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I used to be skeptical of the skeptics, thought they were paranoid to worry about 'big tech' snooping and tracking our lives. Turns out it is not big tech but '

I used to be skeptical of the skeptics, thought they were paranoid to worry about 'big tech' snooping and tracking our lives. Turns out it is not big tech but 'big govt' that I should've been worried about. We are in danger of turning into a surveillance state

Mo3 4y ago
Damn, even most of what we know is already a decade old information. I wouldn’t be surprised if the intelligence agencies had much more crazy new projects going on the last few years. I also suspect there will be a point in the future where they’ll break encryption and we won’t find out until years later.. they already started looking into building a quantum computer in 2014, and I’d bet it’s not necessarily for morally acceptable research.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  > I wouldn’t be surprised if the intelligence agencies had much more crazy new projects going on the last few years. You mean like flying surveillance helicopters with really, really nice gear in them over major cities for days/weeks?
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    s/helicopters/planes
- gruez 4y ago
  >I wouldn’t be surprised if the intelligence agencies had much more crazy new projects going on the last few years. except this isn't even from "the intelligence agencies", it's from data brokers: >The bulk of the data that CBP obtained came from its contract with Venntel, a location data broker that aggregates and sells information quietly siphoned from smartphone apps
  - Mo3 4y ago
    What I meant is, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual intelligence agencies themselves had much more crazy projects going on.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I suspect the intelligence agencies are still in absolute surprise that all their hard work was for nothing and everyone will happily tell Facebook, Google, et al everything with no prodding at all, and all they have to do is slurp it up.
api 4y ago
One thing I’d love to know is whether there is an upside and if so how much. How many kidnapping victims get found or violent plots foiled by this tech vs old school police work? Of course I suspect this info would be hard to get. Authorities would likely cook the books to make these things look more valuable than they really are.
- fsflover 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance#Purposes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance#Purposes
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Using it for kidnappings would draw attention to it, and remove the pretext for expanding it.
01100011 4y ago
We are a surveillance state. We(geeks) all made a fuss over it about 20 years ago and no one seemed to care so here we are. Every so often someone new realizes it, freaks out, and not much changes. I wish I weren't so cynical but at some point I just got tired of losing sleep over it.
- neilalexander 4y ago
  Making a fuss just isn’t enough when the majority of people still want the devices that are being used to spy on them.
- Retric 4y ago
  The difference is surveillance states have historically leveraged people rather than passive tracking. It’s wildly different knowing your friends, family, even children are being indoctrinated to report you for things that may or may not have happened at which point you just disappear like many people you never heard from again. It’s actively stressful in a way that cellphones just don’t evoke.
  - asdff 4y ago
    People with a bag of weed in their pocket in middle america probably feel the same way
    - encryptluks2 4y ago
      - asdff 4y ago
        White or not if you are only middle class in middle america that ticket for the weed and steeper paraphernalia charge are going to hurt. Good luck getting the dumb things you've done as a teenager expunged unless you are actually upper class in middle america and therefore have access to legal council that your parents bankroll.
time_to_smile 4y ago
I've worked for the Federal Government and for a variety of ad-tech companies. I am still much more terrified of "big tech" (and small tech) than "big government". When I worked for the government I wanted to scrape some publicly available data from the web. Because the data involved information about people I had to write up a document explaining exactly what I was using the data for, exactly what information I would be collecting and why it was necessary, explain where the data was to be stored, and most importantly specify exactly how long I needed the data and when and how it would be safely removed. This had to be approved by a privacy officer. I was shocked, because this is data that I, as a private citizen, could easily scrape. I asked why I had to do something so involved for a project I could easily do in my spare time. The answer I got was this: Because the government has extra authority they also have extra responsibility. As government employees we have more power to impact people's lives so it is our responsibility to be very explicit is what we do and why we are doing in. In ad-tech there are oceans of data that are not publicly available, and in the US virtually zero restriction who looks at that data and what they can do with it. I've watched people move around town via trackers when the use they web, seen where they got coffee and seen which doctor they go to. I used this information to demonstrate to the legal team at previous company to care about user privacy. They were shocked but in the end made no real policy decision. Some of the big players likely have tighter security but only for business/PR reasons. I can assure you that a random data engineer at a mid-sized tech company has far more access to your personal secrets than an FBI agent. Don't get me wrong, there are agencies in the government that have more surveillance power than they should and it is ripe for abuse. But don't think "it's not big tech", especially since there is a ultimately a thin line between big tech and big govt.
- yupper32 4y ago
  > Because the data involved information about people I had to write up a document explaining exactly what I was using the data for, exactly what information I would be collecting and why it was necessary, explain where the data was to be stored, and most importantly specify exactly how long I needed the data and when and how it would be safely removed. This just sounds like a design doc, which I do regardless of if it has to get reviewed by a privacy team or I'm doing anything sensitive. Maybe it's because I've worked for mostly google & ex-googler run companies, but this is just standard practice for me.
slackfan 4y ago
To quote the late Steve Jobs: "Government is the biggest monopoly of them all". Considering most data collection firms will happily sell to the feds, it's really not that much of a difference in the end.
deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
freeAgent 4y ago
I think it's becoming increasingly apparent that there's not much difference between "Big Tech" and "Big Government." As this article makes clear, they have a symbiotic relationship with each other. Big Tech makes money from Big Government, which uses Big Tech to get around restrictions on what it's allowed to do on its own.
- Smoosh 4y ago
  The trouble with big-everything is that they are indeed the big players, and therefore heavily invested in the status quo, and are the ones with power and influence. They don't want to fix things we see as problems, because they're doing just fine thank you. Another instance of "Fuck you, I've got mine".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
_moof 4y ago
por qué no los dos dot gif, my friend.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
They're the same people.

Mo3 4y ago

Damn, even most of what we know is already a decade old information. I wouldn’t be surprised if the intelligence agencies had much more crazy new projects going on the last few years. I also suspect there will be a point in the future where they’ll break encryption and we won’t find out until years later.. they already started looking into building a quantum computer in 2014, and I’d bet it’s not necessarily for morally acceptable research.

aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
> I wouldn’t be surprised if the intelligence agencies had much more crazy new projects going on the last few years. You mean like flying surveillance helicopters with really, really nice gear in them over major cities for days/weeks?
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  s/helicopters/planes
gruez 4y ago
>I wouldn’t be surprised if the intelligence agencies had much more crazy new projects going on the last few years. except this isn't even from "the intelligence agencies", it's from data brokers: >The bulk of the data that CBP obtained came from its contract with Venntel, a location data broker that aggregates and sells information quietly siphoned from smartphone apps
- Mo3 4y ago
  What I meant is, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual intelligence agencies themselves had much more crazy projects going on.
bombcar 4y ago
I suspect the intelligence agencies are still in absolute surprise that all their hard work was for nothing and everyone will happily tell Facebook, Google, et al everything with no prodding at all, and all they have to do is slurp it up.

api 4y ago

One thing I’d love to know is whether there is an upside and if so how much. How many kidnapping victims get found or violent plots foiled by this tech vs old school police work? Of course I suspect this info would be hard to get. Authorities would likely cook the books to make these things look more valuable than they really are.

fsflover 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance#Purposes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance#Purposes
Schroedingersat 4y ago
Using it for kidnappings would draw attention to it, and remove the pretext for expanding it.

01100011 4y ago

We are a surveillance state. We(geeks) all made a fuss over it about 20 years ago and no one seemed to care so here we are. Every so often someone new realizes it, freaks out, and not much changes. I wish I weren't so cynical but at some point I just got tired of losing sleep over it.

neilalexander 4y ago
Making a fuss just isn’t enough when the majority of people still want the devices that are being used to spy on them.
Retric 4y ago
The difference is surveillance states have historically leveraged people rather than passive tracking. It’s wildly different knowing your friends, family, even children are being indoctrinated to report you for things that may or may not have happened at which point you just disappear like many people you never heard from again. It’s actively stressful in a way that cellphones just don’t evoke.
- asdff 4y ago
  People with a bag of weed in their pocket in middle america probably feel the same way
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    - asdff 4y ago
      White or not if you are only middle class in middle america that ticket for the weed and steeper paraphernalia charge are going to hurt. Good luck getting the dumb things you've done as a teenager expunged unless you are actually upper class in middle america and therefore have access to legal council that your parents bankroll.

time_to_smile 4y ago

I've worked for the Federal Government and for a variety of ad-tech companies. I am still much more terrified of "big tech" (and small tech) than "big government". When I worked for the government I wanted to scrape some publicly available data from the web. Because the data involved information about people I had to write up a document explaining exactly what I was using the data for, exactly what information I would be collecting and why it was necessary, explain where the data was to be stored, and most importantly specify exactly how long I needed the data and when and how it would be safely removed. This had to be approved by a privacy officer. I was shocked, because this is data that I, as a private citizen, could easily scrape. I asked why I had to do something so involved for a project I could easily do in my spare time. The answer I got was this: Because the government has extra authority they also have extra responsibility. As government employees we have more power to impact people's lives so it is our responsibility to be very explicit is what we do and why we are doing in. In ad-tech there are oceans of data that are not publicly available, and in the US virtually zero restriction who looks at that data and what they can do with it. I've watched people move around town via trackers when the use they web, seen where they got coffee and seen which doctor they go to. I used this information to demonstrate to the legal team at previous company to care about user privacy. They were shocked but in the end made no real policy decision. Some of the big players likely have tighter security but only for business/PR reasons. I can assure you that a random data engineer at a mid-sized tech company has far more access to your personal secrets than an FBI agent. Don't get me wrong, there are agencies in the government that have more surveillance power than they should and it is ripe for abuse. But don't think "it's not big tech", especially since there is a ultimately a thin line between big tech and big govt.

yupper32 4y ago
> Because the data involved information about people I had to write up a document explaining exactly what I was using the data for, exactly what information I would be collecting and why it was necessary, explain where the data was to be stored, and most importantly specify exactly how long I needed the data and when and how it would be safely removed. This just sounds like a design doc, which I do regardless of if it has to get reviewed by a privacy team or I'm doing anything sensitive. Maybe it's because I've worked for mostly google & ex-googler run companies, but this is just standard practice for me.

slackfan 4y ago

To quote the late Steve Jobs: "Government is the biggest monopoly of them all". Considering most data collection firms will happily sell to the feds, it's really not that much of a difference in the end.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

freeAgent 4y ago

I think it's becoming increasingly apparent that there's not much difference between "Big Tech" and "Big Government." As this article makes clear, they have a symbiotic relationship with each other. Big Tech makes money from Big Government, which uses Big Tech to get around restrictions on what it's allowed to do on its own.

Smoosh 4y ago
The trouble with big-everything is that they are indeed the big players, and therefore heavily invested in the status quo, and are the ones with power and influence. They don't want to fix things we see as problems, because they're doing just fine thank you. Another instance of "Fuck you, I've got mine".

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

_moof 4y ago

por qué no los dos dot gif, my friend.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

They're the same people.