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Schneier is missing the point. > The whole purpose of this process is for companies — and governments — to treat individuals differently. This isn't true. It'
by cryptoz 7y ago
Schneier is missing the point.
> The whole purpose of this process is for companies — and governments — to treat individuals differently.
This isn't true. It's about population control, not treating individuals differently. He has an extremely close-minded view of the future here. The point of this isn't to treat people differently, it's to contain the overton window and basically thought-police entire populations. Nothing to do with the individual being treated differently, that is merely the lipstick-pig moment where it happens but isn't really the core problem.
> The point is that it doesn't matter which technology is used to identify people.
It sure does matter! Bugs in code, hacking the system itself is all 'implementation details' of the 'technology' used to do the tracking. Techniques that are especially susceptible to both of these make a surveillance technology dramatically more dangerous.
The details do matter, because they add up to a larger, unknown future. Schneier has a bizarrely close-minded view of the dangers of facial recognition.
I haven't heard any of the proponents of the ban say that it is the only surveillance that is happening or that should be banned, but that seems a central tenet to his point.
Some progress is better than no progress, especially in this case where things move quickly. I do not think we are at risk of a population thinking that its problems would be solved if we could just ban this one thing. It's a straw-man argument that I haven't even heard elsewhere.
- gwbas1c 7y ago> This isn't true. It's about population control Uhh, why do you think that? So far, I only see evidence that mass surveillance is to catch criminals and for marketing. "1984" was a work of fiction, and it seems more a warning about perpetual war, totalitarian, and the communism concept of "cult of personality" than just surveillance.
- cryptoz 7y agoI don't see how 1984 is relevant here. The surveillance we have today far surpasses the simple ideas in that book. > Uhh, why do you think that? Because the people building the facial recognition pretty much say so? "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible" does not sound like marketing opportunities or criminal-catching to me! It sounds like a desire for total corporate control over the physical and digital world. Not to mention, it is the logical end of using this technology; "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely". Having such a powerful and omnipotent surveillance system in place enables totalitarian control over populations. This happens through chilling effects, through terrorism, mental boxing-in of populations ceding their free will to the government. Knowing that your own face is tracked everywhere you go and sold off to anyone and owned by your own government or other governments is dehumanizing. Do this for decades or centuries and you will have a very humanized and defeated population. > So far, I only see evidence that mass surveillance is to catch criminals and for marketing. I don't see any evidence like you are describing. I feel like we're living in different worlds.
- rpdillon 7y agoMarketing is population control. Getting someone to buy something is the same as getting them to believe something.
- ptah 7y agohow is "treating individuals differently" not an aid to population control?