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This kinda feels like worrying about how the telephone would allow people to spread rumors and damaging information about each faster and further. Or perhaps d

by lotu 8y ago

This kinda feels like worrying about how the telephone would allow people to spread rumors and damaging information about each faster and further. Or perhaps discriminate against a potential job applicant based on their voice, instead only getting to see a letter. This feels like a non-tech person has realized what tech people realized 20 years ago. Technology makes everything we do faster and more efficient even if those things are bad. What they don't propose is any general statement of the problem or any type of solution.

fb03 8y ago
I don't think the article does a disservice to readers by not postulating any kind of way out or solution. I believe that there isn't a solid solution to be posted right now because first we need to get the majority of people to care. Laypeople are not concerned about all of this at all. All they care is that they can, like the article stated, do things like watch their dog from afar, or share funny videos with their relatives. Companies provide their "free" service in exchange for your data. Right now we need to do exactly this: scream and inform everyone that this exists. As long as the population keeps still, there's nothing left to lose for them and much to gain: behavioral insights, health data, trends, ....
crispyambulance 8y ago
>...what tech people realized 20 years ago. OK, but don't forget it has been "tech people" blindly driving us to the edge of dystopia for the purpose getting people to click on stuff.
- navaati 8y ago
  They are not necessarily the same persons…
  - crispyambulance 8y ago
    Sure, but this is a problem that goes far beyond "tech". There is no technical solution, no killer app which will address it. Surveillance capitalism and its consequences require a multidisciplinary approach that involves non-tech people in the most critical way. I think dismissing non-tech people as effectively clueless (as the parent comment does) is the wrong approach.
rchaud 8y ago
> This feels like a non-tech person has realized what tech people realized 20 years ago. Really? 20 years ago, tech people realized that billions would be carrying electronic devices that pinged their location and constantly phoned home to 6-10 large corporations?
- whoopdedo 8y ago
  Cell phones are older than 20 years. Those corporations were AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and GTE (I'm forgetting a few I'm sure). And shockingly, you could even have your conversations eavesdropped on by anyone with a $100 radio scanner. So yes. Tech people have been aware of the privacy issues for a while.
- FakeComments 8y ago
  In 1999 when Palm Pilots and Blackberries were there, showing a clear trend towards greater handheld power after things like brick cellphones and gameboys? Yeah, that was the general consensus about what the future would be.
  - rchaud 8y ago
    Back then, the business model that incentivized mass data harvesting didn't exist, and neither did the infrastructure necessary to store and process those mountains of data. In 1999, only the original Blackberry and Palm VII "could" do mobile data. I use quotation marks because they both relied on a very rickety, bandwidth constrained Mobitex network that could barely send and receive text-only emails for a few hundred concurrent users, let alone real-time geolocation and web browsing data across billions of devices. Even then, Blackberry had to route every single email through their own servers to compress it before transmission. Blackberry's business model, like Apple's, was built around an integrated hardware-software solution. There was no incentive to sell their data to advertisers. That only started with the search and social media companies that had no other way of making money.
- lotu 8y ago
  I don't think they had those exact specific details but the importance of the end user controlling their technology has absolutely been around for that long. The EFF was founded in 1990 and one of the ideas of the open source community is to ensure the end user is in control of their technology not somebody else.
ABCLAW 8y ago
>This feels like a non-tech person has realized what tech people realized 20 years ago. It's almost like most of the tech people realized Stallman was right then went right out to build the opposite. Then they chided the luddites, not themeselves, for the problems created as a result. THEN they put the burden on the luddites to fix the issue they created. Oh boy.

by lotu 8y ago

fb03 8y ago

I don't think the article does a disservice to readers by not postulating any kind of way out or solution. I believe that there isn't a solid solution to be posted right now because first we need to get the majority of people to care. Laypeople are not concerned about all of this at all. All they care is that they can, like the article stated, do things like watch their dog from afar, or share funny videos with their relatives. Companies provide their "free" service in exchange for your data. Right now we need to do exactly this: scream and inform everyone that this exists. As long as the population keeps still, there's nothing left to lose for them and much to gain: behavioral insights, health data, trends, ....

crispyambulance 8y ago

>...what tech people realized 20 years ago. OK, but don't forget it has been "tech people" blindly driving us to the edge of dystopia for the purpose getting people to click on stuff.

navaati 8y ago
They are not necessarily the same persons…
- crispyambulance 8y ago
  Sure, but this is a problem that goes far beyond "tech". There is no technical solution, no killer app which will address it. Surveillance capitalism and its consequences require a multidisciplinary approach that involves non-tech people in the most critical way. I think dismissing non-tech people as effectively clueless (as the parent comment does) is the wrong approach.

rchaud 8y ago

> This feels like a non-tech person has realized what tech people realized 20 years ago. Really? 20 years ago, tech people realized that billions would be carrying electronic devices that pinged their location and constantly phoned home to 6-10 large corporations?

whoopdedo 8y ago
Cell phones are older than 20 years. Those corporations were AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and GTE (I'm forgetting a few I'm sure). And shockingly, you could even have your conversations eavesdropped on by anyone with a $100 radio scanner. So yes. Tech people have been aware of the privacy issues for a while.
FakeComments 8y ago
In 1999 when Palm Pilots and Blackberries were there, showing a clear trend towards greater handheld power after things like brick cellphones and gameboys? Yeah, that was the general consensus about what the future would be.
- rchaud 8y ago
  Back then, the business model that incentivized mass data harvesting didn't exist, and neither did the infrastructure necessary to store and process those mountains of data. In 1999, only the original Blackberry and Palm VII "could" do mobile data. I use quotation marks because they both relied on a very rickety, bandwidth constrained Mobitex network that could barely send and receive text-only emails for a few hundred concurrent users, let alone real-time geolocation and web browsing data across billions of devices. Even then, Blackberry had to route every single email through their own servers to compress it before transmission. Blackberry's business model, like Apple's, was built around an integrated hardware-software solution. There was no incentive to sell their data to advertisers. That only started with the search and social media companies that had no other way of making money.
lotu 8y ago
I don't think they had those exact specific details but the importance of the end user controlling their technology has absolutely been around for that long. The EFF was founded in 1990 and one of the ideas of the open source community is to ensure the end user is in control of their technology not somebody else.

ABCLAW 8y ago

>This feels like a non-tech person has realized what tech people realized 20 years ago. It's almost like most of the tech people realized Stallman was right then went right out to build the opposite. Then they chided the luddites, not themeselves, for the problems created as a result. THEN they put the burden on the luddites to fix the issue they created. Oh boy.