4 ms·

^This The people of the west can no longer look at China/Iran/Russia and say they're police states without looking at what they've allowed in their own countri

by stirlo 8y ago

^This The people of the west can no longer look at China/Iran/Russia and say they're police states without looking at what they've allowed in their own countries. Once China's "Social Credit" system is in full force and in the governments eyes working well (undoubtedly crime/social tension will decrease, at the cost of freedom) will the west start copying these technologies just like their spy agencies did after 9/11?

zzzcpan 8y ago
Social credit is already a thing for the people of the west. Where people have to pass various checks for everyday things, so that ideologically wrong people could get punished and removed from ideologically right circles by not allowing them to get decent jobs and decent places to live.
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  Social Credit is merely a virtual representation of something that is already very real. Our reputations precede us, a decade of hard drinking, abuse and fighting in pubs will earn you a social score amoungst your local area, as will a decade of volunteer work with a local charity. Putting those online is not inherently a stupid or bad thing. Putting them online without a means to view them, without controls on who can view them, without ability to redress wrongs or corrections, without institutions that support it, yes that's crazy. We are never going back to a world where only your neighbours knew what you were like, but we do not either have to go to a world where only the Stasi or ad-tech firms do too.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Nobody seriously thinks that the Chinese system is your "local reputation," it's an East-German style reporting system where everyone informs on everyone else and only the state's interests are served.
    - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
      Yes, I know. But the point is that a cctv camera that is accessible only to the police is the same camera that is open to the web. It's the use not the technology.
  - ENGNR 8y ago
    Your local reputation is relative, there’s maybe a different version of it for every pair of eyes that assess you THE Chinese credit score is objective, there’s only one. It’s merely what the government thinks of you, with no room for disagreement, with the consequences of that assessment automatically enforced throughout all of China
  - acct1771 8y ago
    After reading your comment, we immediately need to reject the term "social credit" and instead adopt the phrase "government credit". As discussed, in true social credit, many people/citizens reporting their accounts of an individual's credit to the "centralized image" would be similar. Their government-held system is not.
- krapp 8y ago
  That isn't social credit. Social credit would be when you're turned down for a bank loan because the NSA scans your Facebook profile and scores you as a possible political dissident because you liked too many anti-Trump memes. But that isn't happening in "the west" (yet.) No one is being blacklisted across the "the west" from housing or employment because of wrong-think. At least not systemically. What you seem to be describing is simply society, and the fact that speech in a free society can have social consequences.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    People in the west got blacklisted from housing amf employment for wrong-color, systematically, until very recently.
    - krapp 8y ago
      Yes, but that's not what the GP was talking about.
  - wu-ikkyu 8y ago
    In terms of end result for the individual, what difference does it make if an internet mob blacklists you from employment for thoughtcrime or if a government bureaucracy does it?
jiveturkey 8y ago
absurd. you simply cannot compare iran/russia/china/SA with the west in general and the US specifically. i’m walking on the beach on thanksgiving and when i get back home i’ll feel just as free to speak my mind and respect my neighbors right to speak their mind without fear of the stasi knocking on my door tonight. we have a free press whose only fault is our own (profit motive). i could go on but you get the point.
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  We can compare them. And we are in almost every measurable way, better. Comparision does not have to mean the right-on teenager reflex of throwing out babies with bath water- Comparison means comparing against our ideals, as well as against the failings of others. I am proud of the society my forefathers have created and try to do what I can to both preserve it, and enhance it. And It is that enhancement that matters here - a new opportunity fell into the laps of our security services, who rightly took that as far as they could. They incorrectly kept it secret from us. It is now up to us to decide how we balance the advantages and disadvantages of this new technology - something we are barely grappling with on Facebook, something billions of people are familiar with, as opposed to the more abstract Five Eyes world of surveillance. We will get there. Things like GDPR are starting to grapple with the subject
  - brokenmachine 8y ago
    >We will get there. Things like GDPR are starting to grapple with the subject I'm jealous of your optimism, but I'm in Australia and our politicians don't care about the freedom of our citizens. The exact opposite, in fact. They have already brought in draconian metadata retention laws [1], despite the ministers involved not even being able to explain what metadata is [2], and are now trying to bring in a bill to literally install malware on our phones with no judicial oversight. This all happens unopposed in a bipartisan way, I suppose because no politician has the spine necessary to defend a position that, even though good for the vast majority of people, could be trivially misrepresented as being "soft on terror". I'm as much in favor of stopping terrorism and most other crimes as anyone else, however I am far from convinced that blanket spying is an effective way to achieve those aims, and the negatives are so great. There has been no discussion on whether the loss of our freedoms is worth the actual damage. The people did not vote on these laws. Instead it is secret this and secret that, and everything is by default classified for "security reasons". On a population scale the losses from terrorism have been minimal. Far too minimal to justify such massive changes to our fundamental way of life with no provided metrics in support, or any way provided to measure how effective those changes have been. And what are we protecting if not freedom? Because a world where everywhere we go, and everything we do or discuss is recorded forever by Big Brother for later analysis is not freedom. There should be a right to privacy. I guess that's why the people were not consulted. Better to ask forgiveness than permission. Although in this case they haven't even asked for forgiveness - they're not asking at all, and when discovered, doubling down! Such surreptitious behavior does not inspire trust in people in charge of the greatest surveillance apparatus the world has ever known. Frankly I do not trust our security services to safely handle all our personal data. There will be abuses of that information as well as false positives. Also data breaches and leaks. The government is not adept enough at data security to handle the multitude of hackers that will want to gain access to the worlds largest honeypot of blackmail information. With the metadata retention laws of 2015, there has been an "authority creep" to now 81 entities who have requested that data, most of those agencies being unrelated to terror. When the legislation was introduced, cutting down on the number of organisations that could access the data without a warrant was used as a selling point by the government, something which now seems laughable. Centrelink is on that list of entities that have accessed that data, despite them having no authority under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to request metadata. [3] The safest thing is not to collect all that dangerous data at all. There is enough data available with a warrant now (eg location data from phones) to investigate crimes. In the old days, actual police work was necessary. Every contact leaves a trace. Anecdotal, and possibly I'm just uninformed about this, but it seems that almost every time there is a terrorist incident, the people responsible are already on some watchlist and known to the authorities. [1] https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2017/07/31/new-data-retention-law-seriously-invades-our-privacy.html https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2017/07/31/new-data-... [2] https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/george-brandis-metadata-interview-fails-spectacularly-internet-reacts/news-story/064d62ad7163a7a59a7a89c02f9e6662 https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/george-bran... [3] https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/641100/digital-rights-report-calls-data-retention-rollback-privacy-reform/ https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/641100/digital-righ...

by stirlo 8y ago

zzzcpan 8y ago

Social credit is already a thing for the people of the west. Where people have to pass various checks for everyday things, so that ideologically wrong people could get punished and removed from ideologically right circles by not allowing them to get decent jobs and decent places to live.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago
Social Credit is merely a virtual representation of something that is already very real. Our reputations precede us, a decade of hard drinking, abuse and fighting in pubs will earn you a social score amoungst your local area, as will a decade of volunteer work with a local charity. Putting those online is not inherently a stupid or bad thing. Putting them online without a means to view them, without controls on who can view them, without ability to redress wrongs or corrections, without institutions that support it, yes that's crazy. We are never going back to a world where only your neighbours knew what you were like, but we do not either have to go to a world where only the Stasi or ad-tech firms do too.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Nobody seriously thinks that the Chinese system is your "local reputation," it's an East-German style reporting system where everyone informs on everyone else and only the state's interests are served.
  - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
    Yes, I know. But the point is that a cctv camera that is accessible only to the police is the same camera that is open to the web. It's the use not the technology.
- ENGNR 8y ago
  Your local reputation is relative, there’s maybe a different version of it for every pair of eyes that assess you THE Chinese credit score is objective, there’s only one. It’s merely what the government thinks of you, with no room for disagreement, with the consequences of that assessment automatically enforced throughout all of China
- acct1771 8y ago
  After reading your comment, we immediately need to reject the term "social credit" and instead adopt the phrase "government credit". As discussed, in true social credit, many people/citizens reporting their accounts of an individual's credit to the "centralized image" would be similar. Their government-held system is not.
krapp 8y ago
That isn't social credit. Social credit would be when you're turned down for a bank loan because the NSA scans your Facebook profile and scores you as a possible political dissident because you liked too many anti-Trump memes. But that isn't happening in "the west" (yet.) No one is being blacklisted across the "the west" from housing or employment because of wrong-think. At least not systemically. What you seem to be describing is simply society, and the fact that speech in a free society can have social consequences.
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  People in the west got blacklisted from housing amf employment for wrong-color, systematically, until very recently.
  - krapp 8y ago
    Yes, but that's not what the GP was talking about.
- wu-ikkyu 8y ago
  In terms of end result for the individual, what difference does it make if an internet mob blacklists you from employment for thoughtcrime or if a government bureaucracy does it?

jiveturkey 8y ago

absurd. you simply cannot compare iran/russia/china/SA with the west in general and the US specifically. i’m walking on the beach on thanksgiving and when i get back home i’ll feel just as free to speak my mind and respect my neighbors right to speak their mind without fear of the stasi knocking on my door tonight. we have a free press whose only fault is our own (profit motive). i could go on but you get the point.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago
We can compare them. And we are in almost every measurable way, better. Comparision does not have to mean the right-on teenager reflex of throwing out babies with bath water- Comparison means comparing against our ideals, as well as against the failings of others. I am proud of the society my forefathers have created and try to do what I can to both preserve it, and enhance it. And It is that enhancement that matters here - a new opportunity fell into the laps of our security services, who rightly took that as far as they could. They incorrectly kept it secret from us. It is now up to us to decide how we balance the advantages and disadvantages of this new technology - something we are barely grappling with on Facebook, something billions of people are familiar with, as opposed to the more abstract Five Eyes world of surveillance. We will get there. Things like GDPR are starting to grapple with the subject
- brokenmachine 8y ago
  >We will get there. Things like GDPR are starting to grapple with the subject I'm jealous of your optimism, but I'm in Australia and our politicians don't care about the freedom of our citizens. The exact opposite, in fact. They have already brought in draconian metadata retention laws [1], despite the ministers involved not even being able to explain what metadata is [2], and are now trying to bring in a bill to literally install malware on our phones with no judicial oversight. This all happens unopposed in a bipartisan way, I suppose because no politician has the spine necessary to defend a position that, even though good for the vast majority of people, could be trivially misrepresented as being "soft on terror". I'm as much in favor of stopping terrorism and most other crimes as anyone else, however I am far from convinced that blanket spying is an effective way to achieve those aims, and the negatives are so great. There has been no discussion on whether the loss of our freedoms is worth the actual damage. The people did not vote on these laws. Instead it is secret this and secret that, and everything is by default classified for "security reasons". On a population scale the losses from terrorism have been minimal. Far too minimal to justify such massive changes to our fundamental way of life with no provided metrics in support, or any way provided to measure how effective those changes have been. And what are we protecting if not freedom? Because a world where everywhere we go, and everything we do or discuss is recorded forever by Big Brother for later analysis is not freedom. There should be a right to privacy. I guess that's why the people were not consulted. Better to ask forgiveness than permission. Although in this case they haven't even asked for forgiveness - they're not asking at all, and when discovered, doubling down! Such surreptitious behavior does not inspire trust in people in charge of the greatest surveillance apparatus the world has ever known. Frankly I do not trust our security services to safely handle all our personal data. There will be abuses of that information as well as false positives. Also data breaches and leaks. The government is not adept enough at data security to handle the multitude of hackers that will want to gain access to the worlds largest honeypot of blackmail information. With the metadata retention laws of 2015, there has been an "authority creep" to now 81 entities who have requested that data, most of those agencies being unrelated to terror. When the legislation was introduced, cutting down on the number of organisations that could access the data without a warrant was used as a selling point by the government, something which now seems laughable. Centrelink is on that list of entities that have accessed that data, despite them having no authority under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to request metadata. [3] The safest thing is not to collect all that dangerous data at all. There is enough data available with a warrant now (eg location data from phones) to investigate crimes. In the old days, actual police work was necessary. Every contact leaves a trace. Anecdotal, and possibly I'm just uninformed about this, but it seems that almost every time there is a terrorist incident, the people responsible are already on some watchlist and known to the authorities. [1] https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2017/07/31/new-data-retention-law-seriously-invades-our-privacy.html https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2017/07/31/new-data-... [2] https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/george-brandis-metadata-interview-fails-spectacularly-internet-reacts/news-story/064d62ad7163a7a59a7a89c02f9e6662 https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/george-bran... [3] https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/641100/digital-rights-report-calls-data-retention-rollback-privacy-reform/ https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/641100/digital-righ...