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> grandmothers looking out their windows I see this kind of parallel a lot but I think it's missing the key points of "human" vs. "tech" surveillance. Conversa

> grandmothers looking out their windows I see this kind of parallel a lot but I think it's missing the key points of "human" vs. "tech" surveillance. Conversations could be overheard since the beginning of time but that would never justify recording every sound you'll ever make just because of the vague apparent similarity. A more vivid example is that being seen naked is very different from being photographed naked. Ubiquitous high quality equipment, cheap and plentiful storage, access to many different sources of information, and algorithms to process and correlate all that have made surveillance so much more than the natural "I occasionally see/hear something and commit to memory some vague, ever changing info that can never leave my head". Modern surveillance is in bulk, it stores every relevant bit indeterminately, it can recall in vivid detail, correlate different data points from all over the surveillance network, create patterns across time and space, and easily share all of that. Things that are out of reach for any individual or group of humans.

giantg2 3y ago
It depends. What you're describing probably applies to stuff like Ring. It applies a little less to stuff like my own system (not connected, limited storage so it overwrites, all on-site, no audio, limited to my own property, etc).
- close04 3y ago
  Yes, scale matters but the crappiest camera (not even going as "far" as a couple of hundred dollars for a few cheap cameras, a Pi, a memory card, a Google Coral, and Frigate) is better at surveillance than a regular human. Saving some simple event snapshots is orders of magnitude more reliable than someone's hazy memory. Even the simplest surveillance system is nothing like a grandma looking out the peephole and more like guards taking shifts to patrol. Your internal surveillance system is fully within your control and mostly surveils you so that's good and a different world from cloud based external surveillance. But such a system still "surveils" more than a human could when it comes to other family members or guests just by its mere existence. Things that would go unnoticed, or easily forgotten don't have to anymore. That's a danger in itself because it cerates the social acceptability of permanent surveillance. Your kids don't get to break that vase and quickly hide the evidence because your system saved a snapshot. When that becomes normal for a person, being watched by every neighbor's Ring is a tiny extra step. Disclosure, I run a setup similar to yours based on Frigate while taking great care to not intrude on anyone else's privacy because local laws and people don't take kindly to that. I am feeling that I'm invading my family's privacy though, which is why it tends to be on only when nobody else is at home.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    "Things that would go unnoticed, or easily forgotten don't have to anymore. That's a danger in itself because it cerates the social acceptability of permanent surveillance. Your kids don't get to break that vase and quickly hide the evidence because your system saved a snapshot." Mine is only on the outside of the house. I also don't have it set to alert, so I'm only reviewing it if I discover a problem in some other way - this is actually less intrusive than the grandma scenario. I view private property surveillance as normal - stores have been doing this for over a generation already. I do agree that public surveillance, or the collation/centralization of private surveillance is a big problem.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    I understand the difference you're describing, and agree with it; consider the difference between the cost of storage and retrieval to the StaSi and to any three letter organisation today. (One potential small mitigation: if any surveillance streams had to be public, at least the watching might be mutual?) I had just been considering that maybe we were fortunate enough to live through a local maximum of privacy: people in villages had less, and people in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longhouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longhouse cultures much less. (In https://barykin-pin-up.ru/#/i/neudachnoe-svidanie https://barykin-pin-up.ru/#/i/neudachnoe-svidanie the young couple seems to have been hoping to get a little privacy via an afternoon rendezvous, but her neighbourhood is as, or even more, curious than the cat...)

giantg2 3y ago

It depends. What you're describing probably applies to stuff like Ring. It applies a little less to stuff like my own system (not connected, limited storage so it overwrites, all on-site, no audio, limited to my own property, etc).

close04 3y ago
Yes, scale matters but the crappiest camera (not even going as "far" as a couple of hundred dollars for a few cheap cameras, a Pi, a memory card, a Google Coral, and Frigate) is better at surveillance than a regular human. Saving some simple event snapshots is orders of magnitude more reliable than someone's hazy memory. Even the simplest surveillance system is nothing like a grandma looking out the peephole and more like guards taking shifts to patrol. Your internal surveillance system is fully within your control and mostly surveils you so that's good and a different world from cloud based external surveillance. But such a system still "surveils" more than a human could when it comes to other family members or guests just by its mere existence. Things that would go unnoticed, or easily forgotten don't have to anymore. That's a danger in itself because it cerates the social acceptability of permanent surveillance. Your kids don't get to break that vase and quickly hide the evidence because your system saved a snapshot. When that becomes normal for a person, being watched by every neighbor's Ring is a tiny extra step. Disclosure, I run a setup similar to yours based on Frigate while taking great care to not intrude on anyone else's privacy because local laws and people don't take kindly to that. I am feeling that I'm invading my family's privacy though, which is why it tends to be on only when nobody else is at home.
- giantg2 3y ago
  "Things that would go unnoticed, or easily forgotten don't have to anymore. That's a danger in itself because it cerates the social acceptability of permanent surveillance. Your kids don't get to break that vase and quickly hide the evidence because your system saved a snapshot." Mine is only on the outside of the house. I also don't have it set to alert, so I'm only reviewing it if I discover a problem in some other way - this is actually less intrusive than the grandma scenario. I view private property surveillance as normal - stores have been doing this for over a generation already. I do agree that public surveillance, or the collation/centralization of private surveillance is a big problem.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  I understand the difference you're describing, and agree with it; consider the difference between the cost of storage and retrieval to the StaSi and to any three letter organisation today. (One potential small mitigation: if any surveillance streams had to be public, at least the watching might be mutual?) I had just been considering that maybe we were fortunate enough to live through a local maximum of privacy: people in villages had less, and people in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longhouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longhouse cultures much less. (In https://barykin-pin-up.ru/#/i/neudachnoe-svidanie https://barykin-pin-up.ru/#/i/neudachnoe-svidanie the young couple seems to have been hoping to get a little privacy via an afternoon rendezvous, but her neighbourhood is as, or even more, curious than the cat...)