6 ms·

The Banality of Surveillance

51 points by commonreader 4y ago

tuatoru 4y ago
> to diffuse a bomb If even the Boston Review's subeditors don't know the difference between "diffuse" and "defuse"... well, English is going to change a lot in the next couple of decades. It will get a lot more ambiguous.
- reidjs 4y ago
  In the context I think it’s clear what they mean.
  - karamanolev 4y ago
    Does it matter with regards to the above comments? In this context, right now, it's clear. As we start losing track of the precise meaning of words, we'll get an increasing population size that doesn't even know the alternative exists. It's inevitable to then start using them in contexts where both spellings/meanings are valid and using the wrong one results in confusion.
    - pkage 4y ago
      I'm not sure pearl-clutching about losing the meaning of words is appropriate, it seems like a small mistake from the editing team slipped through.
    - BalinKing 4y ago
      That’s just how languages evolve; there’s nothing particularly dangerous about it. (Besides, I really doubt there are many scenarios where “diffuse” and “defuse” could reasonably be confused.)
      - smolder 4y ago
        People say this evolution thing about language frequently but not all changes are positive for a languages utility, clearly. It can get better and it can get worse. When words start meaning their opposite and then consequently nothing, like with "literally", that's evolving away from usefulness.
      - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
        Devolves. If meaning is abstracted by multiple words spelt different ways and context specific understanding is required, then there will be a greater cognitive load to reach 'understanding' and the language will move away from it's goal of conveying meaning. This is a long tail, but it's not like we've only just started down it. I actually find misspelling and bad phraseology to judge how seriously I should take a person's opinion, though factored in amongst other things (if it's obvious that English is their second language, or if their field of expertise may be one that eschews language skills, for example).
        giraffe_lady 4y ago
        There is no language that isn't effective at conveying meaning, because doing that is fundamental to what language is. People have been complaining and worrying about this since, literally, the beginning of recorded history. Our language is much "devolved" specifically in the ways many of them were worried about, and yet we are still having this conversation in it. You might not like how it tastes in your mouth but it'll still work fine for the needs we have of it, as all languages always have.
    - giraffe_lady 4y ago
      They're phonetically identical in most dialects so no meaning was confused here, it's a simple transcription error. The way you say "spelling/meaning" implies you think they're the same thing but they just absolutely are not, as much as that pains pedants sometimes. If you think otherwise you're mistaken about very basic and long-confirmed foundations of linguistics, like whether meaning derives from the spoken form or the writing system.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    In contacts, it's probably pretty clear what I mean here, too. A lot of incorrect things become interpretable when viewed in contacts.
    - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
      Your loosing you're mined.
      - tarboreus 4y ago
        I think he makes a really reticulate point.
- gumby 4y ago
  Technically, wouldn't detonation of a bomb "diffuse" it? I hope that's not what they meant, though!
  - FpUser 4y ago
    Only partially ;) Unless it is nuke
- jjulius 4y ago
  Stuff happens, people make mistakes, innocuous stuff like that slips through sometimes. I really don't know that I'd take this long-term view of the English language based on a single typo in the Boston Review, but then again I'm also not sure if that comment is missing a "/s".
  - aliqot 4y ago
    I think they do make a point though. Either the immediacy everything has now, or the increased reliance on spell checkers has caused a decline in overall literacy beyond the basic level. I am far from perfect, and I'm not educated. Let me make that disclaimer first. With that out of the way, I've been online for some time and in the last 10 years, it is common to see a few common errors that I'd say we are in danger of introducing into the lexicon via dictionary-squatting: - it's and its. If you can't substitute it's for "it is/was/has", then you need its, the possessive form of the word. - there/their/they're - your/you're - are/our - to/two/too - This is the most common, by far. - definitely - not definately, just say def or something. I could go on, but it's starting to feel petty or like my standards are too high for personal correspondence. "Elder shakes fist at terminal"
    - togs 4y ago
      Those all click for me. It's who/whom that gets me. To whom does this belong? Who climbed up that tree?
    - jjulius 4y ago
      Sure, I totally get it, and I even agree to some extent. A lot of that eats at me on the regular, too. But as I get older, the impermanence of, well, everything sits at the front of my mind a lot more often than it used to. Add to that the fact that English has always been in a perpetual state of change, and I just kinda shrug my shoulders at the idea of it changing further.
      - tuatoru 4y ago
        > I just kinda shrug my shoulders at the idea of it changing further. I'm just about at this point. I'm too old to bother to yell "get off my lawn!" anymore. But I thought a discussion about change in English over time might teach me something. Thanks, all!
- VoodooJuJu 4y ago
  Given the context, we understood what they meant. Language is driven by writers and speakers with skin in the game, not nitpickers with dictionaries.
- FpUser 4y ago
  It is quite common now. Their not crossing any boarders here. /s
verisimi 4y ago
> The protagonists of state-sanctioned surveillance are cybersecurity experts hacking into smart phones’ operating systems from a suburban office park, Microsoft engineers refining a biometric camera’s algorithm from their home office, and plain-clothes soldiers parsing through geolocation data for someone else to carry out a drone strike. I think it's more banal than that - Google, M$, Facebook etc probably allow direct access to whatever agencies, no tinkering required. Let's not forget Google was funded by inqtel, and Facebook started the same day Darpa's Lifelog ended.
- fsflover 4y ago
  Not sure why it's downvoted. They are all a part of PRISM, according to Snowden revelation. And they collect too much data.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
  You are being downvoted, but I will give an example that is not controversial, is ( or at least should be ) openly known and currently in operation. In Canada, which does have much stronger privacy protections than US, RMCP can get information directly from Fintrac under the umbrella of partnership. While there is no direct evidence that Google et al, allows for the type of access you describe, I find it less and less unlikely these days.
  - yazzku 4y ago
    What do you mean there is no evidence? https://snowdentheplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2.jpg https://snowdentheplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2.jpg
- naithan 4y ago
  Yeah, I rely on a Chromebook for most of what I do, and I sometimes wonder if US spy agencies have backdoor access to Google servers or even their mobile operating systems.
  - yazzku 4y ago
Joel_Mckay 4y ago
Despotism is lucrative for those on the right end of the information asymmetry. Fundamentally, the phenomena occurs in cycles in areas where communities lack mutual respect, income inequality is high, and regulatory capture of information is monetized/weaponized. The networks simply made it cheaper to squeeze the vulnerable, and extend the cycle by a few decades. While unsustainable sociologically or economically, every individual must make a conscious decision at some point... to serve a king... or walk to a better life someplace less foolish.
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  The US might well not be a "real" democracy by some measure but it's not a despotism by any means - a variety of powerful forces are contending against each other. I mean, the US has surveillance, had surveillance in the 1960s when income inequality was relatively low and it had surveillance in the 1920s, when income inequality was more similar to today. This stuff isn't a recipe for some future dictatorship, it's part and parcel of the way power works right now and has worked for a while.
  - Joel_Mckay 4y ago
    As a foreigner doing business in the US, one needs to understand there is zero protection under the laws for non-citizens. If you have something someone wants, than you must expect professional thieves will show up before any division head. One can't take it personally, as the price of admission is high for that show. I find it amusing that you thought I was alluding to the USA, as the work was based on another historical democratic republic.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      I've always thought of all netizens as honorary Americans in spirit, but I see what you mean. I see a lot of parallels to inner-city life, and the despotism of local tyrants and their co-defendants doing clandestine business under micro-mob rule.
    - joe_the_user 4y ago
IntFee588 4y ago
> During World War II military scientists invented the transistor, a semiconductor device that paved the way for miniature recording devices smaller than sugar cubes and thinner than postage stamps to flood espionage markets. This goes against common knowledge (that the FET was first invented by Lilienfeld in the 1920s, and that the germanium transistor was invented by Bardeen and Brattain at Bell Labs in the 1940s). Points to anyone that can produce evidence to support this claim that it was invented during WWII. Friendly reminder that nothing sent over public internet infrastructure without additional security measures is truly private. Also, pardon Snowden.
kornhole 4y ago
This is why I despise movies like James Bond and Mission Impossible and love the movie The Lives of Others. James Bond would be the worst spy ever and is unlike any spy I know. Why should we glamourize those who spy on us?
- togs 4y ago
  Which spies do you know?
  - kornhole 4y ago
    They are generally pretty normal seeming or boring which makes them great spies. They don't stand out. I am not giving names out.
    - togs 4y ago
      You pass the test
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure intelligence agencies employ some number of adventurers, agent-provocateurs and assassins along with their more staid infiltrators and station chiefs. The most standard way to do things is having the official agents be the "handlers" of the dirtier, hand-on types but there are plenty of stories things being otherwise. I'd agree we shouldn't glamorize spies, certainly. And actual sociopaths in the cause of order are some of the nastiest people.

51 points by commonreader 4y ago

> to diffuse a bomb If even the Boston Review's subeditors don't know the difference between "diffuse" and "defuse"... well, English is going to change a lot in the next couple of decades. It will get a lot more ambiguous.

reidjs 4y ago
In the context I think it’s clear what they mean.
- karamanolev 4y ago
  Does it matter with regards to the above comments? In this context, right now, it's clear. As we start losing track of the precise meaning of words, we'll get an increasing population size that doesn't even know the alternative exists. It's inevitable to then start using them in contexts where both spellings/meanings are valid and using the wrong one results in confusion.
  - pkage 4y ago
    I'm not sure pearl-clutching about losing the meaning of words is appropriate, it seems like a small mistake from the editing team slipped through.
  - BalinKing 4y ago
    That’s just how languages evolve; there’s nothing particularly dangerous about it. (Besides, I really doubt there are many scenarios where “diffuse” and “defuse” could reasonably be confused.)
    - smolder 4y ago
      People say this evolution thing about language frequently but not all changes are positive for a languages utility, clearly. It can get better and it can get worse. When words start meaning their opposite and then consequently nothing, like with "literally", that's evolving away from usefulness.
    - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
      Devolves. If meaning is abstracted by multiple words spelt different ways and context specific understanding is required, then there will be a greater cognitive load to reach 'understanding' and the language will move away from it's goal of conveying meaning. This is a long tail, but it's not like we've only just started down it. I actually find misspelling and bad phraseology to judge how seriously I should take a person's opinion, though factored in amongst other things (if it's obvious that English is their second language, or if their field of expertise may be one that eschews language skills, for example).
      - giraffe_lady 4y ago
        There is no language that isn't effective at conveying meaning, because doing that is fundamental to what language is. People have been complaining and worrying about this since, literally, the beginning of recorded history. Our language is much "devolved" specifically in the ways many of them were worried about, and yet we are still having this conversation in it. You might not like how it tastes in your mouth but it'll still work fine for the needs we have of it, as all languages always have.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    They're phonetically identical in most dialects so no meaning was confused here, it's a simple transcription error. The way you say "spelling/meaning" implies you think they're the same thing but they just absolutely are not, as much as that pains pedants sometimes. If you think otherwise you're mistaken about very basic and long-confirmed foundations of linguistics, like whether meaning derives from the spoken form or the writing system.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  In contacts, it's probably pretty clear what I mean here, too. A lot of incorrect things become interpretable when viewed in contacts.
  - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
    Your loosing you're mined.
    - tarboreus 4y ago
      I think he makes a really reticulate point.
gumby 4y ago
Technically, wouldn't detonation of a bomb "diffuse" it? I hope that's not what they meant, though!
- FpUser 4y ago
  Only partially ;) Unless it is nuke
jjulius 4y ago
Stuff happens, people make mistakes, innocuous stuff like that slips through sometimes. I really don't know that I'd take this long-term view of the English language based on a single typo in the Boston Review, but then again I'm also not sure if that comment is missing a "/s".
- aliqot 4y ago
  I think they do make a point though. Either the immediacy everything has now, or the increased reliance on spell checkers has caused a decline in overall literacy beyond the basic level. I am far from perfect, and I'm not educated. Let me make that disclaimer first. With that out of the way, I've been online for some time and in the last 10 years, it is common to see a few common errors that I'd say we are in danger of introducing into the lexicon via dictionary-squatting: - it's and its. If you can't substitute it's for "it is/was/has", then you need its, the possessive form of the word. - there/their/they're - your/you're - are/our - to/two/too - This is the most common, by far. - definitely - not definately, just say def or something. I could go on, but it's starting to feel petty or like my standards are too high for personal correspondence. "Elder shakes fist at terminal"
  - togs 4y ago
    Those all click for me. It's who/whom that gets me. To whom does this belong? Who climbed up that tree?
  - jjulius 4y ago
    Sure, I totally get it, and I even agree to some extent. A lot of that eats at me on the regular, too. But as I get older, the impermanence of, well, everything sits at the front of my mind a lot more often than it used to. Add to that the fact that English has always been in a perpetual state of change, and I just kinda shrug my shoulders at the idea of it changing further.
    - tuatoru 4y ago
      > I just kinda shrug my shoulders at the idea of it changing further. I'm just about at this point. I'm too old to bother to yell "get off my lawn!" anymore. But I thought a discussion about change in English over time might teach me something. Thanks, all!
VoodooJuJu 4y ago
Given the context, we understood what they meant. Language is driven by writers and speakers with skin in the game, not nitpickers with dictionaries.
FpUser 4y ago
It is quite common now. Their not crossing any boarders here. /s

verisimi 4y ago

> The protagonists of state-sanctioned surveillance are cybersecurity experts hacking into smart phones’ operating systems from a suburban office park, Microsoft engineers refining a biometric camera’s algorithm from their home office, and plain-clothes soldiers parsing through geolocation data for someone else to carry out a drone strike. I think it's more banal than that - Google, M$, Facebook etc probably allow direct access to whatever agencies, no tinkering required. Let's not forget Google was funded by inqtel, and Facebook started the same day Darpa's Lifelog ended.

fsflover 4y ago
Not sure why it's downvoted. They are all a part of PRISM, according to Snowden revelation. And they collect too much data.
A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
You are being downvoted, but I will give an example that is not controversial, is ( or at least should be ) openly known and currently in operation. In Canada, which does have much stronger privacy protections than US, RMCP can get information directly from Fintrac under the umbrella of partnership. While there is no direct evidence that Google et al, allows for the type of access you describe, I find it less and less unlikely these days.
- yazzku 4y ago
  What do you mean there is no evidence? https://snowdentheplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2.jpg https://snowdentheplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2.jpg
naithan 4y ago
Yeah, I rely on a Chromebook for most of what I do, and I sometimes wonder if US spy agencies have backdoor access to Google servers or even their mobile operating systems.
- yazzku 4y ago

Joel_Mckay 4y ago

Despotism is lucrative for those on the right end of the information asymmetry. Fundamentally, the phenomena occurs in cycles in areas where communities lack mutual respect, income inequality is high, and regulatory capture of information is monetized/weaponized. The networks simply made it cheaper to squeeze the vulnerable, and extend the cycle by a few decades. While unsustainable sociologically or economically, every individual must make a conscious decision at some point... to serve a king... or walk to a better life someplace less foolish.

joe_the_user 4y ago
The US might well not be a "real" democracy by some measure but it's not a despotism by any means - a variety of powerful forces are contending against each other. I mean, the US has surveillance, had surveillance in the 1960s when income inequality was relatively low and it had surveillance in the 1920s, when income inequality was more similar to today. This stuff isn't a recipe for some future dictatorship, it's part and parcel of the way power works right now and has worked for a while.
- Joel_Mckay 4y ago
  As a foreigner doing business in the US, one needs to understand there is zero protection under the laws for non-citizens. If you have something someone wants, than you must expect professional thieves will show up before any division head. One can't take it personally, as the price of admission is high for that show. I find it amusing that you thought I was alluding to the USA, as the work was based on another historical democratic republic.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    I've always thought of all netizens as honorary Americans in spirit, but I see what you mean. I see a lot of parallels to inner-city life, and the despotism of local tyrants and their co-defendants doing clandestine business under micro-mob rule.
  - joe_the_user 4y ago

IntFee588 4y ago

> During World War II military scientists invented the transistor, a semiconductor device that paved the way for miniature recording devices smaller than sugar cubes and thinner than postage stamps to flood espionage markets. This goes against common knowledge (that the FET was first invented by Lilienfeld in the 1920s, and that the germanium transistor was invented by Bardeen and Brattain at Bell Labs in the 1940s). Points to anyone that can produce evidence to support this claim that it was invented during WWII. Friendly reminder that nothing sent over public internet infrastructure without additional security measures is truly private. Also, pardon Snowden.

kornhole 4y ago

This is why I despise movies like James Bond and Mission Impossible and love the movie The Lives of Others. James Bond would be the worst spy ever and is unlike any spy I know. Why should we glamourize those who spy on us?

togs 4y ago
Which spies do you know?
- kornhole 4y ago
  They are generally pretty normal seeming or boring which makes them great spies. They don't stand out. I am not giving names out.
  - togs 4y ago
    You pass the test
joe_the_user 4y ago
I'm pretty sure intelligence agencies employ some number of adventurers, agent-provocateurs and assassins along with their more staid infiltrators and station chiefs. The most standard way to do things is having the official agents be the "handlers" of the dirtier, hand-on types but there are plenty of stories things being otherwise. I'd agree we shouldn't glamorize spies, certainly. And actual sociopaths in the cause of order are some of the nastiest people.