. Let’s say you’re a poor high-school student. To participate in classes you need to use the school issued Chromebook and an associated Google account. You could resist and not participate in class, but even given a full understanding of the privacy cost, this would be irrational and self-destructive. If you'd like to join your residents' association that may require a Facebook account, if you'd like to travel on an airplane that likely entails video-surveillance which will be used for facial recognition, if you take a job at a company with significant-IP (or not much cash), you're very likely to be working on a machine containing a surveillance-rootkit etc. etc. ad nauseam. This article is about solutions to the societal problem of mass-surveillance (both from the state and industry). Retreating from society for your own protection (while things get worse for everyone else) is never going to be helpful for addressing the societal problem. Perhaps you think the status quo is fantastic and shouldn't be changed. Perhaps you have the resources to live a puritanical life avoiding surveillance; I'm impressed! But the fact that you have the freedom to do so is a direct result of the collective action of others.
- pwg 9y ago
  The Washington DC Metro switched over to their equivalent a few years back, the "Smartrip Card", retiring their previous paper with mag-stripe cards in the process. My 'solution' to not being tracked is that the Smartrip Card I was forced to then buy was bought with cash, and has only ever been refilled with cash. So their systems know that card # 828272823 (made up number) has traveled here or there (I don't use it much, so there's not many trips on it anyway) but they don't know 'who' is using that card. If they ever drop the ability to use cash to top up the card, then the card will go in the garbage bin and I'll not ride the system again.
  - bo1024 9y ago
    Your (attempted) solution illustrates the potential dangers of data collection. There are many companies with some timestamped location data about you: cell phone company, email or social media, credit card company, etc. Just a bit of that data combined with Smartrip data would de-identify you as the owner of that card, and all of your anonymity about your metro trips is lost. For example, three or four trips where you used a cell phone at either end of the trip; credit card purchases in different locations; maps directions on your phone; or so on. This is not far from plausible. I could see the DC Metro naively choosing to sell "de-identified" data to third parties, who can also purchase e.g. credit card data.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    You could just charge it up with a visa gift card or something, but (as others have pointed out) I'm betting that it's not nearly as anonymous as you think. If I'm a prosecutor trying to hang a charge on you and your Smartrip card is a key piece of evidence, all I need to do is correlate it a sufficiently tiny probability of being anyone but you and the jury will accept that.
- theclaw 9y ago
  They've now introduced the ability to pay by any contactless card, not just Oyster. I think long term they will phase out Oyster. One of the benefits to them of doing so would be the fact that it's not as easy to have multiple contactless credit/debit cards as it is to have multiple Oyster cards. To be frank, though, I'm struggling to see what the fuss is about when it comes to TfL. It's their system and they can do what the heck they want with it. As their customer I am OK with them tracking me around their property.
hinkley 9y ago
If you haven’t sacrificed anything for your principles, then they are just words. I think the deeper problem is that we no longer even pretend to value people of character.
- tlb 9y ago
  I'm prepared to sacrifice many things for various principles. But I won't sacrifice access to information, which is what I find most valuable about the internet. Information is power, and if principled people sacrifice their access to information, then unprincipled people will hold more of the world's power. So the danger of encouraging principled people to opt out of parts of the internet is that they will become less powerful, and unprincipled people more powerful.
  - ssivark 9y ago
    > Information is power, and if principled people sacrifice their access to information, then unprincipled people will hold more of the world's power. What if access to information necessitates handing over information about oneself, which gives other entities power to influence one? Eg: One can browse for information, but companies will track browsing activity, and use that towards targeted persuasion.
    - tlb 9y ago
      I'm not very vulnerable to targeted persuasion (partly because I consume so much high-quality information). There are enough vulnerable people to swing close elections, but it's a small minority. I don't think the answer is for those vulnerable people to cut themselves off, though.
      - theclaw 9y ago
        How do you know this? Would you consider a system of targeted persuasion where the subject is aware they're being manipulated a successful one? I'm being subtly guided towards products and services all the time through myriad sneaky marketing techniques I'm completely unaware of. I know enough of them to appreciate how much I don't know.

f_allwein 9y ago

Well, the example given here is Transport for London, which is almost impossible to travel without using an Oyster smart card. So yes, pushing for legislation along the lines proposed in the article would make sense.

fortythirteen 9y ago
Would a government that has a CCTV on every street enact legislation to limit its surveillance abilities? I agree that it's a good ideal, it's just incredibly naive to think that it will be achieved. Even if legislation were passed, it would very likely make things worse, in that the government wouldn't stop surveilling - they would just do it even more covertly.
- confounded 9y ago
  There’s already quite a bit of legislation about how CCTV can be used in the UK. Our democracies have lots of problems, but they basically work, and on issues like this, the main issue is apathy. I’m a firm believer that if people are informed and they care legislation like the above could be enacted.
  - fortythirteen 9y ago
    > on issues like this, the main issue is apathy Is it? Or is it the notion that if you scream about something you don't like enough, someone else will fix it, through legislation, so you can stop worrying about it? And, of course, that legislation will work perfectly and never be abused or radically reinterpreted a generation down the line. I'm for the belief that if you don't like something then don't partake in it - short of it being something being physically forced on you.
    - confounded 9y ago
      > is it the notion that if you scream about something you don't like enough, someone else will fix it, through legislation, so you can stop worrying about it? This notion is often called collective action, and it’s how most of the social change of the last couple hundred years was achieved in the US (and elsewhere), from black people and women attaining the right to vote, to the end of child labor, to gay marriage, to the existence of weekends. This 'screaming' is the basis of representative democracies; the system of government that we live under. > if you don't like something then don't partake in it - short of it being something being physically forced on you. In every country I'm aware of, surveillance of at least some physical space is non-optional, and could be called 'forced'. The dichotomy of "physically forced" and (by implication) 'voluntary' doesn't seem useful. Very few of the current and hypothetical problems with surveillance are because it's physically-forced on people; it's that a cost-benefit equation is engineered to make it practically irresistible. Let’s say you’re a poor high-school student. To participate in classes you need to use the school issued Chromebook and an associated Google account. You could resist and not participate in class, but even given a full understanding of the privacy cost, this would be irrational and self-destructive. If you'd like to join your residents' association that may require a Facebook account, if you'd like to travel on an airplane that likely entails video-surveillance which will be used for facial recognition, if you take a job at a company with significant-IP (or not much cash), you're very likely to be working on a machine containing a surveillance-rootkit etc. etc. ad nauseam. This article is about solutions to the societal problem of mass-surveillance (both from the state and industry). Retreating from society for your own protection (while things get worse for everyone else) is never going to be helpful for addressing the societal problem. Perhaps you think the status quo is fantastic and shouldn't be changed. Perhaps you have the resources to live a puritanical life avoiding surveillance; I'm impressed! But the fact that you have the freedom to do so is a direct result of the collective action of others.
pwg 9y ago
The Washington DC Metro switched over to their equivalent a few years back, the "Smartrip Card", retiring their previous paper with mag-stripe cards in the process. My 'solution' to not being tracked is that the Smartrip Card I was forced to then buy was bought with cash, and has only ever been refilled with cash. So their systems know that card # 828272823 (made up number) has traveled here or there (I don't use it much, so there's not many trips on it anyway) but they don't know 'who' is using that card. If they ever drop the ability to use cash to top up the card, then the card will go in the garbage bin and I'll not ride the system again.
- bo1024 9y ago
  Your (attempted) solution illustrates the potential dangers of data collection. There are many companies with some timestamped location data about you: cell phone company, email or social media, credit card company, etc. Just a bit of that data combined with Smartrip data would de-identify you as the owner of that card, and all of your anonymity about your metro trips is lost. For example, three or four trips where you used a cell phone at either end of the trip; credit card purchases in different locations; maps directions on your phone; or so on. This is not far from plausible. I could see the DC Metro naively choosing to sell "de-identified" data to third parties, who can also purchase e.g. credit card data.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  You could just charge it up with a visa gift card or something, but (as others have pointed out) I'm betting that it's not nearly as anonymous as you think. If I'm a prosecutor trying to hang a charge on you and your Smartrip card is a key piece of evidence, all I need to do is correlate it a sufficiently tiny probability of being anyone but you and the jury will accept that.
theclaw 9y ago
They've now introduced the ability to pay by any contactless card, not just Oyster. I think long term they will phase out Oyster. One of the benefits to them of doing so would be the fact that it's not as easy to have multiple contactless credit/debit cards as it is to have multiple Oyster cards. To be frank, though, I'm struggling to see what the fuss is about when it comes to TfL. It's their system and they can do what the heck they want with it. As their customer I am OK with them tracking me around their property.

hinkley 9y ago

If you haven’t sacrificed anything for your principles, then they are just words. I think the deeper problem is that we no longer even pretend to value people of character.

tlb 9y ago
I'm prepared to sacrifice many things for various principles. But I won't sacrifice access to information, which is what I find most valuable about the internet. Information is power, and if principled people sacrifice their access to information, then unprincipled people will hold more of the world's power. So the danger of encouraging principled people to opt out of parts of the internet is that they will become less powerful, and unprincipled people more powerful.
- ssivark 9y ago
  > Information is power, and if principled people sacrifice their access to information, then unprincipled people will hold more of the world's power. What if access to information necessitates handing over information about oneself, which gives other entities power to influence one? Eg: One can browse for information, but companies will track browsing activity, and use that towards targeted persuasion.
  - tlb 9y ago
    I'm not very vulnerable to targeted persuasion (partly because I consume so much high-quality information). There are enough vulnerable people to swing close elections, but it's a small minority. I don't think the answer is for those vulnerable people to cut themselves off, though.
    - theclaw 9y ago
      How do you know this? Would you consider a system of targeted persuasion where the subject is aware they're being manipulated a successful one? I'm being subtly guided towards products and services all the time through myriad sneaky marketing techniques I'm completely unaware of. I know enough of them to appreciate how much I don't know.