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Clearview now says the app is "available only for law enforcement agencies and select security professionals to use as an investigative tool." I'm fairly convi

Clearview now says the app is "available only for law enforcement agencies and select security professionals to use as an investigative tool." I'm fairly convinced by David Brin's argument that this is exactly the wrong approach. In The Transparent Society he argues that privacy is no longer an option; our choice is between a society where the police surveil us all, and one where we all surveil each other. He says only the latter is compatible with freedom. We have to be able to monitor the cops and the powerful, just like they monitor us. Maybe we need our own Clearview, with open source face recognition and data on the darknet.

mc32 7y ago
I don’t think that’s how it works. Going by the way online mobs work, availing these tools to all citizens unencumbered makes possible all kinds of abuses.
- DennisP 7y ago
  Exclusive top-down surveillance also makes possible all kinds of abuses. We should put some thought into which scenario has the worst failure modes, and in doing so we should remember our history.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    No top down surveillance would be my preference and it isn't that hard to imagine really. Certainly you can get the impression that people currently don't really value privacy, but if it is taken from them, there will be quite a sudden interest.
    - loudmax 7y ago
      Many of us grew up with no top down surveillance in the 80s and 90s. In that world, no top down surveillance is easy to imagine. In a world where network connected cameras are so cheap they're disposable, no top down surveillance becomes harder to imagine. At some point, information gathering systems become so cheap and ubiquitous that telling organizations not to use them for surveillance is like telling people not to look up at the sky. Banks used to ask your mother's maiden name as a security question because someone trying to impersonate you would have a hard time finding that information. Now it's a Facebook search away, and many entities still want to use personal identifiable information as security questions. As a society we need to reevaluate what personal information is private and what is public.
      - raxxorrax 7y ago
        I don't think any of this is inevitable. In fact it is quite illegal in many cases. Availability doesn't imply use. Especially since we even have falling crime numbers, increasing security still has become some religious dogma for some. Basic control freaks in my opinion, although there is also the other crowd thinking they are constantly under personal surveillance. Similar fears I imagine. While there are efforts to bring more people to engage in civil society, where we don't wear masks, increasing surveillance will have the opposite effect because of basic self defense mechanisms that shouldn't be to hard to understand in my opinion. > As a society we need to reevaluate what personal information is private and what is public. I like to decide that myself and for bureaucratic needs I will supply the minimum amount of data needed for processing.
mrgreen102938 7y ago
MAD, the only winning move...
- s188 7y ago
  As in Mutually Assured Destruction? Or do I misunderstand? I'd love to know more...
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Yes, mutually assured destruction. From the movie War Games: "The only winning move is not to play."
C1sc0cat 7y ago
I think Mr Brinn hadn't seen the dumpster fire that is https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
If the government succeeds in getting advanced ML/AI type software classified as arms (that idea comes up from time to time in the context of reducing industrial espionage) then in the US that would naturally lend itself to the argument that private ownership and operation of these sorts of surveillance systems are protected under the 2A. The arguments traditionally used to prevent private ownership of the kind of arms that let you go toe to toe with a modern military don't really work very well for software.
- aidenn0 7y ago
  Sure. Just like main battle tanks and nuclear warheads...
  - Ragnarork 7y ago
    I'll never understand how people come to believe that civilian amateurs with AR-15 have somewhat of a chance against trained professionals with heavy equipment. The mental gym to justify the 2A is really mindboggling.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Classified as a destructive device :-) Maybe I should register forgotten-algorithms.com only my ponytail isn't as long as Ian's
raxxorrax 7y ago
I do think privacy is still an option and see no evidence to the contrary. Of course it should be applied to officials in public service in their function. Not their private lives. Because anyone with a hint of a brain should be able to extrapolate the negatives of such surveillance on their lives. We played dumb long enough on that topic. If you are not up for that, ok, but you also should not work in a capacity that has any access to private information. If there are companies or people regularly ignoring privacy, which still is enshrined in most countries laws, severe penalties should be applied. That is also true for the executive branch of government, which was severely neglected the last decade because of fear.
pletsch 7y ago
I'm convinced that Gen-Z is going to blow all of this out of the water. That the world will eventually hit a point where there isn't anyone without something online that can come back to haunt them. And I think companies are starting to see it too. A little anecdotal but when I was applying for jobs last summer there was a video that was brought up twice during interviews with different organizations. Both times I was told after the fact that it was just to see how I would react, all I did was tell them what happened, not that I was sorry because I wasn't, I told them I stood behind what my actions were and there was nothing I could do about it now (it hit 100k views on Instagram, not a situation where I can contain it). Both companies offered me a job. I rewrote this a few times and I'm still not sure I got my point across, but I agree with the argument in the The Transparent Society, and I already see it shifting towards that.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  Now I’m wondering what the context of the video was, and why they felt it was relevant to ask about.
  - pletsch 7y ago
    It was a video of me in my university dorms, it wasn't anything illegal or violent. I'm not sure why they felt the need to ask, I wonder if they were just curious for context.
    - akhilcacharya 7y ago
      That's infuriating. I'm sorry you had to go through with that.
      - VRay 7y ago
        I kinda lucked out and learned my lesson about this stuff early on I was trash-talking one group of internet people with another group, and the trash talk ended up getting indexed by Lycos or AltaVista. They called me out for being a dick, and I realized that I need to be really careful about what ends up attached to me online. (Also not to trash talk people behind their back..)
matz1 7y ago
Yes, transparency is the only practical and realistic way to deal with privacy. Information want to be free. The sooner we learn to adapt and resolves issue due to our information being public the better.
- AlexandrB 7y ago
  Maybe for the plebs. The wealthy are already bulwarking their own privacy using legal and technological means. Giving up on protecting privacy for everybody just turns it into a luxury good for the wealthy while stripping it from those that can’t afford it. This creates yet another vector of inequality in our society. Edit: Since you used the “information wants to be free” phrase - commonly invoked with the copyright enforcement controversies of the 2000s - it’s important to note how that turned out. From where I sit, I see a lot of large, powerful companies stealing ideas and content from small creators with no repercussions while small creators are under the thumb of automated content ID systems (see YouTube). “Fair Use” in video content is effectively dead - YouTube and their large media “partners” hold all the cards. When information is “free” those with all the lawyers get to set their own rules.
  - matz1 7y ago
    The wealthy will always have the edge, regardless how you deal with privacy, thats what the definition of wealthy. Wealthy = more power/resource. What I'm saying is, you can't solve privacy issue by hiding information. That is not feasible, as technology progresses, its become easier and easier for information to move. I acknowledge that there are going to be issue due to our information being public and thats what we should fix instead of trying to hide the information. Right now it is an issue if my ssn or credit card number become public. The fix should not be by making my ssn or credit card number stay hidden. We should fix it so that even if my ssn or credit card number become public it would not cause me harm. Another example, right now it is an issue if I post something embarrassing on twitter. The fix should not by deleting/hiding my tweet. We should fix it so that even if my tweet become viral it would not cause me harm.
    - 7y ago
vorpalhex 7y ago
I disagree with Brin, but I do think if suddenly a creepy clone of Clearview was publically accessible and aimed at the rich and powerful, we sure would see regulation happen awfully quick...
- FabHK 7y ago
  Interesting idea. Install a few cameras at general aviation terminals, international tax attorneys, beauty surgeons, parliament, etc. When a big Swiss private bank moved into new premises in a skyscraper in Hong Kong, there was a rumour that they had one unmarked elevator avoiding the building lobby, directly from the underground car park to a private lobby within the bank, for UHNWI. Let’s Clearview there, too!
  - LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
    How would you install cams at general aviation terminals? It's not like you could just walk into them. At least the ones i've used you either switch cars at some gate and are driven to some apron, or your taxi/cab/uber/limo has to follow a car from some FBO to their premises and then be lead back out. There is no parking there(allowed). It's all gated and guarded.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
  Why would you think that? It's what the Paparazzi do, and the lifeblood of the whole Yellow Press. Furthermore there is the (reverse) picture search in some search engines, where you have to connect the dots for yourself. Like described in https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2019/12/26/guide-to-using-reverse-image-search-for-investigations/ https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2019/12/26/guid... for instance. IIRC the russian one from https://yandex.com https://yandex.com made headlines a few years ago because it scraped https://vk.com/ https://vk.com/ which is their fb/twitter-combo thing.
jborichevskiy 7y ago
> our choice is between a society where the police surveil us all, and one where we all surveil each other This idea is explored further in Nick Bostrom's Vulnerable World Hypothesis under "Preventive policing". It's depressing but does walk through this scenario in more detail than most. > The vulnerable world hypothesis thus offers a new perspective from which to evaluate the risk‐benefit balance of developments towards ubiquitous surveillance or a unipolar world order. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1758-5899.12718 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1758-5899.1...
- cardiffspaceman 7y ago
  How is everyone surveilling everyone different from East European (former) model of everyone telling on everyone?
  - arpa 7y ago
    Now, now, comrade, let the westerners have fun too.
    - cardiffspaceman 7y ago
      Heh. I'm the one who says that the roads should be toll-free so that there aren't financial transactions with which to track activists.
harimau777 7y ago
I'm not sure that I think that a completely transparent society would be compatible with freedom. It seems to me that it would just result in the dominant culture in an area being able to punish any behavior that they dislike.
- wool_gather 7y ago
  The question is not whether the transparent society is inherently good or free. The question is, which is more compatible with freedom: - total surveillance, of everybody by everybody - surveillance only by authorities, of the rest of us The book's premise is that these will be the only choices. The premise may not be correct. But if you start from it, clearly total transparency is better than the alternative.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > The premise may not be correct. I do not believe it is correct. > But if you start from it, clearly total transparency is better than the alternative. Maybe, but that fact is nearly meaningless. Nobody will have anything like freedom in such a world, regardless of which way it works. Saying that one is better than the other is like saying that this deadly toxin is marginally less effective than that deadly toxin. It's a distinction without a meaningful difference.
    - wool_gather 7y ago
      You should read the book. I don't know that I buy the premise either, but I do think that he successfully argues that surveillance does not necessarily preclude freedom.
      - JohnFen 7y ago
        I have read the book. It has a lot of useful thing to say and think about, but I don't find the conclusions convincing.
        7y ago
JohnFen 7y ago
> He says only the latter is compatible with freedom. I disagree with him on this point. Neither choice he presents is compatible with freedom.
- api 7y ago
  The whole premise is pernicious nonsense at its root. Privacy is important for many reasons, and throwing in the towel on it because high tech makes mass surveillance easy is like giving up on laws and taboos against murder because guns make killing people easy. "Welp, we just invented the machine gun. It's so easy to mow people down now we might as well just embrace this new post-machine-gun reality!"
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    The premise makes sense to me, because nature sometimes doesn't allow for the ideal circumstances to exist. Society needs to have a police (or security) force, and there will always be some members of society with more power than others. The only way for the people with less power to hold the more powerful is via transparency. I think it would be very interesting to see what would happen if everyone's financial comings and goings were public information.
    - api 7y ago
      That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about giving up on the idea of privacy in any context and proposing an "egalitarian panopticon" as some kind of solution. Not only would that be dystopian in it's own way (think gossipy small town plus professional trolls powered by big data plus the digital marketing/propaganda industry), but an egalitarian panopticon is just outright fantasy. The rich and very tech savvy have the resources or expertise to cheat. It would not stay egalitarian long.
xg15 7y ago
Well, you can try that out right now: Hook up a 24h video/audio feed to your phone, then share it with your wife, ex, parents, friends, co-workers, boss and the annoying uncle from Utah that you're obligated to invite to Christmas. Also give them full access to your browsing history, messengers, purchase history and location data. Then come back to us in a month and tell us how it all worked out. Really, no, I think this is a fundamentally bad idea. The idea of everyone surveiling everyone else can only be remotely appealing if you pretend there are no power differences in the world and everyone is equal - a fiction that the tech works for whatever reason loves to subscribe to. In the real world, people will have vastly different amounts of understanding for whatever weird sides you have and their knowledge can have serious consequences. Only because your boss may have some weird sides himself does not necessarily mean that he will be understanding of yours - or that whatever he did will be as equally relevant as what you did.
- landryraccoon 7y ago
  It's a bad idea because your wife, ex, parents, friends, co-workers, boss and the annoying uncle from Utah aren't also doing it. If everyone else in the world is doing it too, things would be radically different. Also, how does the power differential not actually equalize? If a cashier at McDonalds can see everything Jeff Bezos does, and Jeff Bezos can see everything the homeless person does, you really think Jeff Bezos is the one getting the better end of the deal?
asveikau 7y ago
The thing about law enforcement use is that for however bad civilian use is, the consequences of false positives are severe. Missed out on a job opportunity or social interaction unfairly? That sucks. But here we are talking potential for wrongful incarceration. And since some places still have the death penalty, theoretically it could lead to the state killing people based on misidentification.
robomc 7y ago
That's very theoretical though. The truth is, for most people, the police aren't going to be targeting them with this, and even if they do, well the police already have numerous means of invading someones privacy. Arguing that everyone should have those means at their fingertips, in practice, will mean the likelihood of this being used on you goes way up, and that there's no longer even the theoretical oversight that police use would have.

mc32 7y ago

I don’t think that’s how it works. Going by the way online mobs work, availing these tools to all citizens unencumbered makes possible all kinds of abuses.

DennisP 7y ago
Exclusive top-down surveillance also makes possible all kinds of abuses. We should put some thought into which scenario has the worst failure modes, and in doing so we should remember our history.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  No top down surveillance would be my preference and it isn't that hard to imagine really. Certainly you can get the impression that people currently don't really value privacy, but if it is taken from them, there will be quite a sudden interest.
  - loudmax 7y ago
    Many of us grew up with no top down surveillance in the 80s and 90s. In that world, no top down surveillance is easy to imagine. In a world where network connected cameras are so cheap they're disposable, no top down surveillance becomes harder to imagine. At some point, information gathering systems become so cheap and ubiquitous that telling organizations not to use them for surveillance is like telling people not to look up at the sky. Banks used to ask your mother's maiden name as a security question because someone trying to impersonate you would have a hard time finding that information. Now it's a Facebook search away, and many entities still want to use personal identifiable information as security questions. As a society we need to reevaluate what personal information is private and what is public.
    - raxxorrax 7y ago
      I don't think any of this is inevitable. In fact it is quite illegal in many cases. Availability doesn't imply use. Especially since we even have falling crime numbers, increasing security still has become some religious dogma for some. Basic control freaks in my opinion, although there is also the other crowd thinking they are constantly under personal surveillance. Similar fears I imagine. While there are efforts to bring more people to engage in civil society, where we don't wear masks, increasing surveillance will have the opposite effect because of basic self defense mechanisms that shouldn't be to hard to understand in my opinion. > As a society we need to reevaluate what personal information is private and what is public. I like to decide that myself and for bureaucratic needs I will supply the minimum amount of data needed for processing.

mrgreen102938 7y ago

MAD, the only winning move...

s188 7y ago
As in Mutually Assured Destruction? Or do I misunderstand? I'd love to know more...
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Yes, mutually assured destruction. From the movie War Games: "The only winning move is not to play."

C1sc0cat 7y ago

I think Mr Brinn hadn't seen the dumpster fire that is https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor https://twitter.com/bestofnextdoor

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

If the government succeeds in getting advanced ML/AI type software classified as arms (that idea comes up from time to time in the context of reducing industrial espionage) then in the US that would naturally lend itself to the argument that private ownership and operation of these sorts of surveillance systems are protected under the 2A. The arguments traditionally used to prevent private ownership of the kind of arms that let you go toe to toe with a modern military don't really work very well for software.

aidenn0 7y ago
Sure. Just like main battle tanks and nuclear warheads...
- Ragnarork 7y ago
  I'll never understand how people come to believe that civilian amateurs with AR-15 have somewhat of a chance against trained professionals with heavy equipment. The mental gym to justify the 2A is really mindboggling.
C1sc0cat 7y ago
Classified as a destructive device :-) Maybe I should register forgotten-algorithms.com only my ponytail isn't as long as Ian's

raxxorrax 7y ago

I do think privacy is still an option and see no evidence to the contrary. Of course it should be applied to officials in public service in their function. Not their private lives. Because anyone with a hint of a brain should be able to extrapolate the negatives of such surveillance on their lives. We played dumb long enough on that topic. If you are not up for that, ok, but you also should not work in a capacity that has any access to private information. If there are companies or people regularly ignoring privacy, which still is enshrined in most countries laws, severe penalties should be applied. That is also true for the executive branch of government, which was severely neglected the last decade because of fear.

pletsch 7y ago

I'm convinced that Gen-Z is going to blow all of this out of the water. That the world will eventually hit a point where there isn't anyone without something online that can come back to haunt them. And I think companies are starting to see it too. A little anecdotal but when I was applying for jobs last summer there was a video that was brought up twice during interviews with different organizations. Both times I was told after the fact that it was just to see how I would react, all I did was tell them what happened, not that I was sorry because I wasn't, I told them I stood behind what my actions were and there was nothing I could do about it now (it hit 100k views on Instagram, not a situation where I can contain it). Both companies offered me a job. I rewrote this a few times and I'm still not sure I got my point across, but I agree with the argument in the The Transparent Society, and I already see it shifting towards that.

akhilcacharya 7y ago
Now I’m wondering what the context of the video was, and why they felt it was relevant to ask about.
- pletsch 7y ago
  It was a video of me in my university dorms, it wasn't anything illegal or violent. I'm not sure why they felt the need to ask, I wonder if they were just curious for context.
  - akhilcacharya 7y ago
    That's infuriating. I'm sorry you had to go through with that.
    - VRay 7y ago
      I kinda lucked out and learned my lesson about this stuff early on I was trash-talking one group of internet people with another group, and the trash talk ended up getting indexed by Lycos or AltaVista. They called me out for being a dick, and I realized that I need to be really careful about what ends up attached to me online. (Also not to trash talk people behind their back..)

matz1 7y ago

Yes, transparency is the only practical and realistic way to deal with privacy. Information want to be free. The sooner we learn to adapt and resolves issue due to our information being public the better.

AlexandrB 7y ago
Maybe for the plebs. The wealthy are already bulwarking their own privacy using legal and technological means. Giving up on protecting privacy for everybody just turns it into a luxury good for the wealthy while stripping it from those that can’t afford it. This creates yet another vector of inequality in our society. Edit: Since you used the “information wants to be free” phrase - commonly invoked with the copyright enforcement controversies of the 2000s - it’s important to note how that turned out. From where I sit, I see a lot of large, powerful companies stealing ideas and content from small creators with no repercussions while small creators are under the thumb of automated content ID systems (see YouTube). “Fair Use” in video content is effectively dead - YouTube and their large media “partners” hold all the cards. When information is “free” those with all the lawyers get to set their own rules.
- matz1 7y ago
  The wealthy will always have the edge, regardless how you deal with privacy, thats what the definition of wealthy. Wealthy = more power/resource. What I'm saying is, you can't solve privacy issue by hiding information. That is not feasible, as technology progresses, its become easier and easier for information to move. I acknowledge that there are going to be issue due to our information being public and thats what we should fix instead of trying to hide the information. Right now it is an issue if my ssn or credit card number become public. The fix should not be by making my ssn or credit card number stay hidden. We should fix it so that even if my ssn or credit card number become public it would not cause me harm. Another example, right now it is an issue if I post something embarrassing on twitter. The fix should not by deleting/hiding my tweet. We should fix it so that even if my tweet become viral it would not cause me harm.
  - 7y ago

vorpalhex 7y ago

I disagree with Brin, but I do think if suddenly a creepy clone of Clearview was publically accessible and aimed at the rich and powerful, we sure would see regulation happen awfully quick...

FabHK 7y ago
Interesting idea. Install a few cameras at general aviation terminals, international tax attorneys, beauty surgeons, parliament, etc. When a big Swiss private bank moved into new premises in a skyscraper in Hong Kong, there was a rumour that they had one unmarked elevator avoiding the building lobby, directly from the underground car park to a private lobby within the bank, for UHNWI. Let’s Clearview there, too!
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
  How would you install cams at general aviation terminals? It's not like you could just walk into them. At least the ones i've used you either switch cars at some gate and are driven to some apron, or your taxi/cab/uber/limo has to follow a car from some FBO to their premises and then be lead back out. There is no parking there(allowed). It's all gated and guarded.
LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
Why would you think that? It's what the Paparazzi do, and the lifeblood of the whole Yellow Press. Furthermore there is the (reverse) picture search in some search engines, where you have to connect the dots for yourself. Like described in https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2019/12/26/guide-to-using-reverse-image-search-for-investigations/ https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2019/12/26/guid... for instance. IIRC the russian one from https://yandex.com https://yandex.com made headlines a few years ago because it scraped https://vk.com/ https://vk.com/ which is their fb/twitter-combo thing.

jborichevskiy 7y ago

> our choice is between a society where the police surveil us all, and one where we all surveil each other This idea is explored further in Nick Bostrom's Vulnerable World Hypothesis under "Preventive policing". It's depressing but does walk through this scenario in more detail than most. > The vulnerable world hypothesis thus offers a new perspective from which to evaluate the risk‐benefit balance of developments towards ubiquitous surveillance or a unipolar world order. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1758-5899.12718 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1758-5899.1...

cardiffspaceman 7y ago
How is everyone surveilling everyone different from East European (former) model of everyone telling on everyone?
- arpa 7y ago
  Now, now, comrade, let the westerners have fun too.
  - cardiffspaceman 7y ago
    Heh. I'm the one who says that the roads should be toll-free so that there aren't financial transactions with which to track activists.

harimau777 7y ago

I'm not sure that I think that a completely transparent society would be compatible with freedom. It seems to me that it would just result in the dominant culture in an area being able to punish any behavior that they dislike.

wool_gather 7y ago
The question is not whether the transparent society is inherently good or free. The question is, which is more compatible with freedom: - total surveillance, of everybody by everybody - surveillance only by authorities, of the rest of us The book's premise is that these will be the only choices. The premise may not be correct. But if you start from it, clearly total transparency is better than the alternative.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > The premise may not be correct. I do not believe it is correct. > But if you start from it, clearly total transparency is better than the alternative. Maybe, but that fact is nearly meaningless. Nobody will have anything like freedom in such a world, regardless of which way it works. Saying that one is better than the other is like saying that this deadly toxin is marginally less effective than that deadly toxin. It's a distinction without a meaningful difference.
  - wool_gather 7y ago
    You should read the book. I don't know that I buy the premise either, but I do think that he successfully argues that surveillance does not necessarily preclude freedom.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      I have read the book. It has a lot of useful thing to say and think about, but I don't find the conclusions convincing.
      - 7y ago

JohnFen 7y ago

> He says only the latter is compatible with freedom. I disagree with him on this point. Neither choice he presents is compatible with freedom.

api 7y ago
The whole premise is pernicious nonsense at its root. Privacy is important for many reasons, and throwing in the towel on it because high tech makes mass surveillance easy is like giving up on laws and taboos against murder because guns make killing people easy. "Welp, we just invented the machine gun. It's so easy to mow people down now we might as well just embrace this new post-machine-gun reality!"
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The premise makes sense to me, because nature sometimes doesn't allow for the ideal circumstances to exist. Society needs to have a police (or security) force, and there will always be some members of society with more power than others. The only way for the people with less power to hold the more powerful is via transparency. I think it would be very interesting to see what would happen if everyone's financial comings and goings were public information.
  - api 7y ago
    That's not what they're talking about. They're talking about giving up on the idea of privacy in any context and proposing an "egalitarian panopticon" as some kind of solution. Not only would that be dystopian in it's own way (think gossipy small town plus professional trolls powered by big data plus the digital marketing/propaganda industry), but an egalitarian panopticon is just outright fantasy. The rich and very tech savvy have the resources or expertise to cheat. It would not stay egalitarian long.

xg15 7y ago

Well, you can try that out right now: Hook up a 24h video/audio feed to your phone, then share it with your wife, ex, parents, friends, co-workers, boss and the annoying uncle from Utah that you're obligated to invite to Christmas. Also give them full access to your browsing history, messengers, purchase history and location data. Then come back to us in a month and tell us how it all worked out. Really, no, I think this is a fundamentally bad idea. The idea of everyone surveiling everyone else can only be remotely appealing if you pretend there are no power differences in the world and everyone is equal - a fiction that the tech works for whatever reason loves to subscribe to. In the real world, people will have vastly different amounts of understanding for whatever weird sides you have and their knowledge can have serious consequences. Only because your boss may have some weird sides himself does not necessarily mean that he will be understanding of yours - or that whatever he did will be as equally relevant as what you did.

landryraccoon 7y ago
It's a bad idea because your wife, ex, parents, friends, co-workers, boss and the annoying uncle from Utah aren't also doing it. If everyone else in the world is doing it too, things would be radically different. Also, how does the power differential not actually equalize? If a cashier at McDonalds can see everything Jeff Bezos does, and Jeff Bezos can see everything the homeless person does, you really think Jeff Bezos is the one getting the better end of the deal?

asveikau 7y ago

The thing about law enforcement use is that for however bad civilian use is, the consequences of false positives are severe. Missed out on a job opportunity or social interaction unfairly? That sucks. But here we are talking potential for wrongful incarceration. And since some places still have the death penalty, theoretically it could lead to the state killing people based on misidentification.

robomc 7y ago

That's very theoretical though. The truth is, for most people, the police aren't going to be targeting them with this, and even if they do, well the police already have numerous means of invading someones privacy. Arguing that everyone should have those means at their fingertips, in practice, will mean the likelihood of this being used on you goes way up, and that there's no longer even the theoretical oversight that police use would have.