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The true problem with surveillance is the asymmetry of it all. Grassland uses Game Theory to remove that asymmetry. "...no party could maintain a parasitical, d

The true problem with surveillance is the asymmetry of it all. Grassland uses Game Theory to remove that asymmetry. "...no party could maintain a parasitical, data gathering asymmetry (one-sided surveillance) so long as there are other parties acting in their own self interest. A 'scorched earth policy'". It answers the question, who's watching the watchers? Everyone. And the network itself is paying them to do it. > ...extremely worrying. It seems to me this forces people into Nash Equilibrium. Say I now know everything about you and vice-versa and anything we do to each other would be broadcast around the world for all to see and irrevocably encrypted in a worldwide database. And since "...all nodes are anonymous, if it's computationally improbable to be sure of the identity and intentions of all parties who may end up with the data, then all parties are compelled to expand node territory for their own self interest and eschew behaviour leading to M.A.D. outcomes" > Since when does that protect anyone’s privacy? It doesn't. And it doesn't care. I don't mean to sound rude but you'll have to throw away this veneration of privacy to grasp what this is really about; like esteeming the Divine Right of Kings, that's not going to work any more. People are fighting over the right to keep riding this precious dead horse while corporations and governments are riding over them in AI Ferraris because they know that the ones who'll will win are those who privately control the most data to train machines to do, well... everything that a human can do and more. They don't care about your privacy. It's long gone and turned into glue. People want to believe in it but it's dead. And the longer people think it's still out there somewhere waiting for them, the longer it'll take them to grasp the power that data affords any party that disregards that belief. Then one day they'll wake up and realize all their land is in the hands of the Conquistadors.

atoav 8y ago
But isn’t balance here mostly about a balance of power? And isn’t a balance of power in terms of surveillance more than just a balance of information? In a transparent society the most powerful will still find their ways to be less transparent than everyone else, while leveraging this difference in transparency to the maximum extent possible. Information alone is not power. It is also about the ability to act on it, to use or abuse it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
whatshisface 8y ago
What if Zuckerberg lives in a different neighborhood than you? In fact, most of the people your device would surveil if you did live near Zuckerberg would be his household staff.
- david_at 8y ago
  Everyone has rivals. Everyone has people who are interested in selling to them. Everyone has people who are interested in finding out what they do, where they go etc etc. And no one more so than the rich and powerful. Regardless, I think you're misunderstanding the algorithm. Nodes broadcast their data to other nodes because it stands as unassailable proof an AI performed a difficult computation on human behaviour and earned those coins. So you don't have to have a node in a part of the world you want information about. As long as there's someone there who either likes cryptographic money or wants to know more about the activities of that person beyond where the node tracks them, you're going to get that information one way or another.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    People in expensive neighborhoods tend to be less interested in getting $10 than people in less expensive neighborhoods because they already have money, so this thing will predominately target the not-zuckerbergs of the world. If you wanted even coverage, you'd have to compensate for the fact that rich people tend to live near other rich people who are less motivated by the same money than poor people who live near other poor people.
    - david_at 8y ago
      Do rich people have insurance companies, ex-spouses, business partners, rival colleagues, rival corporations, government agencies who'd like to know more about them yet want plausible deniability that an anonymous tracking system affords them? This is what I mean by saying that Game Theory balances everyone out. You have to consider that there is always another party and they're all motivated by their own interests. And I don't mean to be curt with you but I'm pretty sure rich people leave their houses every once in awhile. Don't you?
lovich 8y ago
The political science aspects of this are super interesting. I would prefer perfect privacy for everyone and consistently argue for increased privacy rights, but if that is impossible I would definitely prefer everyone has equal access to surveillance on each other. Having considered how I would attack this it seems trivial for the super rich and mega corps to defend against this and maintain the asymmetry however. They would merely need to buy up enough land that outside cameras could not see all of it or build walls to block the view. Then when traveling outside their land they would just need to travel by vehicle that occluded any view of them, and simultaneously have a few other duplicate vehicles move with people in them who don't have to look identical but close enough that the cameras and system cant differentiate. Its overly expensive to a normal person, but whats a few hundred thousand or million a year to a Zuckerberg or Bezos to maintain their privacy? I know Zuckerberg already does this to some extent with his house[1] [1]http://money.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/ http://money.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/
- lovich 8y ago
  To add to this, I think making it asymmetric on how easy it is to surveil someone vs protecting themselves from it might be the right way to balance out privacy, but I don't see it being possible without putting legal limitation on the rich. Given our current system its unlikely you could ever make it asymmetric enough to stop the rich unless it was as bad as needing 1 million dollars to defend against every 1 dollar used to attack. At that point the rich have enough power to influence the government and just get them to make this illegal and everyone who uses it face jail time. Given that the nodes can easily be traced back based on the physical location data they are giving out, it wouldnt be hard for the government to send police to any area with a node and destroy it and jail whosever property its on.
  - david_at 8y ago
    Someone eventually: "..and somebody's built this anonymous AI thing that tracks people and physical assets and lets you know where every citizen, rival public servant or object has been or whatever they've done before and they've posted it online for free. It's disgusting!" Politician/News Agency/Insurance CEO/Hedge Fund Quant: "Oh that's disgusting. An application that tracks people and physical assets and lets you know where every citizen, rival public servant or object has been or whatever they've done before and they've posted it online for free. Where? Where is this thing?" Someone eventually: "I don't know, one of those stupid '.network' domains" Politician/News Agency/Insurance CEO/Hedge Fund Quant: "Ugh! Those stupid '.network' domains! (shakes head convincingly)... But I mean there's so many of them though! Which one? Which one is it on?!"
cmroanirgo 8y ago
> you'll have to throw away this veneration of privacy to grasp what this is really about I cannot disagree more strongly. Every day our need to fight for privacy increases. All it takes is someone to take my actions and skew them in a political light. From there on it's tiny policy shift that could end up with me in jail for some fascist political crime that isn't a crime at all. Every day our governments take more and more: we really shouldn't be doing their work for them! Look at what's happening in China: a whole religious cleanse is taking place: Muslim, Buddhist, and even simple meditation groups (Falun Gong) are being persecuted and imprisoned. Russia has outlawed Jehovah's Witnesses for similar purpose, citing "extremist activities". And this is before we even get to more "political" style actions, such as white hacking and security research. We need to be exceedingly carefully with public spyware!
- ethbro 8y ago
  If Xinjiang were under public surveillance, with the results accessible to the whole world, the Chinese government might tread more carefully. As is, one of their biggest enablers is being able to effectively deny access to the area. Edit: I'd note this is generally an effective tactic of oppressive regimes. It takes dedicated, brave, well-funded people to access an area that's even semi-denied. Much less regularly. And the internet / world's attention is fickle. No updates, no photos, no video? No one pushing for justice.
  - notahacker 8y ago
    > If Xinjiang were under public surveillance, with the results accessible to the whole world, the Chinese government might tread more carefully. Not really. The world already has a pretty good idea that China has incarcerated millions of people for what wouldn't be considered offences or adequate standards of proof in the West as part of wider political struggles. And livestreaming is going to end at the point of arrest. A system tracking the full history of every one of those millions of individuals' movements prior to incarceration would add no useful insight into the nuances of the conflict or rhetorical weight to arguments to take any form of action against the Chinese government, but would be exceptionally useful to helping said government in tracking down anyone that has ever interacted with $PersonOfInterest or visited $Place. There's a reason that people campaigning for the world to take interest in human rights issues in their region do so by broadcasting explanations of their cause and how brave and inspiring their missing friends are rather than broadcasting their whereabouts.
howard941 8y ago
Your thoughts on Grassland echoes the ubiquitous, widely accessible and on balance beneficial surveillance predictions David Brin made in "The Transparent Society". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
rch 8y ago
"I hold the future of Bregna in my hands. See it my friends and embrace it, embrace the new openness! Nothing is sacred. Nothing is secret."
kevinventullo 8y ago
> The true problem with surveillance is the asymmetry of it all. Uh, agree to disagree. If someone invades my privacy, I'm not upset because I didn't get to invade theirs.
- notahacker 8y ago
  This. And also the present asymmetry is in the average person's favour. Google's interest in tracking my whereabouts begins and ends with which ads I'm most likely to click on. My family, employers and people I've irritated recently have considerably more interest in making and acting on other inferences (correct or otherwise) about my life from movement data.
scottishcow 8y ago
> The true problem with surveillance is the asymmetry of it all. This argument reminds me of those pro-gun arguments: we can't prevent guns from falling into the hands of wrongdoers, so let's allow everyone to arm themselves – soon we'll reach an equilibrium where the fear of retaliation acts as deterrence. I don't agree with this kind of thinking at all, the way to deal with destructive technologies is not further proliferation.
- moeadham 8y ago
  I don't think the comparison is entirely fair. The gun argument directly turns towards violence. This is an entirely peaceful approach to an inevitable societal end-state. Eventually, everyone at all times will be under constant surveillance, even in Western nations. Just look at the UK. Walking around London there is an undeniable asymmetry of constant, pervasive surveillance. Unless you are suggesting the violent approach (people walking around smashing CCTV), I don't see why you would oppose this.
  - david_at 8y ago
    And if voters are opposed to having more information at their disposal they'll regret that decision. Politicians will see the opportunity fate has dropped into their lap and realize they have one of the following two choices: Option 1: Oblige voters and pass a prohibition that regular people are not allowed to surface the data through Grassland. This would maintain the status quo for that particular polity but ONLY if NO OTHER polity in the world, to whom CAPITAL can flow chooses to act in their own self interest and takes Option 2 i.e. 'defect' in the Prisoner's Dilemma[1] Option 2: Realize that having constituents incentivised to surface this data themselves means denser node coverage and less friction; Level 5 self driving cars (with better than human situational awareness); more efficient stock markets because of information decreasing risk and the opening of new markets and industries never before thought possible; less ignorance, violence, fear, unaccountably and resources needed between law enforcement and their communities; and a guaranteed (as long as the node's running) source of income for their voters. And not to mention the fact that they won't be forfeiting AI dominance and capital to those political bodies that have chosen Option 2 themselves. All misunderstandings and fears of Grassland stem from an ignorance or misunderstanding of Game Theory. And until now this was little cause for concern. But now it's very dangerous to the public interest. And will become even more so when Deep Schizophrenia gets released. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp

atoav 8y ago

But isn’t balance here mostly about a balance of power? And isn’t a balance of power in terms of surveillance more than just a balance of information? In a transparent society the most powerful will still find their ways to be less transparent than everyone else, while leveraging this difference in transparency to the maximum extent possible. Information alone is not power. It is also about the ability to act on it, to use or abuse it.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

whatshisface 8y ago

What if Zuckerberg lives in a different neighborhood than you? In fact, most of the people your device would surveil if you did live near Zuckerberg would be his household staff.

david_at 8y ago
Everyone has rivals. Everyone has people who are interested in selling to them. Everyone has people who are interested in finding out what they do, where they go etc etc. And no one more so than the rich and powerful. Regardless, I think you're misunderstanding the algorithm. Nodes broadcast their data to other nodes because it stands as unassailable proof an AI performed a difficult computation on human behaviour and earned those coins. So you don't have to have a node in a part of the world you want information about. As long as there's someone there who either likes cryptographic money or wants to know more about the activities of that person beyond where the node tracks them, you're going to get that information one way or another.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  People in expensive neighborhoods tend to be less interested in getting $10 than people in less expensive neighborhoods because they already have money, so this thing will predominately target the not-zuckerbergs of the world. If you wanted even coverage, you'd have to compensate for the fact that rich people tend to live near other rich people who are less motivated by the same money than poor people who live near other poor people.
  - david_at 8y ago
    Do rich people have insurance companies, ex-spouses, business partners, rival colleagues, rival corporations, government agencies who'd like to know more about them yet want plausible deniability that an anonymous tracking system affords them? This is what I mean by saying that Game Theory balances everyone out. You have to consider that there is always another party and they're all motivated by their own interests. And I don't mean to be curt with you but I'm pretty sure rich people leave their houses every once in awhile. Don't you?

lovich 8y ago

The political science aspects of this are super interesting. I would prefer perfect privacy for everyone and consistently argue for increased privacy rights, but if that is impossible I would definitely prefer everyone has equal access to surveillance on each other. Having considered how I would attack this it seems trivial for the super rich and mega corps to defend against this and maintain the asymmetry however. They would merely need to buy up enough land that outside cameras could not see all of it or build walls to block the view. Then when traveling outside their land they would just need to travel by vehicle that occluded any view of them, and simultaneously have a few other duplicate vehicles move with people in them who don't have to look identical but close enough that the cameras and system cant differentiate. Its overly expensive to a normal person, but whats a few hundred thousand or million a year to a Zuckerberg or Bezos to maintain their privacy? I know Zuckerberg already does this to some extent with his house[1] [1]http://money.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/ http://money.com/money/4346766/mark-zuckerberg-houses/

lovich 8y ago
To add to this, I think making it asymmetric on how easy it is to surveil someone vs protecting themselves from it might be the right way to balance out privacy, but I don't see it being possible without putting legal limitation on the rich. Given our current system its unlikely you could ever make it asymmetric enough to stop the rich unless it was as bad as needing 1 million dollars to defend against every 1 dollar used to attack. At that point the rich have enough power to influence the government and just get them to make this illegal and everyone who uses it face jail time. Given that the nodes can easily be traced back based on the physical location data they are giving out, it wouldnt be hard for the government to send police to any area with a node and destroy it and jail whosever property its on.
- david_at 8y ago
  Someone eventually: "..and somebody's built this anonymous AI thing that tracks people and physical assets and lets you know where every citizen, rival public servant or object has been or whatever they've done before and they've posted it online for free. It's disgusting!" Politician/News Agency/Insurance CEO/Hedge Fund Quant: "Oh that's disgusting. An application that tracks people and physical assets and lets you know where every citizen, rival public servant or object has been or whatever they've done before and they've posted it online for free. Where? Where is this thing?" Someone eventually: "I don't know, one of those stupid '.network' domains" Politician/News Agency/Insurance CEO/Hedge Fund Quant: "Ugh! Those stupid '.network' domains! (shakes head convincingly)... But I mean there's so many of them though! Which one? Which one is it on?!"

cmroanirgo 8y ago

> you'll have to throw away this veneration of privacy to grasp what this is really about I cannot disagree more strongly. Every day our need to fight for privacy increases. All it takes is someone to take my actions and skew them in a political light. From there on it's tiny policy shift that could end up with me in jail for some fascist political crime that isn't a crime at all. Every day our governments take more and more: we really shouldn't be doing their work for them! Look at what's happening in China: a whole religious cleanse is taking place: Muslim, Buddhist, and even simple meditation groups (Falun Gong) are being persecuted and imprisoned. Russia has outlawed Jehovah's Witnesses for similar purpose, citing "extremist activities". And this is before we even get to more "political" style actions, such as white hacking and security research. We need to be exceedingly carefully with public spyware!

ethbro 8y ago
If Xinjiang were under public surveillance, with the results accessible to the whole world, the Chinese government might tread more carefully. As is, one of their biggest enablers is being able to effectively deny access to the area. Edit: I'd note this is generally an effective tactic of oppressive regimes. It takes dedicated, brave, well-funded people to access an area that's even semi-denied. Much less regularly. And the internet / world's attention is fickle. No updates, no photos, no video? No one pushing for justice.
- notahacker 8y ago
  > If Xinjiang were under public surveillance, with the results accessible to the whole world, the Chinese government might tread more carefully. Not really. The world already has a pretty good idea that China has incarcerated millions of people for what wouldn't be considered offences or adequate standards of proof in the West as part of wider political struggles. And livestreaming is going to end at the point of arrest. A system tracking the full history of every one of those millions of individuals' movements prior to incarceration would add no useful insight into the nuances of the conflict or rhetorical weight to arguments to take any form of action against the Chinese government, but would be exceptionally useful to helping said government in tracking down anyone that has ever interacted with $PersonOfInterest or visited $Place. There's a reason that people campaigning for the world to take interest in human rights issues in their region do so by broadcasting explanations of their cause and how brave and inspiring their missing friends are rather than broadcasting their whereabouts.

howard941 8y ago

Your thoughts on Grassland echoes the ubiquitous, widely accessible and on balance beneficial surveillance predictions David Brin made in "The Transparent Society". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society

rch 8y ago

"I hold the future of Bregna in my hands. See it my friends and embrace it, embrace the new openness! Nothing is sacred. Nothing is secret."

kevinventullo 8y ago

> The true problem with surveillance is the asymmetry of it all. Uh, agree to disagree. If someone invades my privacy, I'm not upset because I didn't get to invade theirs.

notahacker 8y ago
This. And also the present asymmetry is in the average person's favour. Google's interest in tracking my whereabouts begins and ends with which ads I'm most likely to click on. My family, employers and people I've irritated recently have considerably more interest in making and acting on other inferences (correct or otherwise) about my life from movement data.

scottishcow 8y ago

> The true problem with surveillance is the asymmetry of it all. This argument reminds me of those pro-gun arguments: we can't prevent guns from falling into the hands of wrongdoers, so let's allow everyone to arm themselves – soon we'll reach an equilibrium where the fear of retaliation acts as deterrence. I don't agree with this kind of thinking at all, the way to deal with destructive technologies is not further proliferation.

moeadham 8y ago
I don't think the comparison is entirely fair. The gun argument directly turns towards violence. This is an entirely peaceful approach to an inevitable societal end-state. Eventually, everyone at all times will be under constant surveillance, even in Western nations. Just look at the UK. Walking around London there is an undeniable asymmetry of constant, pervasive surveillance. Unless you are suggesting the violent approach (people walking around smashing CCTV), I don't see why you would oppose this.
- david_at 8y ago
  And if voters are opposed to having more information at their disposal they'll regret that decision. Politicians will see the opportunity fate has dropped into their lap and realize they have one of the following two choices: Option 1: Oblige voters and pass a prohibition that regular people are not allowed to surface the data through Grassland. This would maintain the status quo for that particular polity but ONLY if NO OTHER polity in the world, to whom CAPITAL can flow chooses to act in their own self interest and takes Option 2 i.e. 'defect' in the Prisoner's Dilemma[1] Option 2: Realize that having constituents incentivised to surface this data themselves means denser node coverage and less friction; Level 5 self driving cars (with better than human situational awareness); more efficient stock markets because of information decreasing risk and the opening of new markets and industries never before thought possible; less ignorance, violence, fear, unaccountably and resources needed between law enforcement and their communities; and a guaranteed (as long as the node's running) source of income for their voters. And not to mention the fact that they won't be forfeiting AI dominance and capital to those political bodies that have chosen Option 2 themselves. All misunderstandings and fears of Grassland stem from an ignorance or misunderstanding of Game Theory. And until now this was little cause for concern. But now it's very dangerous to the public interest. And will become even more so when Deep Schizophrenia gets released. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp