3 ms·

No. What we're saying is that if you build a gigantic surveillance and propaganda machine it will be used by the powerful to hurt the powerless. The solution i

No. What we're saying is that if you build a gigantic surveillance and propaganda machine it will be used by the powerful to hurt the powerless. The solution is not to build the giant surveillance and propaganda machine just because you perceive it is merely helping the powerful at some particular moment in time. Your telephone example is also dead wrong. The solution is to use an e2ee voice communication platform in addition to reigning in the rampant abuse by cops and domestic spying. Or in a counterfactual alternate past hefore that was possible, it would be to break up the large telephone providers that anything like a clipper chip or bulk wiretapping at the exchange without a warrant is impossible to coordinate and keep secret. Similarly the overarmed police would be far less of a problem if there wasn't a massive corporate arms industry.

shadowgovt 4y ago
An e2ee solution is no good if the government is unjust, they just declare end-to-end encryption illegal and start arresting people the moment the signal hits the wire. Similarly, one can't expect an unjust government to reign in wire tapping, nor can one expect an unjust government to break up a telephone monopoly to enforce decentralization of potential surveillance threats. And that's the problem with trying to solve an unjust government in this way. For any technological countermeasure, you can just imagine that the government is sufficiently unjust to render that countermeasure's use itself a threat to the user. People, not technology, reign in governments.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > People, not technology, reign in governments. Yes, and having the richest and most powerful companies, all their employees, and all their shareholders on the opposite team with the systems required for opression and surveillance already built is a non starter. Your social solutions must be stable. And a solution with a giant centralised surveillance and social manipulation machine just waiting for someone even eviller to take control isn't a viable one. Technical solutions aren't stable with the wrong social and political conditions, but social and political solutions are not stable with the wrong material conditions. If I take you at your word, then we both want the same thing: a legal and social environment where google cannot exist and a technical and material environment where the type of tracking and censorship they do is impossible to implement unilaterally. But one of the major barriers to getting there is the existence of google so we have to fight on both fronts.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    > on the opposite team How do you figure? Companies are made up of the people the government oppresses. > then we both want the same thing: a legal and social environment where google cannot exist Hardly. My argument is that in the absence of Google, the government would still be a mess, and in the absence of the Google datasets, they'd use others (online cycle trackers, credit card data, toll road records, the photos taken by people standing outside Planned Parenthoods and volunteered to the authorities). Larry Brin's "The Transparent Society" makes the excellent case that with the surveillance genie out of the bottle, you don't fix the way it can be abused by trying to cram it back in. Rather, the solution may be more surveillance... The wives and mistresses of politicians seek abortions too...
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      > How do you figure? Companies are made up of the people the government oppresses. The people in control of the companies are the ones steering the government towards being more oppressive. > Hardly. My argument is that in the absence of Google, the government would still be a mess, and in the absence of the Google datasets, they'd use others (online cycle trackers, credit card data, toll road records, the photos taken by people standing outside Planned Parenthoods and volunteered to the authorities). With the exception of the last, those are all examples of surveillance capitalism that would be solved with the same legal and technological structures. The overwhelming majority of current commercial software would have been considered malware or a virus in the 90s. Real privacy laws (rather than half measures or controlled opposition like gdpr) that prevent gathering any data that isn't essential and pro-cash rather than anti-cash policies would solve these. Even the last is either surveillance capitalsim (cloud based security cameras) or failure of general privacy law and social norms.
      - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
        I don't think Google are anti birth control. We should blame the American voters for this mess.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago

shadowgovt 4y ago

An e2ee solution is no good if the government is unjust, they just declare end-to-end encryption illegal and start arresting people the moment the signal hits the wire. Similarly, one can't expect an unjust government to reign in wire tapping, nor can one expect an unjust government to break up a telephone monopoly to enforce decentralization of potential surveillance threats. And that's the problem with trying to solve an unjust government in this way. For any technological countermeasure, you can just imagine that the government is sufficiently unjust to render that countermeasure's use itself a threat to the user. People, not technology, reign in governments.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
> People, not technology, reign in governments. Yes, and having the richest and most powerful companies, all their employees, and all their shareholders on the opposite team with the systems required for opression and surveillance already built is a non starter. Your social solutions must be stable. And a solution with a giant centralised surveillance and social manipulation machine just waiting for someone even eviller to take control isn't a viable one. Technical solutions aren't stable with the wrong social and political conditions, but social and political solutions are not stable with the wrong material conditions. If I take you at your word, then we both want the same thing: a legal and social environment where google cannot exist and a technical and material environment where the type of tracking and censorship they do is impossible to implement unilaterally. But one of the major barriers to getting there is the existence of google so we have to fight on both fronts.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  > on the opposite team How do you figure? Companies are made up of the people the government oppresses. > then we both want the same thing: a legal and social environment where google cannot exist Hardly. My argument is that in the absence of Google, the government would still be a mess, and in the absence of the Google datasets, they'd use others (online cycle trackers, credit card data, toll road records, the photos taken by people standing outside Planned Parenthoods and volunteered to the authorities). Larry Brin's "The Transparent Society" makes the excellent case that with the surveillance genie out of the bottle, you don't fix the way it can be abused by trying to cram it back in. Rather, the solution may be more surveillance... The wives and mistresses of politicians seek abortions too...
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    > How do you figure? Companies are made up of the people the government oppresses. The people in control of the companies are the ones steering the government towards being more oppressive. > Hardly. My argument is that in the absence of Google, the government would still be a mess, and in the absence of the Google datasets, they'd use others (online cycle trackers, credit card data, toll road records, the photos taken by people standing outside Planned Parenthoods and volunteered to the authorities). With the exception of the last, those are all examples of surveillance capitalism that would be solved with the same legal and technological structures. The overwhelming majority of current commercial software would have been considered malware or a virus in the 90s. Real privacy laws (rather than half measures or controlled opposition like gdpr) that prevent gathering any data that isn't essential and pro-cash rather than anti-cash policies would solve these. Even the last is either surveillance capitalsim (cloud based security cameras) or failure of general privacy law and social norms.
    - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
      I don't think Google are anti birth control. We should blame the American voters for this mess.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago