6 ms·

Tracking is the opposite of freedom

97 points by mattigames 9y ago

throwafk81 9y ago
>Recently India has started tracking its citizens with their fingerprints, every thing they buy, every place they visit, every money transaction, everything. Can't you just use cash? I assume my credit card company, my bank, their partners, and the government know where I am if I use the card. Isn't that the logic thing to think?
- zaidf 9y ago
  The Indian government has been discouraging cash use, leading to consequences such as http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3923522/Indian-farmer-commits-suicide-rupee-note-ban.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3923522/Indian-farme...
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Can't you just use cash? If it goes according to plan, no. "The top news out of India over the past 12 months has been Prime Minister Modi’s move to ban 85% of the currency in circulation"
- tjoff 9y ago
  The US is very cash centric, but a lot of countries are slowly migrating away from it. Many stores don't accept cash and it is mostly the older generation that continue to use it. If we want cash to remain stores must be forced (by law) to accept it, and this must be done soon. Even if we go that route you will quickly become that weirdo that payed in cash if you actually makes use of it.
  - c12 9y ago
    >...it is mostly the older generation that continue to use it. People always forget the homeless.
    - tjoff 9y ago
      Well, this is also something that is a much bigger problem in the US than in other rich countries.
    - lozenge 9y ago
      In developing countries even people with homes often don't have addresses. But they can have a bank account on their mobile phone, like M-PESA.
- 80386 9y ago
  Yes. Unfortunately, stores in America are starting to go cashless: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/nyregion/no-cash-money-cashless-credit-debit-card.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/nyregion/no-cash-money-ca...
prashere 9y ago
https://cosmobird.github.io/content/category/activism/2-attacks/unique-id.html https://cosmobird.github.io/content/category/activism/2-atta...
- landcoctos 9y ago
  The irony that your link requires javascript to show ... anything.
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    How is that ironic? You can build a tracking system using many programming languages.
nutdip 9y ago
China at least had a plan for world dominance and succeeded. But this country was, is and will be poor and corrupt. Add these stupid policies nd decisions into the mix, it doesn't forebode well for billion+ people
onion2k 9y ago
next they will want to track who you meet with, how much time you spend with them Who you meet with, and to some extent how long you spend with them, can be derived from analysing the tracking data of individuals e.g. knowing that three separate people are in the same coffeeshop together on several separate occasions at different times leads to the conclusion that they're likely to know each other. This is the pernicious thing about tracking people; data about individuals builds to become information about groups.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >" knowing that three separate people are in the same coffeeshop together on several separate occasions at different times leads to the conclusion that they're likely to know each other." Does it? Three people who visit the same coffeeshop at the same time in the morning also leads to the conclusion that they all live on the same block and work 9 to 5 jobs.
  - onion2k 9y ago
    You missed two points. Firstly "at different times" meaning people who are all there at 3pm one day, 10am a different day, and 4:30pm on another day. That's a strong indicator that they're not there coincidently if they don't appear there at other times as well. Secondly you missed where I said "likely to know each other". Mining large data sets for relationships is all about probability, as nothing is really guaranteed to be 100% certain, but you can get to quite high confidence levels with relatively small amounts of data.
  - conductr 9y ago
    So you're saying the inferred information doesn't exist because of some false positives? I'd say false positives can be more dangerous because humans will have propensity to trust the algorithm and interpret it as truth
    - bogomipz 9y ago
      >"So you're saying the inferred information doesn't exist because of some false positives?" No, exactly nowhere in my comment did I say "inferred information doesn't exist." Nor did I imply that.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

97 points by mattigames 9y ago

>Recently India has started tracking its citizens with their fingerprints, every thing they buy, every place they visit, every money transaction, everything. Can't you just use cash? I assume my credit card company, my bank, their partners, and the government know where I am if I use the card. Isn't that the logic thing to think?

zaidf 9y ago
The Indian government has been discouraging cash use, leading to consequences such as http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3923522/Indian-farmer-commits-suicide-rupee-note-ban.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3923522/Indian-farme...
coldtea 9y ago
>Can't you just use cash? If it goes according to plan, no. "The top news out of India over the past 12 months has been Prime Minister Modi’s move to ban 85% of the currency in circulation"
tjoff 9y ago
The US is very cash centric, but a lot of countries are slowly migrating away from it. Many stores don't accept cash and it is mostly the older generation that continue to use it. If we want cash to remain stores must be forced (by law) to accept it, and this must be done soon. Even if we go that route you will quickly become that weirdo that payed in cash if you actually makes use of it.
- c12 9y ago
  >...it is mostly the older generation that continue to use it. People always forget the homeless.
  - tjoff 9y ago
    Well, this is also something that is a much bigger problem in the US than in other rich countries.
  - lozenge 9y ago
    In developing countries even people with homes often don't have addresses. But they can have a bank account on their mobile phone, like M-PESA.
80386 9y ago
Yes. Unfortunately, stores in America are starting to go cashless: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/nyregion/no-cash-money-cashless-credit-debit-card.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/nyregion/no-cash-money-ca...

prashere 9y ago

https://cosmobird.github.io/content/category/activism/2-attacks/unique-id.html https://cosmobird.github.io/content/category/activism/2-atta...

landcoctos 9y ago
The irony that your link requires javascript to show ... anything.
- devmunchies 9y ago
  How is that ironic? You can build a tracking system using many programming languages.

nutdip 9y ago

China at least had a plan for world dominance and succeeded. But this country was, is and will be poor and corrupt. Add these stupid policies nd decisions into the mix, it doesn't forebode well for billion+ people

onion2k 9y ago

next they will want to track who you meet with, how much time you spend with them Who you meet with, and to some extent how long you spend with them, can be derived from analysing the tracking data of individuals e.g. knowing that three separate people are in the same coffeeshop together on several separate occasions at different times leads to the conclusion that they're likely to know each other. This is the pernicious thing about tracking people; data about individuals builds to become information about groups.

bogomipz 9y ago
>" knowing that three separate people are in the same coffeeshop together on several separate occasions at different times leads to the conclusion that they're likely to know each other." Does it? Three people who visit the same coffeeshop at the same time in the morning also leads to the conclusion that they all live on the same block and work 9 to 5 jobs.
- onion2k 9y ago
  You missed two points. Firstly "at different times" meaning people who are all there at 3pm one day, 10am a different day, and 4:30pm on another day. That's a strong indicator that they're not there coincidently if they don't appear there at other times as well. Secondly you missed where I said "likely to know each other". Mining large data sets for relationships is all about probability, as nothing is really guaranteed to be 100% certain, but you can get to quite high confidence levels with relatively small amounts of data.
- conductr 9y ago
  So you're saying the inferred information doesn't exist because of some false positives? I'd say false positives can be more dangerous because humans will have propensity to trust the algorithm and interpret it as truth
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >"So you're saying the inferred information doesn't exist because of some false positives?" No, exactly nowhere in my comment did I say "inferred information doesn't exist." Nor did I imply that.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]