5 ms·

Pitting pedestrian safety against general purpose computing is a weird move by pedestrian safety activists.

andy99 3y ago
It's an alignment of incentives. Interests who are against privacy align themselves with causes they would benefit from less privacy. See "think of the children"
- amrocha 3y ago
  Do you genuinely think that if you kill someone because you were driving on your phone, that information should be hard to access to an investigator? Like, I understand that privacy is important. I agree that it is. But if you choose to drive a deadly machine, then you agree to give up a degree of that privacy. All cars have license plates, identifying who it belongs to. Car drivers are subject to document checks by road security personnel. Car drivers are subject to alcohol tests if they're suspected of being drunk. What makes phone usage more sacred than any of those things? I'm not saying all your phone data becomes public if you're in a crash, the same way that an alcohol test doesn't tell the cops where, what, and with who you were drinking with. How is society in any way worse, if phones recorded usage in the past 24 hours, and drivers had to provide that data if implicated in a crash?
  - dylan604 3y ago
    If there's a tool that an officer can use that retrieves this information, I'd have a problem with that. If the phone is demanded as evidence with proper warrant/subpoena, then sure. However, in the cases of a car wreck, I think confiscating the phone as evidence does seem warranted. And admitting that has me in a weird state. With such little consequences for blatantly being distracted, it will not stop. But looking at history, draconian punishment is not a deterrent in other aspects. Addicts are going to do whatever for their fix. Admitting phone addiction exists is probably something too though.
    - hooverd 3y ago
      Personally, I don't think calling for expanding the surveillance state helps this cause vs advocating for proper pedestrian infrastructure and road design. We've made it really easy to speed and give no heed to pedestrians and other forms of infrastructure.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        I'm thinking bigger than just pedestrians. Distracted drivers are not only affecting pedestrians. Not many pedestrians on open highways.
      - amrocha 3y ago
        I don't know what world you live in that a license plate on your car is ok in terms of privacy, but a phone that reports whether you were using it while driving is a surveillance state.
        owl57 3y ago
        You seem to be insisting that such a feature can be mandated without collateral damage for a lot of phone users, including people who never use a phone while driving or even don't drive at all.
        amrocha 3y ago
        And you seem to be insisting that it can't
        owl57 3y ago
        Well, and what's your plan for the proposed feature? In particular what does your plan say about: 1) phones that allow installation of a custom free OS; 2) phones that are already in use now.
        amrocha 3y ago
  - hooverd 3y ago
    What constitutes usage? Is this a mandatory feature of phones, mandatory MITM root CAs, clipper chip style key escrow for device encryption? What's to stop the police from bumping into a suspect in a parking lot to do parallel construction?
    - amrocha 3y ago
      Have you heard of good faith compliance
  - owl57 3y ago
    > How is society in any way worse, if phones recorded usage in the past 24 hours, and drivers had to provide that data if implicated in a crash? The requirement to record anything in a way useful for law enforcement would be pretty close to a ban of phones that can run a custom OS, which is in turn pretty close to a ban of phones that not spy on the user all the time, whether or not the user drives at all. P.S. And I write it as a happy iPhone user. I want to hope I have options if I later decide that I value privacy or customizability over features!
    - amrocha 3y ago
      And I want to know that if you use your phone while driving you will lose your license over it.
  - andy99 3y ago
    > Do you genuinely think that if you kill someone because you were driving on your phone, that information should be hard to access to an investigator Yes, if it's alleged you killed someone. There's a whole legal system and body of precedent about that stuff going back centuries or millennia. It's not even controversial.
    - amrocha 3y ago
      Nobody's alleging anything if you run over a person

It's an alignment of incentives. Interests who are against privacy align themselves with causes they would benefit from less privacy. See "think of the children"

amrocha 3y ago
Do you genuinely think that if you kill someone because you were driving on your phone, that information should be hard to access to an investigator? Like, I understand that privacy is important. I agree that it is. But if you choose to drive a deadly machine, then you agree to give up a degree of that privacy. All cars have license plates, identifying who it belongs to. Car drivers are subject to document checks by road security personnel. Car drivers are subject to alcohol tests if they're suspected of being drunk. What makes phone usage more sacred than any of those things? I'm not saying all your phone data becomes public if you're in a crash, the same way that an alcohol test doesn't tell the cops where, what, and with who you were drinking with. How is society in any way worse, if phones recorded usage in the past 24 hours, and drivers had to provide that data if implicated in a crash?
- dylan604 3y ago
  If there's a tool that an officer can use that retrieves this information, I'd have a problem with that. If the phone is demanded as evidence with proper warrant/subpoena, then sure. However, in the cases of a car wreck, I think confiscating the phone as evidence does seem warranted. And admitting that has me in a weird state. With such little consequences for blatantly being distracted, it will not stop. But looking at history, draconian punishment is not a deterrent in other aspects. Addicts are going to do whatever for their fix. Admitting phone addiction exists is probably something too though.
  - hooverd 3y ago
    Personally, I don't think calling for expanding the surveillance state helps this cause vs advocating for proper pedestrian infrastructure and road design. We've made it really easy to speed and give no heed to pedestrians and other forms of infrastructure.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      I'm thinking bigger than just pedestrians. Distracted drivers are not only affecting pedestrians. Not many pedestrians on open highways.
    - amrocha 3y ago
      I don't know what world you live in that a license plate on your car is ok in terms of privacy, but a phone that reports whether you were using it while driving is a surveillance state.
      - owl57 3y ago
        You seem to be insisting that such a feature can be mandated without collateral damage for a lot of phone users, including people who never use a phone while driving or even don't drive at all.
        amrocha 3y ago
        And you seem to be insisting that it can't
        owl57 3y ago
        Well, and what's your plan for the proposed feature? In particular what does your plan say about: 1) phones that allow installation of a custom free OS; 2) phones that are already in use now.
        amrocha 3y ago
- hooverd 3y ago
  What constitutes usage? Is this a mandatory feature of phones, mandatory MITM root CAs, clipper chip style key escrow for device encryption? What's to stop the police from bumping into a suspect in a parking lot to do parallel construction?
  - amrocha 3y ago
    Have you heard of good faith compliance
- owl57 3y ago
  > How is society in any way worse, if phones recorded usage in the past 24 hours, and drivers had to provide that data if implicated in a crash? The requirement to record anything in a way useful for law enforcement would be pretty close to a ban of phones that can run a custom OS, which is in turn pretty close to a ban of phones that not spy on the user all the time, whether or not the user drives at all. P.S. And I write it as a happy iPhone user. I want to hope I have options if I later decide that I value privacy or customizability over features!
  - amrocha 3y ago
    And I want to know that if you use your phone while driving you will lose your license over it.
- andy99 3y ago
  > Do you genuinely think that if you kill someone because you were driving on your phone, that information should be hard to access to an investigator Yes, if it's alleged you killed someone. There's a whole legal system and body of precedent about that stuff going back centuries or millennia. It's not even controversial.
  - amrocha 3y ago
    Nobody's alleging anything if you run over a person