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> Privacy is a set of curtains drawn across the windows of our lives. And technology companies are moths that will chew through more of the fabric every year if

> Privacy is a set of curtains drawn across the windows of our lives. And technology companies are moths that will chew through more of the fabric every year if we let them, and especially if we encourage them. That bright future and empowering innovation that most of us expected from tech companies was really a mirage…

angelzen 5y ago
'will chew'?? The use of future tense is somewhat strange. We already live in a tech panopticon. Went the other day to an old friend's house. At the door, a Ring eye unblinkingly stared at me. For a few moments I felt like crushing the metallic monstrosity under the heel of my boot: I never consented to have my face uploaded in the Cloud. Then realized how powerless we truly are: every other house, every other shop, every other car have such an eye, all connected to the AllSeeingCloudEntity. With vision tech cheap enough to match our faceprint every single step every single one of us takes in a public space. Heracles at least had a fighting chance against the Hydra. Where do we even begin reclaiming our right to not be continuously watched?
- loteck 5y ago
  Wear a mask? They have several benefits currently.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    This is getting better by the year. 'Don't use a browser'. 'Don't carry a cellphone'. 'Wear a mask'. Next: 'Don't go outside'. 'Don't speak'. 'Don't think'.
    - skinkestek 5y ago
      :-) Soon we are back to: Don't write when you can speak, don't speak when you can nod, don't nod when you can wink - or something to that effect.
      - puzzledobserver 5y ago
        To quote Harlan Ellison: I have no mouth. And I must scream.
      - PeterisP 5y ago
        I recall a "meme" from USSR times that goes something like this: Don't think. If you think, don't speak. If you speak, don't write. If you write, don't sign. If you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised.
        angelzen 5y ago
        I remember Soviet block dissidents being assigned a 24/7 surveillance detail to monitor all their moves and contacts. I remember Soviet dissidents having their correspondence systematically violated by the surveillance apparatus. I remember US funded Radio Free Europe (and British BBC International) being utterly revolted by this state of affairs. Human Rights, Freedom, Democracy, Constitution, Rule of Law, Dignity. Exhibit A on why the Soviets were morally corrupt and had to go to the dustbin of history. Fortunately for the Soviet subjects, in-person surveillance was expensive and didn't scale once the system started to crack and the number of dissidents increased from a handful to thousands. Not so in the tech utopia. We have multiple megacorporations competing in doing every evil trick in the Soviet surveillance textbook, 24/7, at scale. Aaah, progress.
        29083011397778 5y ago
        Note that the Soviets, living in a communist society, had the state watch them free of charge. I live in a capitalist society. We purchase our own surveillance here.
  - majjam 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure that doesn't work. They just match you on the upper half of your face: https://www.facewatch.co.uk/2020/05/11/facewatch-launches-facemask-recognition-upgrade/ https://www.facewatch.co.uk/2020/05/11/facewatch-launches-fa...
  - alfu 5y ago
    Can't do this indefinitely in some countries :/ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-mask_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-mask_law)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ehnto 5y ago
  I know it's boring and in many places unlikely, but government is essentially the only tool that could ever be effective at quelling the continued expansion of corporate surveillance. We can likely all come up with novel technology ideas to help ourselves, but it's a blight on all of society not just those who are conscious of it. They are our governments after all, we should be using them as tools for good as best we can.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    How are we going to pressure the government, when regular people vastly underestimate the surveillance capabilities of modern ML + Cloud and willingly install surveillance endpoints in exchange of marginal convenience? Re tech solutions, I've been hearing this for 20 years. The panopticon has been built. Anti-surveillance technologies failed to materialize.
    - triska 5y ago
      One consequence of previous software failures with tragic outcomes was the development of technical standards that are now referred to and required in government procurement procedures, in laws and certifications, in education etc. For example, the horrific Therac-25 incidents led to IEC 62304, a standard which specifies life cycle requirements for the development of medical software and software within medical devices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_62304 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_62304 I hope analogous standards will be formulated for privacy on devices etc.
      - angelzen 5y ago
        There have been 24 years between Therac-25 and IEC 62304, with a clear smoking gun that everybody agreed it was a horrific smoking gun. With privacy, we're still in 'if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear' stage, and we may be stuck here perpetually. How do we move the needle of public opinion?
        triska 5y ago
- 50 5y ago
  > We already live in a tech panopticon Which is, in other words, due in large part to what is referred to as "myopic engineering" or "engineering myopia": this idea that, as Heidegger writes in What is Called Thinking?, "[t]he most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking."
- hypothesis 5y ago
  Ha, wait until you visit a house where there are surveilling devices blinking at your in every room. Also, sometimes I expect a Tesla to go full “Assuming Control” mode and continue aggressive behavior of previously encountered one. Surely they record/analyze everything encountered and pass it onto central server, so no issues “remembering” me…
- switch007 5y ago
  > 'will chew'?? The use of future tense is somewhat strange. I notice this in the media a lot. It’s so frequent I struggle to believe it isn’t on purpose. To make people think a problem isn’t as widespread or as severe as it actually is.
  - jraph 5y ago
    I don't think it is distant future. It could be more like: "My computer won't start" (it currently does not start), or "don't leave this unattended or the cat will eat it" (it's actually happening right now as soon as you do).
zhte415 5y ago
Moth or cockroach? I feel the authors are being polite. Not doing this provides a substantial amount of motivation for choices I make in small projects I do. While yet to think of a blog post or snazzy term for this, which won't be posted on Medium, every action, every feature, is one to consider for the value it adds, not just it for the sake of it. And every choice not to do something is equally a choice. Should login be via Google, Facebook, email, other? Why is login necessary? Could value for services be provided with no need for login, 80% of value, 60%, then if so, and if integrating to 3rd party services what value does that add? And what does it take away in getting padlocked to a walled ecosystem that can be slammed shut with no recourse, be that Alphabet, Tencent, or any other? Do I need to access your location and photos for a todo app? If so, that's not a todo app, or some pretty poorly thought-out feature creep is being build in from the start. Is having access to your contacts going to make me the next unicorn? It's been done already. Too competitive today for the next big thing which will be something different anyway, the next big iteration in the sense of not being very revolutionary at all. Has the potential for liability been thought of when sloppy code deletes valuable pictures, or causes a device failure that does so? The noun that was 'creativity' has been replaced by the corporate-safe one-step-at-a-time 'innovation'. Nobody got fired for innovating. Marketers get bonuses for dressing up the mediocre-inducing term innovation as something remotely creative. The future is here and was here all along. It's for us to see.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  Term suggestion: Treating data as a liability.
amelius 5y ago
The dystopian future movies were right.
- hypothesis 5y ago
  Hard to tell: were movies right or were they used as manuals? Either way it will not end well for us…

angelzen 5y ago

'will chew'?? The use of future tense is somewhat strange. We already live in a tech panopticon. Went the other day to an old friend's house. At the door, a Ring eye unblinkingly stared at me. For a few moments I felt like crushing the metallic monstrosity under the heel of my boot: I never consented to have my face uploaded in the Cloud. Then realized how powerless we truly are: every other house, every other shop, every other car have such an eye, all connected to the AllSeeingCloudEntity. With vision tech cheap enough to match our faceprint every single step every single one of us takes in a public space. Heracles at least had a fighting chance against the Hydra. Where do we even begin reclaiming our right to not be continuously watched?

loteck 5y ago
Wear a mask? They have several benefits currently.
- angelzen 5y ago
  This is getting better by the year. 'Don't use a browser'. 'Don't carry a cellphone'. 'Wear a mask'. Next: 'Don't go outside'. 'Don't speak'. 'Don't think'.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    :-) Soon we are back to: Don't write when you can speak, don't speak when you can nod, don't nod when you can wink - or something to that effect.
    - puzzledobserver 5y ago
      To quote Harlan Ellison: I have no mouth. And I must scream.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      I recall a "meme" from USSR times that goes something like this: Don't think. If you think, don't speak. If you speak, don't write. If you write, don't sign. If you think, speak, write and sign, don't be surprised.
      - angelzen 5y ago
        I remember Soviet block dissidents being assigned a 24/7 surveillance detail to monitor all their moves and contacts. I remember Soviet dissidents having their correspondence systematically violated by the surveillance apparatus. I remember US funded Radio Free Europe (and British BBC International) being utterly revolted by this state of affairs. Human Rights, Freedom, Democracy, Constitution, Rule of Law, Dignity. Exhibit A on why the Soviets were morally corrupt and had to go to the dustbin of history. Fortunately for the Soviet subjects, in-person surveillance was expensive and didn't scale once the system started to crack and the number of dissidents increased from a handful to thousands. Not so in the tech utopia. We have multiple megacorporations competing in doing every evil trick in the Soviet surveillance textbook, 24/7, at scale. Aaah, progress.
        29083011397778 5y ago
        Note that the Soviets, living in a communist society, had the state watch them free of charge. I live in a capitalist society. We purchase our own surveillance here.
- majjam 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure that doesn't work. They just match you on the upper half of your face: https://www.facewatch.co.uk/2020/05/11/facewatch-launches-facemask-recognition-upgrade/ https://www.facewatch.co.uk/2020/05/11/facewatch-launches-fa...
- alfu 5y ago
  Can't do this indefinitely in some countries :/ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-mask_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-mask_law)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ehnto 5y ago
I know it's boring and in many places unlikely, but government is essentially the only tool that could ever be effective at quelling the continued expansion of corporate surveillance. We can likely all come up with novel technology ideas to help ourselves, but it's a blight on all of society not just those who are conscious of it. They are our governments after all, we should be using them as tools for good as best we can.
- angelzen 5y ago
  How are we going to pressure the government, when regular people vastly underestimate the surveillance capabilities of modern ML + Cloud and willingly install surveillance endpoints in exchange of marginal convenience? Re tech solutions, I've been hearing this for 20 years. The panopticon has been built. Anti-surveillance technologies failed to materialize.
  - triska 5y ago
    One consequence of previous software failures with tragic outcomes was the development of technical standards that are now referred to and required in government procurement procedures, in laws and certifications, in education etc. For example, the horrific Therac-25 incidents led to IEC 62304, a standard which specifies life cycle requirements for the development of medical software and software within medical devices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_62304 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_62304 I hope analogous standards will be formulated for privacy on devices etc.
    - angelzen 5y ago
      There have been 24 years between Therac-25 and IEC 62304, with a clear smoking gun that everybody agreed it was a horrific smoking gun. With privacy, we're still in 'if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear' stage, and we may be stuck here perpetually. How do we move the needle of public opinion?
      - triska 5y ago
50 5y ago
> We already live in a tech panopticon Which is, in other words, due in large part to what is referred to as "myopic engineering" or "engineering myopia": this idea that, as Heidegger writes in What is Called Thinking?, "[t]he most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking."
hypothesis 5y ago
Ha, wait until you visit a house where there are surveilling devices blinking at your in every room. Also, sometimes I expect a Tesla to go full “Assuming Control” mode and continue aggressive behavior of previously encountered one. Surely they record/analyze everything encountered and pass it onto central server, so no issues “remembering” me…
switch007 5y ago
> 'will chew'?? The use of future tense is somewhat strange. I notice this in the media a lot. It’s so frequent I struggle to believe it isn’t on purpose. To make people think a problem isn’t as widespread or as severe as it actually is.
- jraph 5y ago
  I don't think it is distant future. It could be more like: "My computer won't start" (it currently does not start), or "don't leave this unattended or the cat will eat it" (it's actually happening right now as soon as you do).

zhte415 5y ago

Moth or cockroach? I feel the authors are being polite. Not doing this provides a substantial amount of motivation for choices I make in small projects I do. While yet to think of a blog post or snazzy term for this, which won't be posted on Medium, every action, every feature, is one to consider for the value it adds, not just it for the sake of it. And every choice not to do something is equally a choice. Should login be via Google, Facebook, email, other? Why is login necessary? Could value for services be provided with no need for login, 80% of value, 60%, then if so, and if integrating to 3rd party services what value does that add? And what does it take away in getting padlocked to a walled ecosystem that can be slammed shut with no recourse, be that Alphabet, Tencent, or any other? Do I need to access your location and photos for a todo app? If so, that's not a todo app, or some pretty poorly thought-out feature creep is being build in from the start. Is having access to your contacts going to make me the next unicorn? It's been done already. Too competitive today for the next big thing which will be something different anyway, the next big iteration in the sense of not being very revolutionary at all. Has the potential for liability been thought of when sloppy code deletes valuable pictures, or causes a device failure that does so? The noun that was 'creativity' has been replaced by the corporate-safe one-step-at-a-time 'innovation'. Nobody got fired for innovating. Marketers get bonuses for dressing up the mediocre-inducing term innovation as something remotely creative. The future is here and was here all along. It's for us to see.

solarkraft 5y ago
Term suggestion: Treating data as a liability.

amelius 5y ago

The dystopian future movies were right.

hypothesis 5y ago
Hard to tell: were movies right or were they used as manuals? Either way it will not end well for us…