4 ms·

You may not. I don't want my government spying on me. What if I was gay and was seen leaving a gay club? Now what if I ended up in the Kingdom of Saud and that

by cheeze 7y ago

You may not. I don't want my government spying on me. What if I was gay and was seen leaving a gay club? Now what if I ended up in the Kingdom of Saud and that data was shared or leaked?

imgabe 7y ago
If you're gay, you should know the risks about going to Saudi Arabia or any place with similar laws and avoid going there. One does not usually "end up" in a different country unless they're kidnapped and at that point the homosexuality laws are really the least of your problems.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  How do you avoid being born in a place like that?
  - imgabe 7y ago
    If you're gay and were born in Saudi Arabia, and managed to get to a point where you're photographed leaving a gay club in NYC, then don't go back to Saudi Arabia.
    - ilikehurdles 7y ago
      Governments change, as do treatments of different groups of people. Perhaps the government had no issue with your practicing of a particular religion or being an immigrant before some disaster, war, or nationalist wave changes things.
      - imgabe 7y ago
        And anyone can come up with some contrived chain of events about how any particular technology might be misused. That's not a reason to dismiss it wholesale, otherwise we would never have any technology at all.
        SolaceQuantum 7y ago
        How is it contrived when it's happened again and again historically?
        imgabe 7y ago
        Really? Saudi Arabia has historically, again and again, used facial recognition data collected by the NYPD to hunt down people who went to gay clubs in NYC, who for some reason spontaneously "end up" in Saudi Arabia via some unspecified process they can't control?
        mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Look up the history of the helpful IBM census machines just before WWII.
        imgabe 7y ago
        Yeah, remember when that happened and then we banned governments from using electronic records or computer data processing? I guess that's why the government keeps all their records on paper now and does all of the processing by hand. Because computers were used for something evil once so it must be the inanimate objects that are themselves inherently evil and not, you know, the people using them. What a weird, reactionary, alarmist stance to be so prevalent on a supposedly technology based forum.
        mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Christ, how naive. Do you think people have changed any? Different groups are taking advantage of these records every day. It happened in the past and will in the future. The only thing limiting the most horrible examples is opportunity. That's why we must limit our exposure to those who would do us harm. I also recommend a reading of the history behind the "bill of rights."
        7y ago
- moate 7y ago
  The point is that the risks are much lower if there's not a database storing this information to be leaked in the first place. The whole "if you don't want to go to jail, don't commit crimes" line of thinking really falls apart when you realize that the legal system is well beyond the ability for a layman to navigate on a day to day basis and gets even worse when you have a perfect surveillance state capable of seeing and storing massive amounts of data.
  - salawat 7y ago
    So much this. It can't be overstated. When the government can trivially make the case that a citizen is a criminal just by looking deep enough in the archive it's time to start considering that maybe your government isn't protecting/serving you anymore.
- jammygit 7y ago
  Your argument implies that 'it's the gay person's fault for getting caught,' so that tracking organisations have less responsibility for their actions. Instead of Saudi Arabia, how about the United States 100 years ago? It is not as though there are no more harmless activities for people to participate in that they will suffer for. A comparatively trivial but important example: how about tracking your employees movements to punish them for talking to other companies? Is that a 'you should know your risks' situation too?
  - pixl97 7y ago
    Hell, we cant predict what the US will be like 10 years in the future. Data getting deleted is a good thing.
  - imgabe 7y ago
    It implies no such thing. There is no blame because this is a contrived hypothetical that makes a number of ridiculous assumptions. 1. That someone going to a gay club in NYC later decides to go to Saudi Arabia, knowing full well that the government there is actively hostile to them. 2. That the government of Saudi Arabia somehow has access to facial recognition data from the NYPD. 3. This data for some reason includes not only mugshots directly collected by the NYPD (which was what TFA was actually about) but also private survellience footage from gay clubs, and this footage is clear enough to make a match (remember people tend to go to clubs at night) 4. The government of Saudi Arabia decides that they need to expend a tremendous amount of computing resources to run facial recognition of all of their survellience footage of every face in their country against this fictional database that they somehow obtained. 5. Further they conclude that a single facial recognition match, which is known the flawed, of a person in the vicinity of a gay club is sufficient to convict someone. There are real privacy concerns yes, but this is absurdist fearmongering and deserves to be ridiculed.
xwdv 7y ago
First of all, there is a strict process in proving that someone is a homosexual in Saudi Arabia. It’s not as simple as “here’s some pictures of this guy leaving a gay club, execute him”. If it were that easy the system would be rife for abuse obviously, especially in an age where any image can be faked or taken out of context. Second, you can simply deny the images were even real, or that it was not you, and further increase the burden of proof required.
- abugheratwork 7y ago
  Assuming everything you say is true ... your point is what? This hypothetical person would probably not be executed? Going through a trial for your own sexual orientation but being acquitted doesn't sound like a great time to me.
  - xwdv 7y ago
    It simply would not make it to trial, especially if you are a person of no significance.

by cheeze 7y ago

You may not. I don't want my government spying on me. What if I was gay and was seen leaving a gay club? Now what if I ended up in the Kingdom of Saud and that data was shared or leaked?

imgabe 7y ago

If you're gay, you should know the risks about going to Saudi Arabia or any place with similar laws and avoid going there. One does not usually "end up" in a different country unless they're kidnapped and at that point the homosexuality laws are really the least of your problems.

ilikehurdles 7y ago
How do you avoid being born in a place like that?
- imgabe 7y ago
  If you're gay and were born in Saudi Arabia, and managed to get to a point where you're photographed leaving a gay club in NYC, then don't go back to Saudi Arabia.
  - ilikehurdles 7y ago
    Governments change, as do treatments of different groups of people. Perhaps the government had no issue with your practicing of a particular religion or being an immigrant before some disaster, war, or nationalist wave changes things.
    - imgabe 7y ago
      And anyone can come up with some contrived chain of events about how any particular technology might be misused. That's not a reason to dismiss it wholesale, otherwise we would never have any technology at all.
      - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
        How is it contrived when it's happened again and again historically?
        imgabe 7y ago
        Really? Saudi Arabia has historically, again and again, used facial recognition data collected by the NYPD to hunt down people who went to gay clubs in NYC, who for some reason spontaneously "end up" in Saudi Arabia via some unspecified process they can't control?
        mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Look up the history of the helpful IBM census machines just before WWII.
        imgabe 7y ago
        Yeah, remember when that happened and then we banned governments from using electronic records or computer data processing? I guess that's why the government keeps all their records on paper now and does all of the processing by hand. Because computers were used for something evil once so it must be the inanimate objects that are themselves inherently evil and not, you know, the people using them. What a weird, reactionary, alarmist stance to be so prevalent on a supposedly technology based forum.
        mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Christ, how naive. Do you think people have changed any? Different groups are taking advantage of these records every day. It happened in the past and will in the future. The only thing limiting the most horrible examples is opportunity. That's why we must limit our exposure to those who would do us harm. I also recommend a reading of the history behind the "bill of rights."
        7y ago
moate 7y ago
The point is that the risks are much lower if there's not a database storing this information to be leaked in the first place. The whole "if you don't want to go to jail, don't commit crimes" line of thinking really falls apart when you realize that the legal system is well beyond the ability for a layman to navigate on a day to day basis and gets even worse when you have a perfect surveillance state capable of seeing and storing massive amounts of data.
- salawat 7y ago
  So much this. It can't be overstated. When the government can trivially make the case that a citizen is a criminal just by looking deep enough in the archive it's time to start considering that maybe your government isn't protecting/serving you anymore.
jammygit 7y ago
Your argument implies that 'it's the gay person's fault for getting caught,' so that tracking organisations have less responsibility for their actions. Instead of Saudi Arabia, how about the United States 100 years ago? It is not as though there are no more harmless activities for people to participate in that they will suffer for. A comparatively trivial but important example: how about tracking your employees movements to punish them for talking to other companies? Is that a 'you should know your risks' situation too?
- pixl97 7y ago
  Hell, we cant predict what the US will be like 10 years in the future. Data getting deleted is a good thing.
- imgabe 7y ago
  It implies no such thing. There is no blame because this is a contrived hypothetical that makes a number of ridiculous assumptions. 1. That someone going to a gay club in NYC later decides to go to Saudi Arabia, knowing full well that the government there is actively hostile to them. 2. That the government of Saudi Arabia somehow has access to facial recognition data from the NYPD. 3. This data for some reason includes not only mugshots directly collected by the NYPD (which was what TFA was actually about) but also private survellience footage from gay clubs, and this footage is clear enough to make a match (remember people tend to go to clubs at night) 4. The government of Saudi Arabia decides that they need to expend a tremendous amount of computing resources to run facial recognition of all of their survellience footage of every face in their country against this fictional database that they somehow obtained. 5. Further they conclude that a single facial recognition match, which is known the flawed, of a person in the vicinity of a gay club is sufficient to convict someone. There are real privacy concerns yes, but this is absurdist fearmongering and deserves to be ridiculed.

xwdv 7y ago

First of all, there is a strict process in proving that someone is a homosexual in Saudi Arabia. It’s not as simple as “here’s some pictures of this guy leaving a gay club, execute him”. If it were that easy the system would be rife for abuse obviously, especially in an age where any image can be faked or taken out of context. Second, you can simply deny the images were even real, or that it was not you, and further increase the burden of proof required.

abugheratwork 7y ago
Assuming everything you say is true ... your point is what? This hypothetical person would probably not be executed? Going through a trial for your own sexual orientation but being acquitted doesn't sound like a great time to me.
- xwdv 7y ago
  It simply would not make it to trial, especially if you are a person of no significance.