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Yes, but that shoudln't prevent society to also make those particular use of tech very costly. It should be consider like holding a concealed weapon: you need a

Yes, but that shoudln't prevent society to also make those particular use of tech very costly. It should be consider like holding a concealed weapon: you need a permit, or you get jail time. Permit should not be hard to get, as long as you can justify professional or research need. But letting this go is creating a society I don't want to live it. I already hate, living my anonymous life, when some stranger take my photo without asking. It happens more and more. On the other end, people filming the police get in more and more trouble. We got things reversed.

CydeWeys 7y ago
How is this possibly enforceable though? The software is already out there and available. In countries that restrict guns, it's often quite hard to get one outside the legal channels (if there are any), so enforcement is pretty effective. But for something you can just download??
- ashelmire 7y ago
  Not just download, but write yourself in a short time. And the code could be shared, and I’d guess you can build a decent system to do this in a few hundred lines. It’s a ridiculous proposition to restrict software access, akin to making it illegal to write on paper.
  - jeanmichelx 7y ago
    It's ridiculously easy to write a DoS tool. Let's make DoSing legal then.
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      The two aren't the same thing at all. It's legal to own guns, but illegal to shoot someone with one. It's legal to write software that opens network connections, but illegal to use said software against a target on the Internet that doesn't want said traffic. Similarly, it's legal to write or download a neural network that is programmed for facial recognition. Same for a basic crawler bot.
- Youcandothis 7y ago
  Laws are often difficult to enforce, but that is not a reason to not have the laws.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    The point of a law isn't the law in its own right, it's to solve a problem. And an unenforceable law isn't actually solving anything.
    - Youcandothis 7y ago
      There's a difference in being difficult to enforce and impossible to enforce. Laws like we are discussing here are enforceable enough.
blablabla123 7y ago
I think that probably these things could even get completely prevented if people acted more consciously. It starts with DNS providers and hosters who should be aware of what people are doing with their services and shut them down if they aren't ethically good. Probably Telcos and especially also CDNs should do the same. I don't talk about any packet inspection. But sometimes it's obvious what people are up to. Basically everybody in society can do something against this by not looking away. Also more diversity in tech would have prevented a lot of malicious uses I think.
- LocalH 7y ago
  That could be dangerous, though, as social mores change and the things which are "ethically good" become different. I'm already not a big fan of "deplatforming", and this seems like basically the same thing.
orthoxerox 7y ago
If you are already a criminal, you aren't worried about the lack of a permit that much. Especially when you are a cybercriminal separated from your server by multiple cryptocurrency tumblers. Forward intelligence teams already record the faces of people taking part in peaceful and legal protests. You can bet your ass they cross-ref the feed with their Linkedin and Facebook data dumps. The same tech is now becoming available to everyone. The USA can prevent its people from putting an M2 on their truck. Mexico can't (in some states). Syria can't (almost anywhere). The internet is closer to Mexico than the US.
- rmdashrfstar 7y ago
  This is something so many people do not seem to understand: if you ban something, you only prevent law abiding citizens from using it, it won't stop the law breakers who were going to use it regardless of what the law says. There are people who DDOS video game servers in the US as to not lose the game, even though it's a felony.
  - jakobegger 7y ago
    > you only prevent law abiding citizens from using it Most people are law abiding citizens most of the time, so laws are not pointless. And laws typically give us a way to come after those who violate the law. Sure, laws won't fix a problem once and for all, but if they can reduce the problem by 90% they are a big win.
  - sametmax 7y ago
    No. In france we rarely see criminals with guns. It happens. But it's not a common event.
    - brokenmachine 7y ago
      Same in Australia.
127 7y ago
Yes, absolutely. First criminal would be governments, who spy and track their own citizens with impunity.
internet_user 7y ago
You mean, you want to prevent people from comparing public images against public videos on the public internet, by requiring them to obtain licensing? This approach will just entrench FAANG even more and squeeze out SMBs even more.

CydeWeys 7y ago

How is this possibly enforceable though? The software is already out there and available. In countries that restrict guns, it's often quite hard to get one outside the legal channels (if there are any), so enforcement is pretty effective. But for something you can just download??

ashelmire 7y ago
Not just download, but write yourself in a short time. And the code could be shared, and I’d guess you can build a decent system to do this in a few hundred lines. It’s a ridiculous proposition to restrict software access, akin to making it illegal to write on paper.
- jeanmichelx 7y ago
  It's ridiculously easy to write a DoS tool. Let's make DoSing legal then.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    The two aren't the same thing at all. It's legal to own guns, but illegal to shoot someone with one. It's legal to write software that opens network connections, but illegal to use said software against a target on the Internet that doesn't want said traffic. Similarly, it's legal to write or download a neural network that is programmed for facial recognition. Same for a basic crawler bot.
Youcandothis 7y ago
Laws are often difficult to enforce, but that is not a reason to not have the laws.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  The point of a law isn't the law in its own right, it's to solve a problem. And an unenforceable law isn't actually solving anything.
  - Youcandothis 7y ago
    There's a difference in being difficult to enforce and impossible to enforce. Laws like we are discussing here are enforceable enough.

blablabla123 7y ago

I think that probably these things could even get completely prevented if people acted more consciously. It starts with DNS providers and hosters who should be aware of what people are doing with their services and shut them down if they aren't ethically good. Probably Telcos and especially also CDNs should do the same. I don't talk about any packet inspection. But sometimes it's obvious what people are up to. Basically everybody in society can do something against this by not looking away. Also more diversity in tech would have prevented a lot of malicious uses I think.

LocalH 7y ago
That could be dangerous, though, as social mores change and the things which are "ethically good" become different. I'm already not a big fan of "deplatforming", and this seems like basically the same thing.

orthoxerox 7y ago

If you are already a criminal, you aren't worried about the lack of a permit that much. Especially when you are a cybercriminal separated from your server by multiple cryptocurrency tumblers. Forward intelligence teams already record the faces of people taking part in peaceful and legal protests. You can bet your ass they cross-ref the feed with their Linkedin and Facebook data dumps. The same tech is now becoming available to everyone. The USA can prevent its people from putting an M2 on their truck. Mexico can't (in some states). Syria can't (almost anywhere). The internet is closer to Mexico than the US.

rmdashrfstar 7y ago
This is something so many people do not seem to understand: if you ban something, you only prevent law abiding citizens from using it, it won't stop the law breakers who were going to use it regardless of what the law says. There are people who DDOS video game servers in the US as to not lose the game, even though it's a felony.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  > you only prevent law abiding citizens from using it Most people are law abiding citizens most of the time, so laws are not pointless. And laws typically give us a way to come after those who violate the law. Sure, laws won't fix a problem once and for all, but if they can reduce the problem by 90% they are a big win.
- sametmax 7y ago
  No. In france we rarely see criminals with guns. It happens. But it's not a common event.
  - brokenmachine 7y ago
    Same in Australia.

127 7y ago

Yes, absolutely. First criminal would be governments, who spy and track their own citizens with impunity.

internet_user 7y ago

You mean, you want to prevent people from comparing public images against public videos on the public internet, by requiring them to obtain licensing? This approach will just entrench FAANG even more and squeeze out SMBs even more.