4 ms·

I dunno. We already had the Orwellian scare when security cameras started getting ubiquitous. We keep kicking that fear can down the road, but we don't have to.

I dunno. We already had the Orwellian scare when security cameras started getting ubiquitous. We keep kicking that fear can down the road, but we don't have to. We've already seen what security cameras are really good for, watching the watchers. It doesn't make sense to surveil regular people, but it makes a heck of a lot of sense to surveil public officials while they're doing their jobs. We went from "the police are going to sit back and watch cameras of everybody and show up at our doors to arrest us!" to "Damn cop department won't release his body cam footage because they claim it was out of battery power!" I think facial recognition is going to follow that same sort of acceptance arc. Nobody except China is going to have the stones to build a bureaucracy around deploying it and we're going to want it to solve a way more pernicious problem once we find a killer app. If you're really worried about government malfeasance, all you have to do is to actually read some of the Wikileaks dumps and go looking for smoking guns. Everybody else already did that and other than the NSA programs, nobody's found anything really interesting.

snarf21 8y ago
I agree with you for now. However, these things are going to advance and improve. I think the biggest Orwellian issue is the targeting of dissonance. The government can't watch everyone and process the data but they can target those who disagree with policy X or politician Y or company Z.
- acct1771 8y ago
  Algorithmic processing of keywords, sentiment, and then, metadata, to suss out those who speak truth (treason) in an empire of lies.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  There's nothing new about government targeting of dissidents. The worst case scenario there played out in the fifties with McCarthy. Society survived.
  - jstanley 8y ago
    "Society survived" is a pretty low bar to set. Why not aim for "innocent people don't face negative consequences for harmless acts"?
    - vinceguidry 8y ago
      The bar is getting ordinary people to be concerned about the possibility for America to turn into dystopia. While yours is a laudable goal, it's well within the ability of our existing political-economic system to ratchet closer to over time.
acct1771 8y ago
> nobody's found anything really interesting. You're kidding, right? This is biased in selection, but I would call Wikileaks releases anything other than uninteresting. http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  If you have to use selection bias just to conjure up interest, I'd say there's no fire amongst all that smoke. I read through 7 of those and while some of them were mildly interesting when they hit the news cycle, they're certainly not now. Grist for America's identity politics rumor mill, but certainly not remarkable in any other sense.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    A financial institution hand-choosing Presidential administration employees is underwhelming to you. Okay.
    - vinceguidry 8y ago
      I skimmed through the list to find it but I couldn't find anything like you were describing. What I did find, was "Spirit Cooking". That's not selection bias, that's out and out making shit up.
      - acct1771 8y ago
        It's not. Keep reading.
acct1771 8y ago
Unless you were specifically talking about facial recognition-related items, in which case, Wikileaks not needed, they'll just tell you: Homeland Security’s New Database to Include Faces, DNA, and Relationships - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/hart-homeland-securitys-massive-new-database-will-include-face-recognition-dna-and https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/hart-homeland-security... http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/18/15332742/us-border-biometric-exit-facial-recognition-scanning-homeland-security http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/18/15332742/us-border-biometr... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/27/us-facial-recognition-database-fbi-drivers-licenses-passports https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/27/us-facial... http://jacksonville.com/public-safety/2016-11-11/how-accused-drug-dealer-revealed-jso-s-facial-recognition-network http://jacksonville.com/public-safety/2016-11-11/how-accused... Bonus, from the fascism side (the real definition, government and corporate cooperation): http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2016/07/10k-google-wi-fi-kiosks-are-collecting.html http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2016/07/10k-google-wi-fi-ki... And from the speculative side: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-surveillance/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-sur... Just saw an article I can't find any longer about China using 10-sensor cameras to do facial recognition at a city-level. Built by a university in the US....things do not look as bright as you're painting them, I'm afraid.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  America has a long history of facilitating other nations' experiments in tyranny. Like, a really really long one. I learned the other day that many of the atrocities committed in the Belgian Free Congo were actually committed by American and British companies, and the details were covered up after it became public. In order to get me interested in a new Threat To American Democracy and Freedom, you need to show that it's actually novel and unprecedented. And then it's only as interesting as its potential to actually scale. Remember red-light cameras? In Georgia they had to take them out because after the public bitched, they had to increase the length of the yellow light and the company running them couldn't make ends meet. Without economic incentives, the political will to keep it going, and a novel approach, it's really hard to get interested in outrage or fear over technological dystopia.

snarf21 8y ago

I agree with you for now. However, these things are going to advance and improve. I think the biggest Orwellian issue is the targeting of dissonance. The government can't watch everyone and process the data but they can target those who disagree with policy X or politician Y or company Z.

acct1771 8y ago
Algorithmic processing of keywords, sentiment, and then, metadata, to suss out those who speak truth (treason) in an empire of lies.
vinceguidry 8y ago
There's nothing new about government targeting of dissidents. The worst case scenario there played out in the fifties with McCarthy. Society survived.
- jstanley 8y ago
  "Society survived" is a pretty low bar to set. Why not aim for "innocent people don't face negative consequences for harmless acts"?
  - vinceguidry 8y ago
    The bar is getting ordinary people to be concerned about the possibility for America to turn into dystopia. While yours is a laudable goal, it's well within the ability of our existing political-economic system to ratchet closer to over time.

acct1771 8y ago

> nobody's found anything really interesting. You're kidding, right? This is biased in selection, but I would call Wikileaks releases anything other than uninteresting. http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com

vinceguidry 8y ago
If you have to use selection bias just to conjure up interest, I'd say there's no fire amongst all that smoke. I read through 7 of those and while some of them were mildly interesting when they hit the news cycle, they're certainly not now. Grist for America's identity politics rumor mill, but certainly not remarkable in any other sense.
- acct1771 8y ago
  A financial institution hand-choosing Presidential administration employees is underwhelming to you. Okay.
  - vinceguidry 8y ago
    I skimmed through the list to find it but I couldn't find anything like you were describing. What I did find, was "Spirit Cooking". That's not selection bias, that's out and out making shit up.
    - acct1771 8y ago
      It's not. Keep reading.

acct1771 8y ago

Unless you were specifically talking about facial recognition-related items, in which case, Wikileaks not needed, they'll just tell you: Homeland Security’s New Database to Include Faces, DNA, and Relationships - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/hart-homeland-securitys-massive-new-database-will-include-face-recognition-dna-and https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/06/hart-homeland-security... http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/18/15332742/us-border-biometric-exit-facial-recognition-scanning-homeland-security http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/18/15332742/us-border-biometr... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/27/us-facial-recognition-database-fbi-drivers-licenses-passports https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/27/us-facial... http://jacksonville.com/public-safety/2016-11-11/how-accused-drug-dealer-revealed-jso-s-facial-recognition-network http://jacksonville.com/public-safety/2016-11-11/how-accused... Bonus, from the fascism side (the real definition, government and corporate cooperation): http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2016/07/10k-google-wi-fi-kiosks-are-collecting.html http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2016/07/10k-google-wi-fi-ki... And from the speculative side: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-surveillance/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-sur... Just saw an article I can't find any longer about China using 10-sensor cameras to do facial recognition at a city-level. Built by a university in the US....things do not look as bright as you're painting them, I'm afraid.

vinceguidry 8y ago
America has a long history of facilitating other nations' experiments in tyranny. Like, a really really long one. I learned the other day that many of the atrocities committed in the Belgian Free Congo were actually committed by American and British companies, and the details were covered up after it became public. In order to get me interested in a new Threat To American Democracy and Freedom, you need to show that it's actually novel and unprecedented. And then it's only as interesting as its potential to actually scale. Remember red-light cameras? In Georgia they had to take them out because after the public bitched, they had to increase the length of the yellow light and the company running them couldn't make ends meet. Without economic incentives, the political will to keep it going, and a novel approach, it's really hard to get interested in outrage or fear over technological dystopia.