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IMO the main culprit of the sea change is ubiquitous network connectivity, which allowed widespread adoption of centralized backhaul/control based software arch

IMO the main culprit of the sea change is ubiquitous network connectivity, which allowed widespread adoption of centralized backhaul/control based software architectures The secondarily, the workings of software are increasingly opaque to most people. This leaves people unaware of what is actually being done. It seems that when most people are shown a snapshot of surveillance records about themselves they get seriously concerned, but otherwise out of sight out of mind. The solution in the modern day is the same as the solution back then - endeavor to run software that is designed to represent your own interests rather than those of its authors. It doesn't particularly matter if my CPU, or any other component, has a serial number, camera, microphone, GPS receiver, etc, if I'm not trusting software that will take sensitive data and send it off to hostile parties.

orangecat 4y ago
IMO the main culprit of the sea change is Ubiquitous network connectivity Right. I'm dreading the day when platform vendors decide that connectivity is fast and ubiquitous enough so that "your" "computer" should become a dumb framebuffer with all processing and storage done in their data centers, which will eliminate the last vestiges of user privacy and control.
api 4y ago
That's true from a technical point of view, but I was referring to the social and behavioral angle. It seems like it was mobile that killed the commitment to privacy in the minds of users. My only real reservation about the EV revolution is that this is doing similar things to people with regard to cars. An EV is just a car with a battery and a motor instead of a gas tank and an ICE, but the "form factor change" seems like it can be used as a pretext to introduce a lot of other changes like your car no longer being yours. Teslas are too cloud connected already, and Ford is talking about a car that can repossess itself at their command. When you pay off your car does this feature get turned off? I doubt it. It seems like it's easy to use any change as a pretext to smuggle other perhaps less palatable changes in alongside it.
- mindslight 4y ago
  I agree that shiny new things are often traps, which then normalize bad developments across an industry. But I also think a lot of the privacy/autonomy shift was really a shift to a wider gamut of non-technical people using technology, and would have happened regardless of the new form factor. Also the change wasn't led by mobile, but rather it was web 2.0 that really kicked off the trend of centrally controlled software.
- vkou 4y ago
  > When you pay off your car does this feature get turned off? I doubt it. Why would you doubt it? Who, besides the vehicle's owner exactly do you think will be using it, and for what?
  - nindalf 4y ago
    In theory, law enforcement.
    - vkou 4y ago
      Why would they want to steal your car, and why would they feel the need to do it when they aren't in physical vicinity of it? If they can't be assed to show up in person to rob you, why would they want to steal your car? Why not just drain your bank account? Or just steal the deed to your house?
  - mindslight 4y ago
    It's the general principle of the matter. Why should an item you supposedly own have programming that works directly contrary to your interests? Specific easily-imaginable attackers are law enforcement, criminals, and finance companies. Both through deliberate unjust actions, as well as administrative mixups. "Sorry, despite your car being paid off, we incorrectly thought your loan was in default. But we returned your car a week later, so no harm done, right?" And responding to your other comment about criminals, actual physical property can be parted out and sold. As opposed to committing fraud to obtain paper assets, which can be investigated and reversed. Stealing cars and financial fraud are just different (criminal) industries.
1827162 4y ago
I think that the medium shapes the resulting political characteristics of the system, yes the centralized network, where every user is easily traceable thus readily policed and censored, ends up creating totalitarianism, given how human nature works... So we need to design a system that isn't easily traced, as an inherent property of how it operates, so that it's not possible for those who want to exert power over others, to do so. Just as an example, using a radio/satellite data broadcasting architecture, where the receiver is untraceable, means that the government can no longer round up people for reading "forbidden" things anymore. That allows us to have a new darknet to replace Tor that's far more difficult for the government to police. Again as an example, the content request can be transmitted anonymously using HF radio or LoRaWAN, being only a few bytes, and has no sender address. And the response can come down via satellite, broadcast to everyone, who also ends up storing it locally on their computer. That way we can reduce the number of retransmissions required. We already have a usable worldwide satellite data broadcasting network, you can see a list of recent transmissions at https://blocksat.info https://blocksat.info. It's certainly enough bandwidth to support a text based darknet, which works in a similar way to how Teletext did, but with caching of content on your local hard disk. Which you can browse freely like the Internet.

orangecat 4y ago

IMO the main culprit of the sea change is Ubiquitous network connectivity Right. I'm dreading the day when platform vendors decide that connectivity is fast and ubiquitous enough so that "your" "computer" should become a dumb framebuffer with all processing and storage done in their data centers, which will eliminate the last vestiges of user privacy and control.

api 4y ago

That's true from a technical point of view, but I was referring to the social and behavioral angle. It seems like it was mobile that killed the commitment to privacy in the minds of users. My only real reservation about the EV revolution is that this is doing similar things to people with regard to cars. An EV is just a car with a battery and a motor instead of a gas tank and an ICE, but the "form factor change" seems like it can be used as a pretext to introduce a lot of other changes like your car no longer being yours. Teslas are too cloud connected already, and Ford is talking about a car that can repossess itself at their command. When you pay off your car does this feature get turned off? I doubt it. It seems like it's easy to use any change as a pretext to smuggle other perhaps less palatable changes in alongside it.

mindslight 4y ago
I agree that shiny new things are often traps, which then normalize bad developments across an industry. But I also think a lot of the privacy/autonomy shift was really a shift to a wider gamut of non-technical people using technology, and would have happened regardless of the new form factor. Also the change wasn't led by mobile, but rather it was web 2.0 that really kicked off the trend of centrally controlled software.
vkou 4y ago
> When you pay off your car does this feature get turned off? I doubt it. Why would you doubt it? Who, besides the vehicle's owner exactly do you think will be using it, and for what?
- nindalf 4y ago
  In theory, law enforcement.
  - vkou 4y ago
    Why would they want to steal your car, and why would they feel the need to do it when they aren't in physical vicinity of it? If they can't be assed to show up in person to rob you, why would they want to steal your car? Why not just drain your bank account? Or just steal the deed to your house?
- mindslight 4y ago
  It's the general principle of the matter. Why should an item you supposedly own have programming that works directly contrary to your interests? Specific easily-imaginable attackers are law enforcement, criminals, and finance companies. Both through deliberate unjust actions, as well as administrative mixups. "Sorry, despite your car being paid off, we incorrectly thought your loan was in default. But we returned your car a week later, so no harm done, right?" And responding to your other comment about criminals, actual physical property can be parted out and sold. As opposed to committing fraud to obtain paper assets, which can be investigated and reversed. Stealing cars and financial fraud are just different (criminal) industries.

1827162 4y ago

I think that the medium shapes the resulting political characteristics of the system, yes the centralized network, where every user is easily traceable thus readily policed and censored, ends up creating totalitarianism, given how human nature works... So we need to design a system that isn't easily traced, as an inherent property of how it operates, so that it's not possible for those who want to exert power over others, to do so. Just as an example, using a radio/satellite data broadcasting architecture, where the receiver is untraceable, means that the government can no longer round up people for reading "forbidden" things anymore. That allows us to have a new darknet to replace Tor that's far more difficult for the government to police. Again as an example, the content request can be transmitted anonymously using HF radio or LoRaWAN, being only a few bytes, and has no sender address. And the response can come down via satellite, broadcast to everyone, who also ends up storing it locally on their computer. That way we can reduce the number of retransmissions required. We already have a usable worldwide satellite data broadcasting network, you can see a list of recent transmissions at https://blocksat.info https://blocksat.info. It's certainly enough bandwidth to support a text based darknet, which works in a similar way to how Teletext did, but with caching of content on your local hard disk. Which you can browse freely like the Internet.