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I say good. And I am stunned by the reaction to it here. So, I must have a Sunday ranty thing.... Seems to me that people get all angry when websites violate p

by alan_cx 14y ago

I say good. And I am stunned by the reaction to it here. So, I must have a Sunday ranty thing.... Seems to me that people get all angry when websites violate privacy, but when the public are encouraged to violate privacy with cool gadgets, suddenly its defence-able. OK, so this is a bar. What about a playground? Nursery? School? Changing rooms? Tell me, how to I protect my privacy from google glass wearing people? How do I protect my kid's privacy, or stop my kids violation other's privacy? Put it this way, if I'm taking a leak in a bar's wash room, and I see some bloke wearing google glasses looking down at "me", he's gonna get very hurt. No joke. No irony. Hurt. It is simple: I dont want my urinating penis on the internet. Sorry, call me prude, but I don't want that. Condemn me all you like, but remember I'm a geek hacker like you reading this, and that is how I feel about it. Now imagine a possible reaction of some non geek. OK, I don't do violence, frankly in reality I'm way more likely to be on the receiving end as I am physically pathetic, weak and useless, but this has great potential for a lot of people suffering real harm, either physically or virtually. "Publicity stunt"? I despise this accusation. It is a pathetic cowardly throw away dismissal, which is designed to belittle those taking some action, in this case, to protect privacy. The message here is: Oh ignore them, its just a publicity stunt, nothing real or worth bothering with here. Move on. Really? The great HN community suddenly belittles those who want to protect privacy? Really people? Thought this through or is this a knee jerk defence of cool technology? Dismissal as a publicity stunt implies attention seeking. Ok, fair enough. So in future, when we get a subject where people reply saying they have disabled java, flash, cookies, etc, due to privacy concerns, we will condemn them as publicity seeking attention seekers, right? Paranoid ignorant fool, yes? People need to start thinking the implications of this through. Sure, for years we have been able to buy head mounted camera's, CCTV, spy drones, etc, but a google pushed product like this will hit mass market, and change the game radically and for good. Its not so much the technology, but how mass market it could and will become. Let the timer begin now. How long until the first google glass wearer gets assaulted or worse for merely wearing google glasses in the wrong place? Tell me, is the only privacy that concerns hackers the privacy expected while hidden behind a keyboard? Is no other privacy valid? Is the attempt to protect other privacy really merely a publicity stunt? I don't like this one little bit. Yeah, very very cool technology. Hell, on that level I want one too. But lets have a long hard think about this. It really is a huge game changer with some serious implications. Ranty done.

randallsquared 14y ago
> Seems to me that people get all angry when websites violate privacy, but when the public are encouraged to violate privacy with cool gadgets, suddenly its defence-able. OK, so this is a bar. People already have eyes and memories. Head-mounted cameras like Glass and the Looxie are a way to preserve your own memory of what you were already seeing. Do you really feel that you have the right to wipe or degrade other people's memories? If you don't want someone to remember something, don't invite them at all. > What about a playground? Nursery? School? In general, all of these already have cameras everywhere, don't they? For safety? > Changing rooms? Changing rooms? Seriously? How many strangers do you let crowd into a changing room with you? Zero, am I right? So how could that possibly be a problem. As for similar situations like locker rooms, they already have the problem that strangers might be in there with you, with their eyes. I predict that as cameras go everywhere people go (and they will), we'll see a sharp uptick in single-person stalls in locker rooms. I would be far happier with that (at the gym, say) already; cameras aren't different from eyes in principle. Edited as I got farther in: > Put it this way, if I'm taking a leak in a bar's wash room, and I see some bloke wearing google glasses looking down at "me", he's gonna get very hurt. No joke. No irony. Hurt. This is true whether he's wearing a camera or not, though, isn't it? > It is simple: I dont want my urinating penis on the internet. ...or for people to see it at all, I'd expect. Once random strangers (like the guy in the wash room) are staring at you, the number of random strangers seems like a mere detail, no?
- corin_ 14y ago
  Do you really think that between "one person sees my penis" vs. "my penis is on the internet" you wouldn't mind which one?
  - randallsquared 14y ago
    I mind them both a fair amount, but not so much as double for the internet version. It would have bothered me enormously more fifteen years ago, but it's been obvious since at least 1999 when Brin articulated it in _The Transparent Society_ that this was coming. Privacy is going away in the long run, disappearing into "public" and "secret", and things you don't want to be public will have to be secret. Hence my statement about individual locker room stalls. Since I found myself agreeing that this was going to happen, I decided that I would have to learn to accept that eventually everything about me would be public unless I went to extraordinary lengths to keep it secret. I'm 80% or 90% of the way there. :) So, yes, there's still a difference in how I react emotionally to those scenarios, but for people born in 2020, I don't think there will be.

by alan_cx 14y ago

randallsquared 14y ago

> Seems to me that people get all angry when websites violate privacy, but when the public are encouraged to violate privacy with cool gadgets, suddenly its defence-able. OK, so this is a bar. People already have eyes and memories. Head-mounted cameras like Glass and the Looxie are a way to preserve your own memory of what you were already seeing. Do you really feel that you have the right to wipe or degrade other people's memories? If you don't want someone to remember something, don't invite them at all. > What about a playground? Nursery? School? In general, all of these already have cameras everywhere, don't they? For safety? > Changing rooms? Changing rooms? Seriously? How many strangers do you let crowd into a changing room with you? Zero, am I right? So how could that possibly be a problem. As for similar situations like locker rooms, they already have the problem that strangers might be in there with you, with their eyes. I predict that as cameras go everywhere people go (and they will), we'll see a sharp uptick in single-person stalls in locker rooms. I would be far happier with that (at the gym, say) already; cameras aren't different from eyes in principle. Edited as I got farther in: > Put it this way, if I'm taking a leak in a bar's wash room, and I see some bloke wearing google glasses looking down at "me", he's gonna get very hurt. No joke. No irony. Hurt. This is true whether he's wearing a camera or not, though, isn't it? > It is simple: I dont want my urinating penis on the internet. ...or for people to see it at all, I'd expect. Once random strangers (like the guy in the wash room) are staring at you, the number of random strangers seems like a mere detail, no?

corin_ 14y ago
Do you really think that between "one person sees my penis" vs. "my penis is on the internet" you wouldn't mind which one?
- randallsquared 14y ago
  I mind them both a fair amount, but not so much as double for the internet version. It would have bothered me enormously more fifteen years ago, but it's been obvious since at least 1999 when Brin articulated it in _The Transparent Society_ that this was coming. Privacy is going away in the long run, disappearing into "public" and "secret", and things you don't want to be public will have to be secret. Hence my statement about individual locker room stalls. Since I found myself agreeing that this was going to happen, I decided that I would have to learn to accept that eventually everything about me would be public unless I went to extraordinary lengths to keep it secret. I'm 80% or 90% of the way there. :) So, yes, there's still a difference in how I react emotionally to those scenarios, but for people born in 2020, I don't think there will be.