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Surveillance may be "too cheap to meter", but it isn't cheap. Millions of hard drives run 24/7 in thousands of data-centres around the world. Millions are disc

Surveillance may be "too cheap to meter", but it isn't cheap. Millions of hard drives run 24/7 in thousands of data-centres around the world. Millions are discarded and replaced annually. System security is inversely proportional to the demands and power of surveillance actors (NSO for example), so we all lose money when we tolerate surveillance. By 2025 cyber-security will cost the world about $10.5 trillion per annum, and a significant amount of that will directly result from the existence of a concomitant surveillance industry. The cost to society and business in damaged trust and lost opportunity must run to dozens of trillions over the past decade. No! Surveillance is cheap to tiny minority who inflict a colossal economic externality onto the rest of society. > IT nerds tend to find technological solutions for all sorts of > problems—economic, political, sociological, and so on. Most of the > time, these solutions don't make the problems that much worse, but > when a problem is of a purely economic nature, only solutions that > affect the economics of the situation can possibly work. This is insightful. Let's start changing the economics around surveillance. Let's make it very, very expensive again.

FridayoLeary 5y ago
that's impossible with the government actively thwarting any such efforts. The self promoting and vastly overfunded security apparatus' of various countries will justify their actions and budgets with "counter-terrorism". Before that it was "communism". The uk government spent vast sums on CCTV. Obviously, they turned out to be useless without adequate funding for actual police.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Goety 5y ago
>Let's make it very, very expensive again. That is a small goal of GDPR.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  GDPR has enough holes that governments can continue to expand surveillance as they wish.
  - wongarsu 5y ago
    Most notably there is a government shaped hole in the GDPR. Governments are largely exemt from it. And companies are allowed to collect data they are legally required to collect, so delegating the work still works if it's done by law. Still a massive improvement over the previous status quo, data collection is now much more transparent which makes it easier to oppose.
mistermann 5y ago
> The cost to society and business in damaged trust and lost opportunity must run to dozens of trillions over the past decade. I would love to know how much potential energy that could manifest in negative physical behaviors in the future is currently sitting idle in the minds of people, waiting to be triggered by some event. I would say that the trucker convoys in Canada are one example of this, as was the election of Donald Trump.
naveen99 5y ago
corporate cyber security is mostly theatre. But maybe it’s a lesser evil from anarchy and instability.
godelski 5y ago
> By 2025 cyber-security will cost the world about $10.5 trillion per annum, and a significant amount of that will directly result from the existence of a concomitant surveillance industry. For context, the world needs $4T/yr[0] to transition to a zero carbon economy. It is kinda crazy to think about when you compare these two, considering how massive of a problem one is and how we often don't think about the other. [0] https://txtify.it/https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-financing-the-multi-trillion-dollar-transition-to-net-zero-isnt-that-hard-11636018200 https://txtify.it/https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-financing...
- southerntofu 5y ago
  I'd be tempted to add that if you just dismantled military institutions across the planet, you'd have plenty more funds available to do important stuff with. AFAIK the US alone has military / three-letter-agency spending of at least a trillion dollars per year, and all this for what?!
  - consumer451 5y ago
    I really sympathize with you and GP, and I believe "war" could somewhat easily be made obsolete. But to answer your question historically... > and all this for what?! I would argue that it's for Pax Americana, a very complex thing which the world has largely benefited from and yet we all hate on it.
  - robotnikman 5y ago
    While I do agree to an extent that our military spending is quite high, it is probably the one thing keeping what little manufacturing capabilities we have alive inside the country, and I feel that is important.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Don't you think we could be manufacturing more useful (and maybe less polluting) items? If commercial goods had the durability of military equipment and the same kind of public financing, i believe locally-produced durable products could be competitive with cheap imported quasi-slave-produced products.
pirocks 5y ago
> By 2025 cyber-security will cost the world about $10.5 trillion per annum, and a significant amount of that That's a lot of money. A quick google search points to this: https://cybersecurityventures.com/cybercrime-damages-6-trillion-by-2021/ https://cybersecurityventures.com/cybercrime-damages-6-trill... but I'm not sure that's the same as the claim. Source?
- nonrandomstring 5y ago
  A dizzying extrapolation indeed. From my notes here: 2011: Europe 27bn UK Detica et al., 2011 2015: Global $400bn Center of Strategic and International Studies 2019: US growth 17% BRC Crime Survey 2019 2021: Global 1tn Barclay Ballard 2021: Global $5tn Cyber Security Ventures 2022 growth looks like between 20 and 30 percent! 2022 Global 10.5tn by 2025 Cybersecurity Ventures claim Looks like an exagerated/pessimistic claim based on a growth of over 20% Sources: 2016 Estimating the costs of consumer-facing cybercrime: A tailored instrument and representative data for six EU countries (Riek and Bohme) 2019 Measuring the Changing Cost of Cybercrime (Anderson et al)
raxxorrax 5y ago
> the existence of a concomitant surveillance industry The industry is fundamentally broken. NSO is the smallest part here, they are even consistent with their approach. Surveillance was legitimized by governments and every small fry that complains about NSO specifically is not worth your vote. They are hypocritical liars and probably ordered their software or were about to do that. In the EU for example there is no opposition to track connection information of everybody, nor is there one on national levels. It is a sad and settled reality, only solution is to escape to other countries which mostly do not fare much better. Even with NSA activity the US is probably a good alternative. Telcos at first didn't want to store this information, although they probably would have as the economic benefits became clearer. You cannot explain mass surveillance to the fearful bloke politician. There are a few that are smarter, but they don't have the numbers. While it has to become expensive, we also need to see out people that champion this destructive surveillance. It is against the spirit of many constitutions and restricting any compliance is a step for civil disobedience. There is a strategic component. If everyone does collect info but me, I am at a disadvantage. There is a political component to it. But it does not justify the crimes politicians have comitted in the last two decades. And they are nothing else but crimes.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Fair points on total costs but in this case, "too cheap to meter" largely means: - The incremental costs of surveilling an additional individual are low. This is the classic economic distinction between fixed and marginal costs. - The cost of breaking out of the surveillance-capitalism-state industrial complex is high. Devices, networks, applications, servers, services, institutions, business models, protocols, hardware, communications methods, directories ... ALL are fundamentally grounded in surveillance. If you want to break out, you've got to break out on all fronts simultaneously. And that turns out to be very, very, very hard.

FridayoLeary 5y ago

that's impossible with the government actively thwarting any such efforts. The self promoting and vastly overfunded security apparatus' of various countries will justify their actions and budgets with "counter-terrorism". Before that it was "communism". The uk government spent vast sums on CCTV. Obviously, they turned out to be useless without adequate funding for actual police.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Goety 5y ago

>Let's make it very, very expensive again. That is a small goal of GDPR.

raxxorrax 5y ago
GDPR has enough holes that governments can continue to expand surveillance as they wish.
- wongarsu 5y ago
  Most notably there is a government shaped hole in the GDPR. Governments are largely exemt from it. And companies are allowed to collect data they are legally required to collect, so delegating the work still works if it's done by law. Still a massive improvement over the previous status quo, data collection is now much more transparent which makes it easier to oppose.

mistermann 5y ago

> The cost to society and business in damaged trust and lost opportunity must run to dozens of trillions over the past decade. I would love to know how much potential energy that could manifest in negative physical behaviors in the future is currently sitting idle in the minds of people, waiting to be triggered by some event. I would say that the trucker convoys in Canada are one example of this, as was the election of Donald Trump.

naveen99 5y ago

corporate cyber security is mostly theatre. But maybe it’s a lesser evil from anarchy and instability.

godelski 5y ago

> By 2025 cyber-security will cost the world about $10.5 trillion per annum, and a significant amount of that will directly result from the existence of a concomitant surveillance industry. For context, the world needs $4T/yr[0] to transition to a zero carbon economy. It is kinda crazy to think about when you compare these two, considering how massive of a problem one is and how we often don't think about the other. [0] https://txtify.it/https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-financing-the-multi-trillion-dollar-transition-to-net-zero-isnt-that-hard-11636018200 https://txtify.it/https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-financing...

southerntofu 5y ago
I'd be tempted to add that if you just dismantled military institutions across the planet, you'd have plenty more funds available to do important stuff with. AFAIK the US alone has military / three-letter-agency spending of at least a trillion dollars per year, and all this for what?!
- consumer451 5y ago
  I really sympathize with you and GP, and I believe "war" could somewhat easily be made obsolete. But to answer your question historically... > and all this for what?! I would argue that it's for Pax Americana, a very complex thing which the world has largely benefited from and yet we all hate on it.
- robotnikman 5y ago
  While I do agree to an extent that our military spending is quite high, it is probably the one thing keeping what little manufacturing capabilities we have alive inside the country, and I feel that is important.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Don't you think we could be manufacturing more useful (and maybe less polluting) items? If commercial goods had the durability of military equipment and the same kind of public financing, i believe locally-produced durable products could be competitive with cheap imported quasi-slave-produced products.

pirocks 5y ago

> By 2025 cyber-security will cost the world about $10.5 trillion per annum, and a significant amount of that That's a lot of money. A quick google search points to this: https://cybersecurityventures.com/cybercrime-damages-6-trillion-by-2021/ https://cybersecurityventures.com/cybercrime-damages-6-trill... but I'm not sure that's the same as the claim. Source?

nonrandomstring 5y ago
A dizzying extrapolation indeed. From my notes here: 2011: Europe 27bn UK Detica et al., 2011 2015: Global $400bn Center of Strategic and International Studies 2019: US growth 17% BRC Crime Survey 2019 2021: Global 1tn Barclay Ballard 2021: Global $5tn Cyber Security Ventures 2022 growth looks like between 20 and 30 percent! 2022 Global 10.5tn by 2025 Cybersecurity Ventures claim Looks like an exagerated/pessimistic claim based on a growth of over 20% Sources: 2016 Estimating the costs of consumer-facing cybercrime: A tailored instrument and representative data for six EU countries (Riek and Bohme) 2019 Measuring the Changing Cost of Cybercrime (Anderson et al)

raxxorrax 5y ago

> the existence of a concomitant surveillance industry The industry is fundamentally broken. NSO is the smallest part here, they are even consistent with their approach. Surveillance was legitimized by governments and every small fry that complains about NSO specifically is not worth your vote. They are hypocritical liars and probably ordered their software or were about to do that. In the EU for example there is no opposition to track connection information of everybody, nor is there one on national levels. It is a sad and settled reality, only solution is to escape to other countries which mostly do not fare much better. Even with NSA activity the US is probably a good alternative. Telcos at first didn't want to store this information, although they probably would have as the economic benefits became clearer. You cannot explain mass surveillance to the fearful bloke politician. There are a few that are smarter, but they don't have the numbers. While it has to become expensive, we also need to see out people that champion this destructive surveillance. It is against the spirit of many constitutions and restricting any compliance is a step for civil disobedience. There is a strategic component. If everyone does collect info but me, I am at a disadvantage. There is a political component to it. But it does not justify the crimes politicians have comitted in the last two decades. And they are nothing else but crimes.

dredmorbius 5y ago

Fair points on total costs but in this case, "too cheap to meter" largely means: - The incremental costs of surveilling an additional individual are low. This is the classic economic distinction between fixed and marginal costs. - The cost of breaking out of the surveillance-capitalism-state industrial complex is high. Devices, networks, applications, servers, services, institutions, business models, protocols, hardware, communications methods, directories ... ALL are fundamentally grounded in surveillance. If you want to break out, you've got to break out on all fronts simultaneously. And that turns out to be very, very, very hard.