12 ms·

People Staring at Computers (2021)

159 points by throwaway743 4y ago

cr4nberry 4y ago
Publishing pictures of people taken with literal spyware isn't art. I have no idea what kind of fantasy world someone needs to be living in in order to think this is art. It's a wonder he didn't get prosecuted for it
bitwize 4y ago
> "Ok. Is there anyone else in the house?" > "No sir." > They opened up two doors and found my roommates sleeping. "Who is this?" > "Oh, those are my roommates." I didn't realize it was 8 am. I was up late the night before, and I figured it was ten or eleven already, and that they had left for work. That's making false statements, a felony punishable by up to five years in federal prison.
- patchtopic 4y ago
  not quite.
- trillic 4y ago
  ..and that's why you never, ever, speak to a police officer. If a police officer wants to talk to you, they are probably conducting a criminal investigation. Do yourself a favor and exercise your right to remain silent.
  - paulpauper 4y ago
    not quite so. you may still be required to identify yourself and they may run background check
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  It is a felony to knowingly give false statements, meaning to lie.
  - FoomFries 4y ago
    But then you have a case where the officer will try and use what you said against you. So, even if it wasn’t knowingly in truth, in practice it will be up to you to defend that truth. Whereas silence saves you the hassle.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      In practice, good-faith and respectful interactions with law enforcement have a positive outcome.
      - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
        unfortunately the positive outcome they often have is teaching people that is a very bad idea to have goid-faith interactions with last enforcement.
      - folsom 4y ago
        In practice paying a lawyer $250/hour to sit with you while you answer questions (or not answer) is cheaper than missing out on five years of income and all of the other consequences that come with going to prison.
      - muaytimbo 4y ago
        Somehow, I doubt you have much "practicing" this.
      - stavros 4y ago
        Good faith and respect in interactions with law enforcement only seems to go one way, though.
  - SaintGhurka 4y ago
    "It is a felony to knowingly give false statements" I think that's only true if you lie to a federal agent. Lying to a cop is usually a misdemeanor. Depends on the state and the circumstances.
- jjulius 4y ago
  It's worth highlighting that it doesn't seem as though this caused any issue whatsoever for the author.
  - bitwize 4y ago
    Had the government wanted to give him a harder time than they did, it could've been a significant issue. FBI agents are trained in interrogation techniques designed to manipulate you into saying contradictory things, for the sole purpose of being able to slap you with a false-statements charge in case they can't get enough on you to convict you of the crime they were actually investigating.
    - mkl95 4y ago
      Any idea why they do this? Is it a PR thing? Some angle like 95% of our suspects are convicted within 5 years.
      - michaelt 4y ago
        Some people hear "Al Capone was only ever jailed for tax evasion" and think to themselves "that murderer deserved to be in jail, getting him jailed was just even if it wasn't for his biggest crimes"
      - j33zusjuice 4y ago
        There are historical reasons, like the fact that LE was created to protect a special class), which deeply impact the way LE is trained, which dictates how LE interacts with normal people. There’s what you suggested, that they want great stats, because political careers are made off of stats, and winning high profile cases (there’s a long list of questionable cases where DAs railroaded a person or group just before they ran for governor or congress. The book “Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice” discusses a lot of the failings of the system, and gives suggestions on how to fix the system without tearing it down. In discussing the failings, he gives a lot of thoughts on why things are as they are, etc. It’s a pretty easy read. In case you missed the link on the origins of police somewhere else in the comments: https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police/ https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the...
- googlryas 4y ago
  It's not illegal to make false statements in this context. It's illegal to knowingly and willfully make false statements. If later, the author said something like "I was talking to my roommate in his room just before you guys knocked on the door", then he might be charged with a felony. But the statement by itself was fine, even if false. 18 U.S. Code § 1001
Bakary 4y ago
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. The artist seems pretentious, but self-aware. Annoying, but a great storyteller. The art and philosophical conclusions involved are dated and cliché but thought provoking at the same time. It's irritating, exciting, and comforting all at once. I don't know what to make of it but I'm glad that people like the author exist.
- pkdpic 4y ago
  Agreed, I would have really liked the paintings by themselves with minimal context. But this kind of pretentious artíst archetype seems like its designed to alienate most people from visual art rather than invite them in. And even though I really love the paintings, they don't embody all the fancy ideas he's going on (and on) about in this write up. You're cool and smart, we get it. The paintings can and should speak for themselves.
  - santoshalper 4y ago
    Nobody made you read an artist's blog. It seems disengenous to go voluntarily read someone's writing then criticize them for writing and not "letting their work speak for itself"
  - Bakary 4y ago
    It helps to consider the pretentious artistry as part of the piece. The writing about his experience doing the piece, and the experiences themselves are more interesting than the piece itself and need not be separate criteria. It's okay for most people to be alienated by it. They are neither wrong nor right to be so: I'm just happy that this art form exists.
- _spduchamp 4y ago
  I met Kyle when he taught a OpenFrameworks workshop here in Toronto many years ago. He's not a pretentious guy at all. He seemed very chill and down to earth, and just deeply curious with a highly competent ability to use programming as a tool to investigate questions. I admired his steely patience trying to teach that workshop while a couple folks kept interrupting while they struggled installing the prerequisite tools.
throwawayay1235 4y ago
[flagged]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jacknews 4y ago
The police forces were created to protect property and 'the system', not people, and that's what they continue to do. https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police/ https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the...
- jason-phillips 4y ago
  > The police forces were created to protect property and 'the system', not people, and that's what they continue to do. I think it's rather naive to consider otherwise. Somewhere along the way we were fed this childish mythology about the importance of the individual, which is definitely captivating, stirring one's imagination with sparks of creativity, but the truth is that institutions and 'the system' are the bedrock of civilization and thus society. Fanciful thoughts of some anarcho-libertarian ideal state are cute, but much farther down the list of priorities than the continued function of the machinery of civilization, on which everything depends. And the enforcement required so that state continues is liberally allotted to almost every government agency.
  - yucky 4y ago
    Except government can't stop growing, so that eventually doesn't end well.
  - ewzimm 4y ago
    In these discussions, there's always an implicit assumption of certain intentions being the "real" ones. Statements like "police were created to..." first imply that there was a creator whose intentions define the police through incarnations, a kind of "god of police," and, more likely, if it was not a single individual, it is a "pantheon of police" composed of its creators and sustainers. And then we have the image of the state as a composite entity which exerts control over the pantheon without being corporeal itself, maybe as the composite will of a class of people. To me, this idea of the personification of state power into an all-powerful driving force seems more mythological than the importance of individual decisions being made by those who carry out the work of the state. An individual officer may have a similar belief in the intentions of the state, but their actions are ultimately their own. It seems ironic that the more we tend to be critical of state power, the more we tend to mythologize it into a kind of personification. You might not fall into this trap, but many do. But why should the intentions of the composite pseudo-entity matter more than the intentions of the real individuals who carry out the work? Isn't each police officer a person who has different goals and ideas about who they are and who they serve? Is this really so insignificant, or is it so overwhelmed by institutional goals that it becomes irellevant? Or could the real people and not their abstractions be the real bedrock of civilization?
JKCalhoun 4y ago
> Especially the parts where I chastise, "look, we've gotten so wrapped up in all these computers we have forgotten about the real people around us". Like one of those cafe signs that says "we don't have wifi, talk to each other, pretend it's 1995". I think this cynical, dismissive attitude towards networked technology was popular in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Now I can see I was just parroting it. You aren't "parroting" a thing if you're feeling it. Sometimes a thing is part of our collective Zeitgeist because we all feel it, feel it's wrong.
- santoshalper 4y ago
  Also, I don't think that this sentiment has gone out of fashion at all.
  - j33zusjuice 4y ago
    It absolutely hasn’t. If anything, the feeling has strengthened in people who once lived without these devices.
rrwo 4y ago
And for anyone who insists that Apple is one of the good guys: > In response, Apple contacted the Secret Service and they raided my apartment. After censoring the work online, Apple did not pursue a civil case against me.
- imperfect_blue 4y ago
  I don't know, seems like a pretty proportionate response to someone coming into your store and installing what's effectively spyware on your machines. Sure, no harm was done and it was in the name of art, but how would anyone making the decisions at Apple know that?
- newZWhoDis 4y ago
  Why would the SS investigate this? Seems like a task for state police.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    I was curious about this too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service#Investigative_mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service#I... Cyber investigations include cybercrime, network intrusions, identity theft, access device fraud, credit card fraud, and intellectual property crimes. […] The Secret Service has concurrent jurisdiction with the FBI over certain violations of federal computer crime laws. They have created 24 Electronic Crimes Task Forces (ECTFs) across the United States. These task forces are partnerships between the service, federal/state and local law enforcement, the private sector and academia aimed at combating technology-based crimes.
ChrisArchitect 4y ago
(2021) A bunch of previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799859
- carbocation 4y ago
  > *(2021) Isn't it 2012, not 2021? (The article footer says "Kyle McDonald June 12, 2012")
  - stordoff 4y ago
    The first section (regarding the FOIA request and looking back from "ten years later") is from 2021. There is a signoff just before the picture of Steve Jobs that states "Kyle McDonald June 7, 2021".
    - carbocation 4y ago
      Thanks, I had missed it.
hklgny 4y ago
This article was a bit of a whirlwind for me, I had many of the reactions he later mentioned hearing in comments. I think where I settled is that this was an annoying invasion of privacy and ruined a good thing. I loved hearing about people recording music videos and doing real things in the stores, sucks to see that abused and put at risk. Stand out for me, however, was this line from the EFF: “if you're ever thinking of doing something like this in the future, give us a call first.” I think taking that action would have altered my opinion on it. Does anyone know if such a reach out would actually get a useful response?
- logifail 4y ago
  > Stand out for me, however, was this line from the EFF: “if you're ever thinking of doing something like this in the future, give us a call first.” I think taking that action would have altered my opinion on it. Does anyone know if such a reach out would actually get a useful response? At the very least the EFF would have warned of the potential consequences, which the author appeared to be blissfully unaware of.
prego_xo 4y ago
This story isn't a very new one, and overall repeats the same dated philosophical standpoints about both art and privacy, but man is the author's storytelling gripping. It was interesting to read about the secret service and how they didn't quite know what to do throughout the entire investigation. Or Apple, who opted to strong-arm blogs from allowing the photos rather than talk with EFF lawyers privately. It's funny to think how such an unsolvable question of "What Is Art?" was the deciding factor in how each party handled a case that could have easily been fought for and against the project fundamentally.
uglycinema 4y ago
“I remember being a bit nervous on the first visit. Not because I thought I was doing anything wrong, or because I was worried about getting "caught".It was more like stage fright. ” “Sometimes I would open another tab and load Flickr or Open Processing so I had an excuse if someone asked why I was comparing every single computer.”
whycombinetor 4y ago
Dunno how the hell one would not expect this to be be highly illegal. The guy literally wrote a software tool that covertly sends images from an unsuspecting device's camera to his personal servers, and installed+activated it on target machines belonging to the US's 3rd largest company by market cap in 2010 (now 1st largest). I get that in the pre-Snowden world, it felt like you were building a cutesy proof-of-concept to showcase to the world the possibilities of invasive mass surveillance, but that doesn't change the duck test that you actually built the mechanism and deployed it.
- adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
  since he had legal access to the computer, I don't think what he did is legally want different than running OBS on your own computer.
  - mjburgess 4y ago
    He did not have legal "access" to the computer; this isnt how the law, or even basic common sense, works. Apple made store computers available for demo, installing spyware on them clearly violates the level and kind of authorisation apple was providing. THe law makes these distinctions. But likewise, so does anyone with half a brain. You cannot come into my house an d install a keylogger on my PC, even if I make it available to you to play around with for other reasons.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      Apple made store computers available for demo and he didn't bypass any protection to run the software, and there isn't any agreement you have to sign to use one of the demo computers that lists what you are and aren't allowed to do with them. I agree this is on the edge, but looking through the CFAA, it isn't obvious to me which if any section applies here.
      - mjburgess 4y ago
        > law prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization Excess is a very broad condition, and deliberately so. The law doesnt say what counts as auth one way or another, that's up to the courts to interpret. It seems beyond doubt that any reasonable court would find this guy did not have auth to install anything, let alone spyware.
rideontime 4y ago
> How fruitful can a conversation be about consent and privacy, when an artist does not seek their subject's consent? Agreed.
Skypwn 4y ago
Wow!
subradios 4y ago
It is not a product of privilege or the police existing to protect specific companies. The secret service in this case were acting in the interest of public order, and if shopkeepers or franchisees couldn't have people installing Spyware on their machines prosecuted - it would make any kind of public hardware or software demo impossible. It's true that good public order does have effects that "empower" some people and disempower others, and sometimes this is Bad(TM). However good public order is also inherently necessary to have a society at all.
throwayyy479087 4y ago
- JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
  I had my pitchfork ready because I thought he just took photos in the store with a camera, then I see he hacked the store laptop cameras…yeah that’s creepy.
- marstall 4y ago
- kcimc 4y ago
  super fascinating to see this comment! it gave me the chance to take a step through my memories, and try to guess who might have felt this way. if i was an asshole to you and never apologized, send me a message and i would be very happy to take responsibility <3
dang 4y ago
Related: People Staring at Computers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799859 - July 2021 (337 comments) When Art, Apple and the Secret Service Collide: 'People Staring at Computers' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4235037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4235037 - July 2012 (64 comments) People Staring at Computers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2746026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2746026 - July 2011 (3 comments) Feds visit artist behind People Staring at Computers, confiscate laptop - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740485 - July 2011 (50 comments) Secret Service confiscates computer of "People Staring at Computers" creator - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740083 - July 2011 (1 comment)
peterkelly 4y ago
Seems like it might have been a good idea to discuss this "art project" with the Apple store in question before proceeding.
magic_hamster 4y ago
When someone shows up at your door claiming to be the secret service and taking all of your valuable electronics, don't you verify them in any way? Can anyone just show up at this guy's apartment with a suit and a "warrant" and start grabbing anything they like? It would be perfect karma if this happened to the author by someone else doing their own "art" project. I bet the author will understand there's no need for his consent.
kcimc 4y ago
author here. i'm deeply, genuinely grateful that you all care enough to revisit and discuss this decade-old work. special thanks to throwayyy479087 for stirring some shit on my behalf, saving me the work of creating a sock puppet just to cast shade and spread rumors. i'd be happy to answer any questions if you have them. sorry it took a while to get to this post. i'm literally on a beach on a remote island in fiji, working on the next project. https://unframed.lacma.org/2021/01/21/art-tech-lab-project-update%E2%80%94searching-te-lapa https://unframed.lacma.org/2021/01/21/art-tech-lab-project-u...
liamN 4y ago
I think the main issue with the original art piece was the lack of consent. The pictures are clearly of a single subject (the device user) and not of a space that mutiple unconsenting persons happen to be occupying, which makes the violation feel more egregeous and uncomfortable.

159 points by throwaway743 4y ago

Publishing pictures of people taken with literal spyware isn't art. I have no idea what kind of fantasy world someone needs to be living in in order to think this is art. It's a wonder he didn't get prosecuted for it

bitwize 4y ago

> "Ok. Is there anyone else in the house?" > "No sir." > They opened up two doors and found my roommates sleeping. "Who is this?" > "Oh, those are my roommates." I didn't realize it was 8 am. I was up late the night before, and I figured it was ten or eleven already, and that they had left for work. That's making false statements, a felony punishable by up to five years in federal prison.

patchtopic 4y ago
not quite.
trillic 4y ago
..and that's why you never, ever, speak to a police officer. If a police officer wants to talk to you, they are probably conducting a criminal investigation. Do yourself a favor and exercise your right to remain silent.
- paulpauper 4y ago
  not quite so. you may still be required to identify yourself and they may run background check
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
It is a felony to knowingly give false statements, meaning to lie.
- FoomFries 4y ago
  But then you have a case where the officer will try and use what you said against you. So, even if it wasn’t knowingly in truth, in practice it will be up to you to defend that truth. Whereas silence saves you the hassle.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    In practice, good-faith and respectful interactions with law enforcement have a positive outcome.
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      unfortunately the positive outcome they often have is teaching people that is a very bad idea to have goid-faith interactions with last enforcement.
    - folsom 4y ago
      In practice paying a lawyer $250/hour to sit with you while you answer questions (or not answer) is cheaper than missing out on five years of income and all of the other consequences that come with going to prison.
    - muaytimbo 4y ago
      Somehow, I doubt you have much "practicing" this.
    - stavros 4y ago
      Good faith and respect in interactions with law enforcement only seems to go one way, though.
- SaintGhurka 4y ago
  "It is a felony to knowingly give false statements" I think that's only true if you lie to a federal agent. Lying to a cop is usually a misdemeanor. Depends on the state and the circumstances.
jjulius 4y ago
It's worth highlighting that it doesn't seem as though this caused any issue whatsoever for the author.
- bitwize 4y ago
  Had the government wanted to give him a harder time than they did, it could've been a significant issue. FBI agents are trained in interrogation techniques designed to manipulate you into saying contradictory things, for the sole purpose of being able to slap you with a false-statements charge in case they can't get enough on you to convict you of the crime they were actually investigating.
  - mkl95 4y ago
    Any idea why they do this? Is it a PR thing? Some angle like 95% of our suspects are convicted within 5 years.
    - michaelt 4y ago
      Some people hear "Al Capone was only ever jailed for tax evasion" and think to themselves "that murderer deserved to be in jail, getting him jailed was just even if it wasn't for his biggest crimes"
    - j33zusjuice 4y ago
      There are historical reasons, like the fact that LE was created to protect a special class), which deeply impact the way LE is trained, which dictates how LE interacts with normal people. There’s what you suggested, that they want great stats, because political careers are made off of stats, and winning high profile cases (there’s a long list of questionable cases where DAs railroaded a person or group just before they ran for governor or congress. The book “Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice” discusses a lot of the failings of the system, and gives suggestions on how to fix the system without tearing it down. In discussing the failings, he gives a lot of thoughts on why things are as they are, etc. It’s a pretty easy read. In case you missed the link on the origins of police somewhere else in the comments: https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police/ https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the...
googlryas 4y ago
It's not illegal to make false statements in this context. It's illegal to knowingly and willfully make false statements. If later, the author said something like "I was talking to my roommate in his room just before you guys knocked on the door", then he might be charged with a felony. But the statement by itself was fine, even if false. 18 U.S. Code § 1001

Bakary 4y ago

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. The artist seems pretentious, but self-aware. Annoying, but a great storyteller. The art and philosophical conclusions involved are dated and cliché but thought provoking at the same time. It's irritating, exciting, and comforting all at once. I don't know what to make of it but I'm glad that people like the author exist.

pkdpic 4y ago
Agreed, I would have really liked the paintings by themselves with minimal context. But this kind of pretentious artíst archetype seems like its designed to alienate most people from visual art rather than invite them in. And even though I really love the paintings, they don't embody all the fancy ideas he's going on (and on) about in this write up. You're cool and smart, we get it. The paintings can and should speak for themselves.
- santoshalper 4y ago
  Nobody made you read an artist's blog. It seems disengenous to go voluntarily read someone's writing then criticize them for writing and not "letting their work speak for itself"
- Bakary 4y ago
  It helps to consider the pretentious artistry as part of the piece. The writing about his experience doing the piece, and the experiences themselves are more interesting than the piece itself and need not be separate criteria. It's okay for most people to be alienated by it. They are neither wrong nor right to be so: I'm just happy that this art form exists.
_spduchamp 4y ago
I met Kyle when he taught a OpenFrameworks workshop here in Toronto many years ago. He's not a pretentious guy at all. He seemed very chill and down to earth, and just deeply curious with a highly competent ability to use programming as a tool to investigate questions. I admired his steely patience trying to teach that workshop while a couple folks kept interrupting while they struggled installing the prerequisite tools.

throwawayay1235 4y ago

[flagged]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jacknews 4y ago

The police forces were created to protect property and 'the system', not people, and that's what they continue to do. https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police/ https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the...

jason-phillips 4y ago
> The police forces were created to protect property and 'the system', not people, and that's what they continue to do. I think it's rather naive to consider otherwise. Somewhere along the way we were fed this childish mythology about the importance of the individual, which is definitely captivating, stirring one's imagination with sparks of creativity, but the truth is that institutions and 'the system' are the bedrock of civilization and thus society. Fanciful thoughts of some anarcho-libertarian ideal state are cute, but much farther down the list of priorities than the continued function of the machinery of civilization, on which everything depends. And the enforcement required so that state continues is liberally allotted to almost every government agency.
- yucky 4y ago
  Except government can't stop growing, so that eventually doesn't end well.
- ewzimm 4y ago
  In these discussions, there's always an implicit assumption of certain intentions being the "real" ones. Statements like "police were created to..." first imply that there was a creator whose intentions define the police through incarnations, a kind of "god of police," and, more likely, if it was not a single individual, it is a "pantheon of police" composed of its creators and sustainers. And then we have the image of the state as a composite entity which exerts control over the pantheon without being corporeal itself, maybe as the composite will of a class of people. To me, this idea of the personification of state power into an all-powerful driving force seems more mythological than the importance of individual decisions being made by those who carry out the work of the state. An individual officer may have a similar belief in the intentions of the state, but their actions are ultimately their own. It seems ironic that the more we tend to be critical of state power, the more we tend to mythologize it into a kind of personification. You might not fall into this trap, but many do. But why should the intentions of the composite pseudo-entity matter more than the intentions of the real individuals who carry out the work? Isn't each police officer a person who has different goals and ideas about who they are and who they serve? Is this really so insignificant, or is it so overwhelmed by institutional goals that it becomes irellevant? Or could the real people and not their abstractions be the real bedrock of civilization?

JKCalhoun 4y ago

> Especially the parts where I chastise, "look, we've gotten so wrapped up in all these computers we have forgotten about the real people around us". Like one of those cafe signs that says "we don't have wifi, talk to each other, pretend it's 1995". I think this cynical, dismissive attitude towards networked technology was popular in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Now I can see I was just parroting it. You aren't "parroting" a thing if you're feeling it. Sometimes a thing is part of our collective Zeitgeist because we all feel it, feel it's wrong.

santoshalper 4y ago
Also, I don't think that this sentiment has gone out of fashion at all.
- j33zusjuice 4y ago
  It absolutely hasn’t. If anything, the feeling has strengthened in people who once lived without these devices.

rrwo 4y ago

And for anyone who insists that Apple is one of the good guys: > In response, Apple contacted the Secret Service and they raided my apartment. After censoring the work online, Apple did not pursue a civil case against me.

imperfect_blue 4y ago
I don't know, seems like a pretty proportionate response to someone coming into your store and installing what's effectively spyware on your machines. Sure, no harm was done and it was in the name of art, but how would anyone making the decisions at Apple know that?
newZWhoDis 4y ago
Why would the SS investigate this? Seems like a task for state police.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  I was curious about this too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service#Investigative_mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service#I... Cyber investigations include cybercrime, network intrusions, identity theft, access device fraud, credit card fraud, and intellectual property crimes. […] The Secret Service has concurrent jurisdiction with the FBI over certain violations of federal computer crime laws. They have created 24 Electronic Crimes Task Forces (ECTFs) across the United States. These task forces are partnerships between the service, federal/state and local law enforcement, the private sector and academia aimed at combating technology-based crimes.

ChrisArchitect 4y ago

(2021) A bunch of previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799859

carbocation 4y ago
> *(2021) Isn't it 2012, not 2021? (The article footer says "Kyle McDonald June 12, 2012")
- stordoff 4y ago
  The first section (regarding the FOIA request and looking back from "ten years later") is from 2021. There is a signoff just before the picture of Steve Jobs that states "Kyle McDonald June 7, 2021".
  - carbocation 4y ago
    Thanks, I had missed it.

hklgny 4y ago

This article was a bit of a whirlwind for me, I had many of the reactions he later mentioned hearing in comments. I think where I settled is that this was an annoying invasion of privacy and ruined a good thing. I loved hearing about people recording music videos and doing real things in the stores, sucks to see that abused and put at risk. Stand out for me, however, was this line from the EFF: “if you're ever thinking of doing something like this in the future, give us a call first.” I think taking that action would have altered my opinion on it. Does anyone know if such a reach out would actually get a useful response?

logifail 4y ago
> Stand out for me, however, was this line from the EFF: “if you're ever thinking of doing something like this in the future, give us a call first.” I think taking that action would have altered my opinion on it. Does anyone know if such a reach out would actually get a useful response? At the very least the EFF would have warned of the potential consequences, which the author appeared to be blissfully unaware of.

prego_xo 4y ago

This story isn't a very new one, and overall repeats the same dated philosophical standpoints about both art and privacy, but man is the author's storytelling gripping. It was interesting to read about the secret service and how they didn't quite know what to do throughout the entire investigation. Or Apple, who opted to strong-arm blogs from allowing the photos rather than talk with EFF lawyers privately. It's funny to think how such an unsolvable question of "What Is Art?" was the deciding factor in how each party handled a case that could have easily been fought for and against the project fundamentally.

uglycinema 4y ago

“I remember being a bit nervous on the first visit. Not because I thought I was doing anything wrong, or because I was worried about getting "caught".It was more like stage fright. ” “Sometimes I would open another tab and load Flickr or Open Processing so I had an excuse if someone asked why I was comparing every single computer.”

whycombinetor 4y ago

Dunno how the hell one would not expect this to be be highly illegal. The guy literally wrote a software tool that covertly sends images from an unsuspecting device's camera to his personal servers, and installed+activated it on target machines belonging to the US's 3rd largest company by market cap in 2010 (now 1st largest). I get that in the pre-Snowden world, it felt like you were building a cutesy proof-of-concept to showcase to the world the possibilities of invasive mass surveillance, but that doesn't change the duck test that you actually built the mechanism and deployed it.

adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
since he had legal access to the computer, I don't think what he did is legally want different than running OBS on your own computer.
- mjburgess 4y ago
  He did not have legal "access" to the computer; this isnt how the law, or even basic common sense, works. Apple made store computers available for demo, installing spyware on them clearly violates the level and kind of authorisation apple was providing. THe law makes these distinctions. But likewise, so does anyone with half a brain. You cannot come into my house an d install a keylogger on my PC, even if I make it available to you to play around with for other reasons.
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    Apple made store computers available for demo and he didn't bypass any protection to run the software, and there isn't any agreement you have to sign to use one of the demo computers that lists what you are and aren't allowed to do with them. I agree this is on the edge, but looking through the CFAA, it isn't obvious to me which if any section applies here.
    - mjburgess 4y ago
      > law prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization Excess is a very broad condition, and deliberately so. The law doesnt say what counts as auth one way or another, that's up to the courts to interpret. It seems beyond doubt that any reasonable court would find this guy did not have auth to install anything, let alone spyware.

rideontime 4y ago

> How fruitful can a conversation be about consent and privacy, when an artist does not seek their subject's consent? Agreed.

Skypwn 4y ago

Wow!

subradios 4y ago

It is not a product of privilege or the police existing to protect specific companies. The secret service in this case were acting in the interest of public order, and if shopkeepers or franchisees couldn't have people installing Spyware on their machines prosecuted - it would make any kind of public hardware or software demo impossible. It's true that good public order does have effects that "empower" some people and disempower others, and sometimes this is Bad(TM). However good public order is also inherently necessary to have a society at all.

throwayyy479087 4y ago

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
I had my pitchfork ready because I thought he just took photos in the store with a camera, then I see he hacked the store laptop cameras…yeah that’s creepy.
marstall 4y ago
kcimc 4y ago
super fascinating to see this comment! it gave me the chance to take a step through my memories, and try to guess who might have felt this way. if i was an asshole to you and never apologized, send me a message and i would be very happy to take responsibility <3

dang 4y ago

Related: People Staring at Computers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799859 - July 2021 (337 comments) When Art, Apple and the Secret Service Collide: 'People Staring at Computers' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4235037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4235037 - July 2012 (64 comments) People Staring at Computers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2746026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2746026 - July 2011 (3 comments) Feds visit artist behind People Staring at Computers, confiscate laptop - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740485 - July 2011 (50 comments) Secret Service confiscates computer of "People Staring at Computers" creator - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740083 - July 2011 (1 comment)

peterkelly 4y ago

Seems like it might have been a good idea to discuss this "art project" with the Apple store in question before proceeding.

magic_hamster 4y ago

When someone shows up at your door claiming to be the secret service and taking all of your valuable electronics, don't you verify them in any way? Can anyone just show up at this guy's apartment with a suit and a "warrant" and start grabbing anything they like? It would be perfect karma if this happened to the author by someone else doing their own "art" project. I bet the author will understand there's no need for his consent.

kcimc 4y ago

author here. i'm deeply, genuinely grateful that you all care enough to revisit and discuss this decade-old work. special thanks to throwayyy479087 for stirring some shit on my behalf, saving me the work of creating a sock puppet just to cast shade and spread rumors. i'd be happy to answer any questions if you have them. sorry it took a while to get to this post. i'm literally on a beach on a remote island in fiji, working on the next project. https://unframed.lacma.org/2021/01/21/art-tech-lab-project-update%E2%80%94searching-te-lapa https://unframed.lacma.org/2021/01/21/art-tech-lab-project-u...

liamN 4y ago

I think the main issue with the original art piece was the lack of consent. The pictures are clearly of a single subject (the device user) and not of a space that mutiple unconsenting persons happen to be occupying, which makes the violation feel more egregeous and uncomfortable.