7 ms·

Sounds pretty dystopian to me. When talking with people they sometimes say 'I did nothing wrong, this is just for the bad guys'. But what people fail to see is

Sounds pretty dystopian to me. When talking with people they sometimes say 'I did nothing wrong, this is just for the bad guys'. But what people fail to see is that 'bad guys' is a pretty fluid concept and it depends on the nature of the current government and who decides which people are on the lists. Looking at the current British government it isn't even that hard to imagine the wrong hands that this technology could get into and cause damage. Who maintains the databases with 'wanted faces'? Imagining a some corrupt corporation that just puts their enemies on these lists, think union leaders, critical journalists, etc, again, isn't that hard. Never mind that this tech, being tech, isn't perfect and there are probably false positives that lead to very annoying situations.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
shadowgovt 7y ago
The converse scenario is also bad. Imagine an organized government subversion cell that is willing to harm civilians to further its objectives and is skilled at hiding in public (one doesn't have to try very hard given the nature of asymmetric warfare in the 21st century). Surely, we want the ability to locate their members as efficiently as possible? Considering the dystopia 1984 predicted is a good idea, but one should also consider the failure mode of "Snow Crash" anarchic dystopia, where sufficiently-organized individuals use modern technology to harm innocent people and government cannot stop them. The mafia stories in the US stem from the era where city organized crime had firepower that out-gunned the police.
- TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
  Whatever tools implemented need to avoid creating (terrorists/freedom fighters depending on your viewpoint). At least in the US, we're taught a culture that lauds those who fought against tryranny. If the government loses perceived legitimacy(say by suppressing the expression of first amendment rights to free speech) then there would likely be an increase in militias and home-grown terrorism.
- birracerveza 7y ago
  Honestly, I'd rather not want that ability than risk a never-ending unescapable 1984 dystopia.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    Neither of these scenarios are de-facto inescapable. And if we're talking avoidance of technologies because of risk: historical scholars point to the message-consolidating effects of radio and television as a technology that enabled the rise of fascism in Europe between WWI and WWII (Orwell alludes directly to this with the hate rallies in front of Big Brother's TV image). Should we ban TV?
- snarf21 7y ago
  No, I want locating those members to be hard. I understand human nature and we know that no one will watch the watchers. There are lots of avenues for tracking these groups but it requires real work. You have to infiltrate and investigate. You are also missing something. It is really about civilians being harmed? How many people died last year from terrorism in the US or the UK? How many died because people were texting and driving? Or drunk driving? Should we track when you text and drive the same way? Should we have police sit outside of every bar testing people to prevent harm? I think we all prefer to have the presumption of innocence and to face consequences for our mistakes and crimes, not to be tracked in case we do.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    I think the UK is providing a very useful example of how one watches the watchers. The government is accountable via elections and their power seems held in check pretty well. > I want locating those members to be hard I respect your opinion, but the people who have lost loved ones to "random" attacks don't generally share that view. Hell, part of the purpose of building a society and a government is to minimize that kind of personal violence against people.
    - snarf21 7y ago
      I understand what you are saying but are the people who lost loved ones to drunk driving or text driving any more understanding? You could argue it is even more senseless violence. We could easily make car connected breathalyzers mandatory in all cars. This would save 10K lives in the US alone. Are those thousands of lives not worth it in your mind? I agree that government has a role in protecting people. We are both free to vote for representatives that are either for spying on citizens or against spying on citizens. We can also move if the other side wins.
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        Are we arguing financial cost or privacy cost? I personally think the financial burden of retrofitting all US cars with breathalyzers is burdensome. If they already had such equipment, I'd 100% be in favor of gating starting the car on their use, especially if it was a completely passive, foolproof system. You're right on the number of deaths to drunk driving in the US; it's atrocious. This wouldn't even be the first time in US history a policy change to improve safety and corresponding enforcement occurred; seatbelt laws exist, and enforcement of such laws allows the police to glance in your window to see if you're wearing one and fine you if you aren't. We aren't too far away from cars refusing to be driven if the seatbelt is unclipped. To swing us back around from this analogous hypothetical to the UK's situation: the cameras are already sunk cost and the question on the table is to improve their utility via software. We aren't talking installing breathalyzers; we're talking about upgrading the existing breathalyzers' firmware to work better at the task they were intended for, so to speak. We can argue whether the software will technically work (separate question, and I'm not in favor of installing something that just doesn't work), but if it does work I'm in favor of passive mass surveillance of public spaces to find persons of interest. It bothers basically nobody and greatly improves the utility of a system that is already installed for the purpose of aiding in stopping crime.
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  > Imagine an organized government subversion cell that is willing to harm civilians to further its objectives and is skilled at hiding in public (one doesn't have to try very hard given the nature of asymmetric warfare in the 21st century). That cell harming people you want to imagine would be some other government agency acting as part of a covert operation after a long time of planning and preparation, with plenty of spies deep in the government. And they don't actually harm people all that much, not the point, they do just a few acts of terror with a few deaths for war propaganda. But once they are caught on surveillance it's already too late, it means they are ready to approach the head of police and start using serious military weapons, and plenty of people are already on the wrong side of war propaganda. > where sufficiently-organized individuals use modern technology to harm innocent people and government cannot stop them Such things don't really happen anymore, governments are too authoritarian already and really like their monopoly on harming people. The only way sufficiently-organized people can coexist with the government is for them to subvert law enforcement or to originate from law enforcement. Governments can deal with either case by replacing everyone or by letting them have their corruption in exchange for being loyal to the government. Basically surveillance is not the tool for anything you talk about, it's role is the exact opposite: to keep people from disobeying the government, the ruling class, the whole systems, no matter how much harm they do to the people.
rwnspace 7y ago
The bad guys are the citizens who work to maintain their own ignorance and do nothing to maintain and uphold the rights they enjoy; who don't demand freedom of press; or understand the consequences of these policies, policies eroding their rights to congress and converse freely without fear of suppression. I don't judge the government for exploring facial recognition technology - there are motivating utilitarian arguments and they have the tools right in front of them. They are doing /something/, even if I think it's deeply wrong. But I do judge those who stick their head in the sand, or sit on their laurels, and that includes myself. We also have motivating arguments and the tools to express them. I don't want to be part of generation of citizens whose children will say they learned nothing from history - beside the Nuremberg defense.
- Greg_Adams 7y ago
  > The bad guys are the citizens who work to maintain their own ignorance and do nothing to maintain and uphold the rights they enjoy >But I do judge those who stick their head in the sand, or sit on their laurels, and that includes myself >I don't want to be part of generation of citizens whose children will say they learned nothing from history Well you better start funneling funds to the frontlines because talk is cheap.Sounds like you have the technical know-how to do it without ending up on a list. If you were to end up on a list as a result of such contributions, at least it would be a list of the 'good guys' from your own assesment. No one is going to do it for you so ... https://tails.boum.org/donate/?r=sidebar https://tails.boum.org/donate/?r=sidebar https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-eff-4 https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-eff-4 https://donate.torproject.org/ https://donate.torproject.org/ https://riseuplabs.org/ https://riseuplabs.org/ https://donate.mozilla.org https://donate.mozilla.org You might even get a cool t-shirt :)
rkangel 7y ago
We (in the UK) have an existing system to control this - the warrant system. For the police to search your house, they need to go to a magistrate and provide the reasonable grounds. I would suggest this system works fairly well - I'm sure there are cases where it falls down, but generally the judiciary fairly polices where it is considered reasonable. I'm in favour of basically every form of government snooping on an individual - whether that's watching your internet activity, tracking your car through ANPR cameras or spotting you with facial recognition - as long as you need to get a warrant to track someone. The issue seems to be that the police can adopt (some of) these powers arbitrarily and with no due process (and in the past because intelligence agencies operate by a different set of rules). It would also provide an effective limit to the volume of people being tracked in this way, due to the overhead of acquiring a warrant. Of course, there also needs to be a system to provide oversight and check that only legally authorised individuals are being tracked.
- ska 7y ago
  It's not a crazy view but I would add a few things to that 1) The government should not be able compel corporations to add 'features' to help them in this 2) We are talking about an actual warrant, where someone physically went in front of a physical judge int the same location to ask for it, and 3) There is no allowance for speculative but "safe" collection of data they might want under a warrant later - you can only access data occurring after you have the warrant, or naturally occurring records (i.e. no slurping up everyone's cell phone connections/conversations "just in case") Broad based surveillance of the population by the government is just a bad idea. Cf much of human history on abuse of power. Number (2) is to make sure this is an expensive process.
  - angry_octet 7y ago
    I would add that incidental collection is still a problem -- and should the police be able to know the identity of every person in the area of a suspect? What about journalists? John Doe warrants? If should really be specifically enumerated with no slack. As in, surveillance footage keep for maximum of 1 hour (on line detection only, not historical movement search); only warranted faces will be produced in report, others people blurred. Also, having unopposed, indefinite warrant applications is bound to be troublesome. Who is checking the validity of police statements? No one. If the police want the surveillance warrant to remain secret indefinitely there should be increasing levels of review. Likewise journalists, politicians, lawyers, medical data, etc.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

shadowgovt 7y ago

The converse scenario is also bad. Imagine an organized government subversion cell that is willing to harm civilians to further its objectives and is skilled at hiding in public (one doesn't have to try very hard given the nature of asymmetric warfare in the 21st century). Surely, we want the ability to locate their members as efficiently as possible? Considering the dystopia 1984 predicted is a good idea, but one should also consider the failure mode of "Snow Crash" anarchic dystopia, where sufficiently-organized individuals use modern technology to harm innocent people and government cannot stop them. The mafia stories in the US stem from the era where city organized crime had firepower that out-gunned the police.

TheAdamAndChe 7y ago
Whatever tools implemented need to avoid creating (terrorists/freedom fighters depending on your viewpoint). At least in the US, we're taught a culture that lauds those who fought against tryranny. If the government loses perceived legitimacy(say by suppressing the expression of first amendment rights to free speech) then there would likely be an increase in militias and home-grown terrorism.
birracerveza 7y ago
Honestly, I'd rather not want that ability than risk a never-ending unescapable 1984 dystopia.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Neither of these scenarios are de-facto inescapable. And if we're talking avoidance of technologies because of risk: historical scholars point to the message-consolidating effects of radio and television as a technology that enabled the rise of fascism in Europe between WWI and WWII (Orwell alludes directly to this with the hate rallies in front of Big Brother's TV image). Should we ban TV?
snarf21 7y ago
No, I want locating those members to be hard. I understand human nature and we know that no one will watch the watchers. There are lots of avenues for tracking these groups but it requires real work. You have to infiltrate and investigate. You are also missing something. It is really about civilians being harmed? How many people died last year from terrorism in the US or the UK? How many died because people were texting and driving? Or drunk driving? Should we track when you text and drive the same way? Should we have police sit outside of every bar testing people to prevent harm? I think we all prefer to have the presumption of innocence and to face consequences for our mistakes and crimes, not to be tracked in case we do.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  I think the UK is providing a very useful example of how one watches the watchers. The government is accountable via elections and their power seems held in check pretty well. > I want locating those members to be hard I respect your opinion, but the people who have lost loved ones to "random" attacks don't generally share that view. Hell, part of the purpose of building a society and a government is to minimize that kind of personal violence against people.
  - snarf21 7y ago
    I understand what you are saying but are the people who lost loved ones to drunk driving or text driving any more understanding? You could argue it is even more senseless violence. We could easily make car connected breathalyzers mandatory in all cars. This would save 10K lives in the US alone. Are those thousands of lives not worth it in your mind? I agree that government has a role in protecting people. We are both free to vote for representatives that are either for spying on citizens or against spying on citizens. We can also move if the other side wins.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      Are we arguing financial cost or privacy cost? I personally think the financial burden of retrofitting all US cars with breathalyzers is burdensome. If they already had such equipment, I'd 100% be in favor of gating starting the car on their use, especially if it was a completely passive, foolproof system. You're right on the number of deaths to drunk driving in the US; it's atrocious. This wouldn't even be the first time in US history a policy change to improve safety and corresponding enforcement occurred; seatbelt laws exist, and enforcement of such laws allows the police to glance in your window to see if you're wearing one and fine you if you aren't. We aren't too far away from cars refusing to be driven if the seatbelt is unclipped. To swing us back around from this analogous hypothetical to the UK's situation: the cameras are already sunk cost and the question on the table is to improve their utility via software. We aren't talking installing breathalyzers; we're talking about upgrading the existing breathalyzers' firmware to work better at the task they were intended for, so to speak. We can argue whether the software will technically work (separate question, and I'm not in favor of installing something that just doesn't work), but if it does work I'm in favor of passive mass surveillance of public spaces to find persons of interest. It bothers basically nobody and greatly improves the utility of a system that is already installed for the purpose of aiding in stopping crime.
zzzcpan 7y ago
> Imagine an organized government subversion cell that is willing to harm civilians to further its objectives and is skilled at hiding in public (one doesn't have to try very hard given the nature of asymmetric warfare in the 21st century). That cell harming people you want to imagine would be some other government agency acting as part of a covert operation after a long time of planning and preparation, with plenty of spies deep in the government. And they don't actually harm people all that much, not the point, they do just a few acts of terror with a few deaths for war propaganda. But once they are caught on surveillance it's already too late, it means they are ready to approach the head of police and start using serious military weapons, and plenty of people are already on the wrong side of war propaganda. > where sufficiently-organized individuals use modern technology to harm innocent people and government cannot stop them Such things don't really happen anymore, governments are too authoritarian already and really like their monopoly on harming people. The only way sufficiently-organized people can coexist with the government is for them to subvert law enforcement or to originate from law enforcement. Governments can deal with either case by replacing everyone or by letting them have their corruption in exchange for being loyal to the government. Basically surveillance is not the tool for anything you talk about, it's role is the exact opposite: to keep people from disobeying the government, the ruling class, the whole systems, no matter how much harm they do to the people.

rwnspace 7y ago

The bad guys are the citizens who work to maintain their own ignorance and do nothing to maintain and uphold the rights they enjoy; who don't demand freedom of press; or understand the consequences of these policies, policies eroding their rights to congress and converse freely without fear of suppression. I don't judge the government for exploring facial recognition technology - there are motivating utilitarian arguments and they have the tools right in front of them. They are doing /something/, even if I think it's deeply wrong. But I do judge those who stick their head in the sand, or sit on their laurels, and that includes myself. We also have motivating arguments and the tools to express them. I don't want to be part of generation of citizens whose children will say they learned nothing from history - beside the Nuremberg defense.

Greg_Adams 7y ago
> The bad guys are the citizens who work to maintain their own ignorance and do nothing to maintain and uphold the rights they enjoy >But I do judge those who stick their head in the sand, or sit on their laurels, and that includes myself >I don't want to be part of generation of citizens whose children will say they learned nothing from history Well you better start funneling funds to the frontlines because talk is cheap.Sounds like you have the technical know-how to do it without ending up on a list. If you were to end up on a list as a result of such contributions, at least it would be a list of the 'good guys' from your own assesment. No one is going to do it for you so ... https://tails.boum.org/donate/?r=sidebar https://tails.boum.org/donate/?r=sidebar https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-eff-4 https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-eff-4 https://donate.torproject.org/ https://donate.torproject.org/ https://riseuplabs.org/ https://riseuplabs.org/ https://donate.mozilla.org https://donate.mozilla.org You might even get a cool t-shirt :)

rkangel 7y ago

We (in the UK) have an existing system to control this - the warrant system. For the police to search your house, they need to go to a magistrate and provide the reasonable grounds. I would suggest this system works fairly well - I'm sure there are cases where it falls down, but generally the judiciary fairly polices where it is considered reasonable. I'm in favour of basically every form of government snooping on an individual - whether that's watching your internet activity, tracking your car through ANPR cameras or spotting you with facial recognition - as long as you need to get a warrant to track someone. The issue seems to be that the police can adopt (some of) these powers arbitrarily and with no due process (and in the past because intelligence agencies operate by a different set of rules). It would also provide an effective limit to the volume of people being tracked in this way, due to the overhead of acquiring a warrant. Of course, there also needs to be a system to provide oversight and check that only legally authorised individuals are being tracked.

ska 7y ago
It's not a crazy view but I would add a few things to that 1) The government should not be able compel corporations to add 'features' to help them in this 2) We are talking about an actual warrant, where someone physically went in front of a physical judge int the same location to ask for it, and 3) There is no allowance for speculative but "safe" collection of data they might want under a warrant later - you can only access data occurring after you have the warrant, or naturally occurring records (i.e. no slurping up everyone's cell phone connections/conversations "just in case") Broad based surveillance of the population by the government is just a bad idea. Cf much of human history on abuse of power. Number (2) is to make sure this is an expensive process.
- angry_octet 7y ago
  I would add that incidental collection is still a problem -- and should the police be able to know the identity of every person in the area of a suspect? What about journalists? John Doe warrants? If should really be specifically enumerated with no slack. As in, surveillance footage keep for maximum of 1 hour (on line detection only, not historical movement search); only warranted faces will be produced in report, others people blurred. Also, having unopposed, indefinite warrant applications is bound to be troublesome. Who is checking the validity of police statements? No one. If the police want the surveillance warrant to remain secret indefinitely there should be increasing levels of review. Likewise journalists, politicians, lawyers, medical data, etc.