6 ms·

When you put it this way, it's really quite remarkable how tenuous our hold is on even paid for digital services. There is really nothing you could do with a c

When you put it this way, it's really quite remarkable how tenuous our hold is on even paid for digital services. There is really nothing you could do with a car to prompt the car maker to take it from you. And the state will only take it if you break the law in particularly dangerous ways. When it comes to other possessions it's even harder for anyone to take them away from you. If I take a kitchen knife and stab someone with it I will go to prison for sure, but I don't think they will take the knife away. They definitely won't ban me from buying knives. But when it's a digital service, even something as crucial as a banking service, it's seen as normal that you can lose them for posting offensive things on twitter. Perhaps it's because we haven't had these digital services for long enough to consider them as really belonging to us, so we accept that they can be taken away at the slightest provocation.

mns 5y ago
But you can't really download a car, can you? :) Joke aside, I think we are actually going in the opposite direction. Looking at the way Tesla wants/already does keep a score of your driving, maybe self driving cars in the distant future, I would predict that we are going in the wrong direction when certain people and groups will want cars to drive away from you back to their home base or your car to refuse to start or unlock if you misbehave. Somehow I am not sure why, we as technical people, and I would even think that most of the people in these fields are also into fiction and sci-fi, we are taking only the worst things from novels and stories, instead of the good ones, VERY slowly transforming our society in an dystopian nightmare.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  Yes that is true, as software keeps eating the world, software mores will eventually rule everything. If it has a microchip in it, it might ban you. For cars I don't think this future is distant at all, ten years max.
- c-linkage 5y ago
  This is because we work for businesses that are fixated on generating revenue and profits rather than on improving the human condition. Since this is Hacker News I'm sure there will be some who can say the two are compatible, but it will only appear that way to the wealthy and the elites -- the rest of us will gain none of the benefits and will be seen solely as "customers" or "partners" from which revenue must be extracted. One only need look at the transformation of business from selling products to selling services, changing a sales relationship into a rental relationship. For businesses operating key or critical technical infrastructures this is equivalent to a corporate "universal basic income", such as will never occur for the common man.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    > This is because we work for businesses that are fixated on generating revenue and profits rather than on improving the human condition. Not quite. Few businesses have ever been focused on improving the human condition. The new thing is their ability to control our lives, and our acceptance of that, both in terms of laws and our quiet consent.
- coliveira 5y ago
  I wouldn't say slowly... It seems this thing is becoming a dystopia quite quickly.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > taking only the worst things from novels and stories, instead of the good ones, VERY slowly transforming our society in an dystopian nightmare. I have only one objection here: Doesn't feel all that slow to me.
mhh__ 5y ago
There's no way for them to take your car away... Yet. Maybe one day your Tesla will simply drive off if you don't pay the bills, or worse work for the SEC
- ballenf 5y ago
  Tesla's (and increasingly all cars) are software with attached motors and they don't need to seize them physically to take them. Or disable supercharging, etc. Just like your fridge may not dispense water if you buy the wrong filter. Or your random IOT enabled device will refuse to work if you don't let it phone home with surveillance data.
  - mhh__ 5y ago
    It'll probably need new legislation to protect consumers. Although I was joking about the SEC thing, what happens if Elon get's a grudge? Some would say it's your fault for buying the car, but some guarantees for consumers are useful.
pjc50 5y ago
> even something as crucial as a banking service Interestingly the problem of people excluded from the banking system has been addressed by statutory regulation in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/basic-bank-accounts https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/basic-bank-account... ; see also discussion at https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldfinexcl/132/13210.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldfi... which covers the question of people with inadequate ID. Getting your email account wrongly banned is an injustice, whether trivial or costly, and whether or not you have alternative arrangements. That's why people are (generally) rightly cross that it's happening. That feeds into wider questions of "why is justice so expensive" and "how does a local justice system address the bad behavior of a multinational". These questions tend to get resolved incredibly slowly.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  Good to hear that you have protections around this in the UK. I know that in Sweden several political, and even ideological organisations have had their accounts frozen because of things they said or held true. Entirely legal things I should add.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    Notice the difference between organizations and private individuals (which the quoted UK regulations seems to protect). I don't know if it's EU wide but Finland also requires banks to provide service to private individuals.
  - danielscrubs 5y ago
    Could you provide links? We have similar rules so I'm a bit surprised...
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      Not really, this is people I know personally. I know some of them have mentioned it publicly but can't find any links. Would be in Swedish anyway. I know two people off the top of my head that had their personal accounts suspended for legal political activity, for organizations it's pretty much any organisation on the right side of the spectrum.
bjarneh 5y ago
> There is really nothing you could do with a car to prompt the car maker to take it from you. Maybe not take it from you, but with new cars that are always connected (Tesla et. al). They can certainly make them quite terrible if they want to... access to superchargers has been removed when "owners" use unauthorized work shops for instance.
elif 5y ago
Cars are also digital service platforms which can and do take away things. I am currently playing a safety score minigame to unlock enhanced driving features. If I pay $2000 my software will enable my minivan to have a 0-60 of a Ferrari. This is all premised upon a connectivity package I'm obligated to pay for but have been gifted for a year by the manufacturer. To put it more bluntly, my eyeballs are watched by AI to make sure I pay attention enough to deserve the full use of my vehicle.. it's beyond punitive, it requires my positive behavior. ALSO bonus, if I did something with my vehicle that resulted in losing my account, I would also lose access to my home electricity system.
- jstanley 5y ago
  What car is this?
- nudpiedo 5y ago
  What car is it? In what country did you purchase it? To me that sounds beyond reality…
  - coliveira 5y ago
    It starts with a T.
    - jstanley 5y ago
      Why not just say what it is?
      - coliveira 5y ago
        Use your imagination.
- tsatsawayy 5y ago
  Most cars do not do this. Teslas are famous for their DRM, restrictive connectivity, and shady upsells. Those will show up in the "cons" column of any honest review. A normal car in 2022 will not constantly surveil you. No critical functionality is tied to an online account in any non-Tesla mass-produced car that I am aware of.
htrp 5y ago
This is going to be one of those situations where we will have legislation passed, especially if our digital identities are tied to 3rd party providers. Alternatively, the government will just take over basic id services (think first.last@yourcountry).
- Grustaf 5y ago
  We already have state run (more or less) digital ids in both Sweden and Denmark. I don't know if anyone has been denied for ideological reasons though.
kingcharles 5y ago
> If I take a kitchen knife and stab someone with it I will go to prison for sure, but I don't think they will take the knife away. They definitely won't ban me from buying knives. This is true. Generally if you stab someone the police would seize the knife as evidence, but after your trial if the prosecution didn't file a forfeiture case against the knife, then it is still yours and you can get an order from the judge to return it :) p.s. civil forfeiture cases give the best names, e.g. United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls, 413 F. Supp. 1281 (D. Wisc. 1976)
gbasin 5y ago
Not to be That Guy, since I'm not a shill, but "Bitcoin solves this" — not really today, except for pure cryptocurrency, but I can imagine a future where ownership of our access to these services is controlled by public blockchains ...
- Grustaf 5y ago
  Why would that solve anything? Google could still cancel my gmail if I say something politically incorrect, regardless of their database technology. It's not like making my email public would change anything, they are not reluctant to cancel people just because others can see it. If anything, that makes the cancellation all the more effective.
  - magicjosh 5y ago
    If your email were hosted on a public blockchain, Google could not kick you off. - Decentralized file hosting for all the emails using IPFS instead of Google's servers - Decentralized login using ENS / Ethereum Name Service instead of Google's login - a UI on top of your data, plus an outbound server for relaying to/from non-blockchain email accounts Overall, you end up with portable data thanks to IPFS, and a login through ENS to whatever UI you want to use/pay for. This seems like a win to me. Haven't seen anything yet that pulls this together but the pieces are there. Maybe someone here wants to prototype it.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      By hosted, do you mean that the blockchain would act as the mail server? Wouldn't that be incredibly slow and inefficient?
      - magicjosh 5y ago
        By hosted I mean stored on IPFS. It's a bit like downloading a file from Bittorrent in that it can be fast and distributed, but with some added crypto layers. The only part stored on the blockchain is the address itself. The files are not stored on the blockchain. More here: https://docs.ipfs.io/concepts/what-is-ipfs/ https://docs.ipfs.io/concepts/what-is-ipfs/ Appreciate your question! That should get you started.
marcosdumay 5y ago
That's the difference between products and services and between owning and renting. Anything that you get from the internet is a service. Even connecting to the internet is a service. And providing a service is ongoing work. What we need is recognizing services as essential and guaranteeing people has access to them. This is something for the government to do, and the guaranteeing access part is quite complicated when the service can be exploited like email.
magicjosh 5y ago
I like how you put this. Yes, it does seem like our ownership of digital services is tenuous, unlike owning a knife or a car. I could wake up tomorrow and conceivably be locked out of my Twitter, Gmail, Facebook accounts forever. Perhaps in the new era of tech we'll have better data portability and ownership. Sure, maybe Google can kick me off but they should still let me export all my data. See my reply below about public blockchains.

mns 5y ago

But you can't really download a car, can you? :) Joke aside, I think we are actually going in the opposite direction. Looking at the way Tesla wants/already does keep a score of your driving, maybe self driving cars in the distant future, I would predict that we are going in the wrong direction when certain people and groups will want cars to drive away from you back to their home base or your car to refuse to start or unlock if you misbehave. Somehow I am not sure why, we as technical people, and I would even think that most of the people in these fields are also into fiction and sci-fi, we are taking only the worst things from novels and stories, instead of the good ones, VERY slowly transforming our society in an dystopian nightmare.

Grustaf 5y ago
Yes that is true, as software keeps eating the world, software mores will eventually rule everything. If it has a microchip in it, it might ban you. For cars I don't think this future is distant at all, ten years max.
c-linkage 5y ago
This is because we work for businesses that are fixated on generating revenue and profits rather than on improving the human condition. Since this is Hacker News I'm sure there will be some who can say the two are compatible, but it will only appear that way to the wealthy and the elites -- the rest of us will gain none of the benefits and will be seen solely as "customers" or "partners" from which revenue must be extracted. One only need look at the transformation of business from selling products to selling services, changing a sales relationship into a rental relationship. For businesses operating key or critical technical infrastructures this is equivalent to a corporate "universal basic income", such as will never occur for the common man.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  > This is because we work for businesses that are fixated on generating revenue and profits rather than on improving the human condition. Not quite. Few businesses have ever been focused on improving the human condition. The new thing is their ability to control our lives, and our acceptance of that, both in terms of laws and our quiet consent.
coliveira 5y ago
I wouldn't say slowly... It seems this thing is becoming a dystopia quite quickly.
CRConrad 5y ago
> taking only the worst things from novels and stories, instead of the good ones, VERY slowly transforming our society in an dystopian nightmare. I have only one objection here: Doesn't feel all that slow to me.

mhh__ 5y ago

There's no way for them to take your car away... Yet. Maybe one day your Tesla will simply drive off if you don't pay the bills, or worse work for the SEC

ballenf 5y ago
Tesla's (and increasingly all cars) are software with attached motors and they don't need to seize them physically to take them. Or disable supercharging, etc. Just like your fridge may not dispense water if you buy the wrong filter. Or your random IOT enabled device will refuse to work if you don't let it phone home with surveillance data.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  It'll probably need new legislation to protect consumers. Although I was joking about the SEC thing, what happens if Elon get's a grudge? Some would say it's your fault for buying the car, but some guarantees for consumers are useful.

pjc50 5y ago

> even something as crucial as a banking service Interestingly the problem of people excluded from the banking system has been addressed by statutory regulation in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/basic-bank-accounts https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/basic-bank-account... ; see also discussion at https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldfinexcl/132/13210.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldfi... which covers the question of people with inadequate ID. Getting your email account wrongly banned is an injustice, whether trivial or costly, and whether or not you have alternative arrangements. That's why people are (generally) rightly cross that it's happening. That feeds into wider questions of "why is justice so expensive" and "how does a local justice system address the bad behavior of a multinational". These questions tend to get resolved incredibly slowly.

Grustaf 5y ago
Good to hear that you have protections around this in the UK. I know that in Sweden several political, and even ideological organisations have had their accounts frozen because of things they said or held true. Entirely legal things I should add.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  Notice the difference between organizations and private individuals (which the quoted UK regulations seems to protect). I don't know if it's EU wide but Finland also requires banks to provide service to private individuals.
- danielscrubs 5y ago
  Could you provide links? We have similar rules so I'm a bit surprised...
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    Not really, this is people I know personally. I know some of them have mentioned it publicly but can't find any links. Would be in Swedish anyway. I know two people off the top of my head that had their personal accounts suspended for legal political activity, for organizations it's pretty much any organisation on the right side of the spectrum.

bjarneh 5y ago

> There is really nothing you could do with a car to prompt the car maker to take it from you. Maybe not take it from you, but with new cars that are always connected (Tesla et. al). They can certainly make them quite terrible if they want to... access to superchargers has been removed when "owners" use unauthorized work shops for instance.

elif 5y ago

Cars are also digital service platforms which can and do take away things. I am currently playing a safety score minigame to unlock enhanced driving features. If I pay $2000 my software will enable my minivan to have a 0-60 of a Ferrari. This is all premised upon a connectivity package I'm obligated to pay for but have been gifted for a year by the manufacturer. To put it more bluntly, my eyeballs are watched by AI to make sure I pay attention enough to deserve the full use of my vehicle.. it's beyond punitive, it requires my positive behavior. ALSO bonus, if I did something with my vehicle that resulted in losing my account, I would also lose access to my home electricity system.

jstanley 5y ago
What car is this?
nudpiedo 5y ago
What car is it? In what country did you purchase it? To me that sounds beyond reality…
- coliveira 5y ago
  It starts with a T.
  - jstanley 5y ago
    Why not just say what it is?
    - coliveira 5y ago
      Use your imagination.
tsatsawayy 5y ago
Most cars do not do this. Teslas are famous for their DRM, restrictive connectivity, and shady upsells. Those will show up in the "cons" column of any honest review. A normal car in 2022 will not constantly surveil you. No critical functionality is tied to an online account in any non-Tesla mass-produced car that I am aware of.

htrp 5y ago

This is going to be one of those situations where we will have legislation passed, especially if our digital identities are tied to 3rd party providers. Alternatively, the government will just take over basic id services (think first.last@yourcountry).

Grustaf 5y ago
We already have state run (more or less) digital ids in both Sweden and Denmark. I don't know if anyone has been denied for ideological reasons though.

kingcharles 5y ago

> If I take a kitchen knife and stab someone with it I will go to prison for sure, but I don't think they will take the knife away. They definitely won't ban me from buying knives. This is true. Generally if you stab someone the police would seize the knife as evidence, but after your trial if the prosecution didn't file a forfeiture case against the knife, then it is still yours and you can get an order from the judge to return it :) p.s. civil forfeiture cases give the best names, e.g. United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls, 413 F. Supp. 1281 (D. Wisc. 1976)

gbasin 5y ago

Not to be That Guy, since I'm not a shill, but "Bitcoin solves this" — not really today, except for pure cryptocurrency, but I can imagine a future where ownership of our access to these services is controlled by public blockchains ...

Grustaf 5y ago
Why would that solve anything? Google could still cancel my gmail if I say something politically incorrect, regardless of their database technology. It's not like making my email public would change anything, they are not reluctant to cancel people just because others can see it. If anything, that makes the cancellation all the more effective.
- magicjosh 5y ago
  If your email were hosted on a public blockchain, Google could not kick you off. - Decentralized file hosting for all the emails using IPFS instead of Google's servers - Decentralized login using ENS / Ethereum Name Service instead of Google's login - a UI on top of your data, plus an outbound server for relaying to/from non-blockchain email accounts Overall, you end up with portable data thanks to IPFS, and a login through ENS to whatever UI you want to use/pay for. This seems like a win to me. Haven't seen anything yet that pulls this together but the pieces are there. Maybe someone here wants to prototype it.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    By hosted, do you mean that the blockchain would act as the mail server? Wouldn't that be incredibly slow and inefficient?
    - magicjosh 5y ago
      By hosted I mean stored on IPFS. It's a bit like downloading a file from Bittorrent in that it can be fast and distributed, but with some added crypto layers. The only part stored on the blockchain is the address itself. The files are not stored on the blockchain. More here: https://docs.ipfs.io/concepts/what-is-ipfs/ https://docs.ipfs.io/concepts/what-is-ipfs/ Appreciate your question! That should get you started.

marcosdumay 5y ago

That's the difference between products and services and between owning and renting. Anything that you get from the internet is a service. Even connecting to the internet is a service. And providing a service is ongoing work. What we need is recognizing services as essential and guaranteeing people has access to them. This is something for the government to do, and the guaranteeing access part is quite complicated when the service can be exploited like email.

magicjosh 5y ago

I like how you put this. Yes, it does seem like our ownership of digital services is tenuous, unlike owning a knife or a car. I could wake up tomorrow and conceivably be locked out of my Twitter, Gmail, Facebook accounts forever. Perhaps in the new era of tech we'll have better data portability and ownership. Sure, maybe Google can kick me off but they should still let me export all my data. See my reply below about public blockchains.