3 ms·

> If [country-wide private surveillance] shouldn't exist at all, a bad version of it also shouldn't exist. While I’m on the side of less surveillance in genera

> If [country-wide private surveillance] shouldn't exist at all, a bad version of it also shouldn't exist. While I’m on the side of less surveillance in general, I don’t think I like this logic: it seems to me that the crucial point that distinguishes the systems of the last couple of decades from what came before is convenience. “No expectation of privacy” means very different things when someone needs to physically follow you around or even make a lucky guess as to which CCTV to look at compared to making a query from the comfort of their desk. It’s one thing for a passing cop to memorize your license plate number and then have to thumb through paper files in order to know that’s you; it’s another for them to have a full map of every car and owner name on it. (I don’t think the latter extremes are available in most countries yet, FWIW.) The bland “expectation of privacy” wording seems to miss this sliding scale of effort for a given amount of tracking. I actually half suspect that this argument is wrong for some dumb reason I’m missing, because I don’t have a source for it (even though it seems to be in the air somehow) and even supposed experts like EFF lawyers don’t seem to be making it. But I haven’t yet found that reason.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
I think the difference is right in front of you, you almost said it explicitly right here: > It’s one thing for a passing cop to memorize your license plate number and then have to thumb through paper files in order to know that’s you; it’s another for them to have a full map of every car and owner name on it. Those are the exact same thing if you're a person who cops are following around already, memorizing your number trying to get you for any offense they can. The difference is for many people, particularly people overrepresented on HN, the police are not generally taking much interest in your routine activities and trying to use them against you. But this isn't a relationship with policing that everyone has. All these abuses were already here, they just weren't applied to everyone. The expanding of these capabilities is what makes them devastating, you're right. But the earlier iterations weren't actually less bad, they were just less likely to be applied to us.
- r3trohack3r 4y ago
  I love this train of thought and it aligns well with how I think about the world. You treat state actors differently than citizens and, living under a state, they are absolutely in your threat model for home security. Police get it wrong sometimes. Sometimes they act maliciously. Counter point. My security system is not easily taken offline (resilient against cutting power for 2+ hours, cameras are all PoE, hard to find the drive storing footage, etc.). If the state enters my home COINTELPRO style, or gets the wrong house, I want footage of that encounter under my control when it’s time to go to court. I think this line of thinking lines up well with my original comment. We shouldn’t look at this technology as an all encompassing shift towards centralization of power. There are uses that gives power back to individuals. This power is a good thing on an individual level and dangerous in aggregate.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

I think the difference is right in front of you, you almost said it explicitly right here: > It’s one thing for a passing cop to memorize your license plate number and then have to thumb through paper files in order to know that’s you; it’s another for them to have a full map of every car and owner name on it. Those are the exact same thing if you're a person who cops are following around already, memorizing your number trying to get you for any offense they can. The difference is for many people, particularly people overrepresented on HN, the police are not generally taking much interest in your routine activities and trying to use them against you. But this isn't a relationship with policing that everyone has. All these abuses were already here, they just weren't applied to everyone. The expanding of these capabilities is what makes them devastating, you're right. But the earlier iterations weren't actually less bad, they were just less likely to be applied to us.

r3trohack3r 4y ago
I love this train of thought and it aligns well with how I think about the world. You treat state actors differently than citizens and, living under a state, they are absolutely in your threat model for home security. Police get it wrong sometimes. Sometimes they act maliciously. Counter point. My security system is not easily taken offline (resilient against cutting power for 2+ hours, cameras are all PoE, hard to find the drive storing footage, etc.). If the state enters my home COINTELPRO style, or gets the wrong house, I want footage of that encounter under my control when it’s time to go to court. I think this line of thinking lines up well with my original comment. We shouldn’t look at this technology as an all encompassing shift towards centralization of power. There are uses that gives power back to individuals. This power is a good thing on an individual level and dangerous in aggregate.