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Same deal in the UK with the national ANPR system (Automatic Number Plate Recognition). Ostensibly to reduce the amount of uninsured/untaxed drivers on the roa

Same deal in the UK with the national ANPR system (Automatic Number Plate Recognition). Ostensibly to reduce the amount of uninsured/untaxed drivers on the roads. Don't want to sit around in databases? Well, here's a nice list of just a few of the things you can't have: Bank account; Car/motorcycle; Mobile telephone; Internet-connected computer; Credit/debit card; Visible face (oh, we might be safe there, for a few years) Unless of course you're a criminal, in which case you can handily avoid a lot of this! I used to think we could escape surveillance using technology. Fool's errand. We'd need an entire culture change. It's gone. If blanket video coverage of public areas is fine, why not blanket audio coverage? Add in facial and audio recognition. Now consider you're running about with a microphone webcam combo in your pocket, the power and battery life of which will only increase. I hate it with every ounce of my being, but I can't see a way out here. I can't see the 'line', any more.

visarga 12y ago
> I used to think we could escape surveillance using technology. Fool's errand. We'd need an entire culture change. It's gone. True. Network effects negate the advantages of encryption. You can't use TOR to hide when posting to FB, in other words.
woodman 12y ago
There is no way to reverse this. Trying to cage this with paperwork will just lead to more of the same creative interpretations à la NSA. So the rulers don't feel the rules apply to them, big surprise. With that in mind, the futility of fighting the tide, what is the next step? As the ideal solution of reversal is unavailable, we need to go with harm reduction - but what is the harm that we would reduce? Most would say the harm is the loss of privacy, but I disagree. I believe the harm is further consolidation of power by those with the means to abuse it. So I would advocate for a democratization of all these spy programs. If the DEA can spy on us, we should be able to spy on the DEA. Any funding request for government programs should include a documented method of direct public access (not FOIA, operator level). It is no mystery why the Constitution included the provision allowing citizens to arm themselves with the same class of weapons that the government possessed. The memory of tyrannical governance was fresh. Information is no different, if the government posses this information - so should the citizens.
- isho 12y ago
  +1, I totally agree. Easier said than done though.
  - woodman 12y ago
    I remember when NIST was force to release the source code to NBIS. [0] We just need a lot more of that and we'll be good :) [0] http://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/ig/nbis.cfm http://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/ig/nbis.cfm
- tim333 12y ago
  In principle it could be reversed politically by the government just saying no. In practice no one seems that bothered though.
  - woodman 12y ago
    Yeah, and in principle the NSA can't dragnet domestic signals, but here we are. Relying on the honor system has led us to something right out of Gulliver's Travels, with government bureaucrats advancing through a game of leaping and creeping...
- joliv 12y ago
  Some things the public should not be able to spy on. Using the example of the DEA, we can't have cartels knowing the identities of the DEA's informers, or when and where they're planning to make a bust. We can't have our citizens' tax records getting out of the IRS. And public relations would break down if we can't keep our allies secrets, either. Our military's plans shouldn't be made known to the enemy, of course. Many secrets are kept for good reason—letting it all out indiscriminately just doesn't make sense.
  - woodman 12y ago
    Security through obscurity? No doubt a great deal would need to change, but we've tried the method of giving a select group of individuals an immense amount of power and hoping for the best. It hasn't worked out that well. So I'd recommend that you consider the present situation, because the prospect of you knowing my tax information, by comparison, doesn't seem so bad.
mikegioia 12y ago
I agree with you that the fight for privacy seems insurmountable, and the sacrifices (that you mentioned) far too great. But I think the solution lies not in sacrificing the conveniences, but in creating enough isolation between each service to reduce/remove any correlating.
blhack 12y ago
You could move out of the city.
greeneggs 12y ago
A direct attack on this surveillance technology might be a losing battle. But what about passing laws to mitigate its effect, and possibly in the long run help fight it? Two examples: 1. A law requiring the government to delete this data after a certain amount of time. 2. Legal penalties for abusing this data. Perhaps standards for how the data must be protected.
- themartorana 12y ago
  The problem is even prescribed penalties against authority figures are rarely enforced. There are a few low-level people in jail for torture of prisoners, but not one administrator. Bush and Cheney should have been hauled before The Hague, much as they would have demanded of any leader of any other country that had unilaterally broken the Geneva Convention, but Obama wanted to "look forward," not backward. There is/was almost zero prosecution of individuals involved in the global financial collapse of 2008. Occupy Wall Street protestors, on the other hand, were beaten, arrested, maced, and so on. Rules against authority figures in this country are for show at best. Didn't used to be that way, but here we are.
  - joering2 12y ago
    Further, the IRS is a great example how they are being "punished". The only thing you can take from them is funding. So did Congress -- took away money from IRS and brought their operational budget to those levels from 2008. And now - pick one that is correct: A) The director of IRS cut off $80MM bonuses promised to all those hard working ants that scrutinized non-profit applicants and further lost backup tapes that have been miraculously found years later; OR, B) The director of IRS cut off funds for customer support telephone line, forcing people to wait minimum 30 minutes on the line before a real person answers, admitting on the record that majority of taxpayers won't be able to reach out for help in this tax period. Any solutions to this clear abuse of power and disrespect to fellow citizens??
    - angry_octet 12y ago
      Real whistleblower protection would help. Changing the perception so that the public viewed them as heroes when they expose political malfeasance and cosy back room deals.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
spain 12y ago
> I used to think we could escape surveillance using technology. Fool's errand. We'd need an entire culture change. It's gone. I seem to remember one of the Pirate Bay founders said something along those lines. Not even because it's "already lost" but because we need to start treating the cause and not the symptom. Yeah it's great that we can use encryption to avoid government snooping for now, but how long will that be feasible? The long-term solution would be to stop them from doing it in the first place.
toadi 12y ago
"Unless of course you're a criminal, in which case you can handily avoid a lot of this!" Actually it's even more serious. If you try to avoid it it's a criminal act and your labeled as a criminal. To be very honest I'd rather move to a remote place getting away of this evolution.
- onion2k 12y ago
  To be very honest I'd rather move to a remote place getting away of this evolution. Honest question: What's stopping you? A huge number of people say they'd readily give up life in a nation that infringes their privacy for a different life away from prying eyes, but very, very few people actually bother to do it. There are plenty of nations where surveillance is still at the 'none' level, beyond a few paper records for things like passports and car registration. And generally they're quite cheap to live in and have nice weather. So why are you still living in the apparently awful conditions where you are now? Could it be that privacy is actually much less important to you than ready access to, say, a good internet connection?
JonCox 12y ago
I sometimes feel the Hacker News crowd are a bit out of touch with the rest of the population. Here in the UK most people I know feel safer with surveillance, it's used primarily to keep law and order. We don't live in some authoritarian state where it's used for nefarious means, it's used to keep the public safe. And seriously, why would you care if you're sitting on a database? What difference does it make to anything? And I want to know when this mythical time was when we all had total privacy? I don't understand what bothers people so much about a person in a CCTV monitoring station looking at them sitting on a bus, or a spook reading the emails I send to my parents. Honestly, no-one cares.
- radiorental 12y ago
  "it's used primarily to keep law and order." Except when it's not. No one disagrees the advantages afforded to us with access to data. However with great power comes great responsibility and our leaders, including the institutional powers behind them, invariably show a lack of the latter. "Honestly, no-one cares." That is patently untrue. People who understand the disadvantages and pitfalls of unfettered access to data care very much and fight for our rights even if we are too busy to make it a priority in our lives. The EFF have made it their job to care for example.
  - JonCox 12y ago
    > "Except when it's not. No one disagrees the advantages afforded to us with access to data. However with great power comes great responsibility and our leaders, including the institutional powers behind them, invariably show a lack of the latter." It would be political suicide for a UK politician to use the data the police and security forces have for political gain (assuming they got caught of course). It just doesn't happen. > "That is patently untrue. People who understand the disadvantages and pitfalls of unfettered access to data care very much and fight for our rights even if we are too busy to make it a priority in our lives. The EFF have made it their job to care for example." It's nice there are people out there making sure things don't get too out of hand. I just question their underlying beliefs about our need for privacy. Also the "no-one cares" goes both ways. I seriously doubt the state cares about my conversations with friends, most people just aren't that interesting. Perhaps Hacker News suffers from collective delusions of grandeur ;)
throwawayaway 12y ago
I think making access to records of you, paper, video etc could be made a legal right. If somebody is filming in an area, they are required to provide you access to the footage. If somebody has accounts of yours, same deal. If someone is logging your access to a something, they are required to provide you with the logs on request. I think Europe at least would go for it. In Japan telephone cameras are required to make a clicking sound. This is an extension of the concept.

visarga 12y ago

> I used to think we could escape surveillance using technology. Fool's errand. We'd need an entire culture change. It's gone. True. Network effects negate the advantages of encryption. You can't use TOR to hide when posting to FB, in other words.

woodman 12y ago

There is no way to reverse this. Trying to cage this with paperwork will just lead to more of the same creative interpretations à la NSA. So the rulers don't feel the rules apply to them, big surprise. With that in mind, the futility of fighting the tide, what is the next step? As the ideal solution of reversal is unavailable, we need to go with harm reduction - but what is the harm that we would reduce? Most would say the harm is the loss of privacy, but I disagree. I believe the harm is further consolidation of power by those with the means to abuse it. So I would advocate for a democratization of all these spy programs. If the DEA can spy on us, we should be able to spy on the DEA. Any funding request for government programs should include a documented method of direct public access (not FOIA, operator level). It is no mystery why the Constitution included the provision allowing citizens to arm themselves with the same class of weapons that the government possessed. The memory of tyrannical governance was fresh. Information is no different, if the government posses this information - so should the citizens.

isho 12y ago
+1, I totally agree. Easier said than done though.
- woodman 12y ago
  I remember when NIST was force to release the source code to NBIS. [0] We just need a lot more of that and we'll be good :) [0] http://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/ig/nbis.cfm http://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/ig/nbis.cfm
tim333 12y ago
In principle it could be reversed politically by the government just saying no. In practice no one seems that bothered though.
- woodman 12y ago
  Yeah, and in principle the NSA can't dragnet domestic signals, but here we are. Relying on the honor system has led us to something right out of Gulliver's Travels, with government bureaucrats advancing through a game of leaping and creeping...
joliv 12y ago
Some things the public should not be able to spy on. Using the example of the DEA, we can't have cartels knowing the identities of the DEA's informers, or when and where they're planning to make a bust. We can't have our citizens' tax records getting out of the IRS. And public relations would break down if we can't keep our allies secrets, either. Our military's plans shouldn't be made known to the enemy, of course. Many secrets are kept for good reason—letting it all out indiscriminately just doesn't make sense.
- woodman 12y ago
  Security through obscurity? No doubt a great deal would need to change, but we've tried the method of giving a select group of individuals an immense amount of power and hoping for the best. It hasn't worked out that well. So I'd recommend that you consider the present situation, because the prospect of you knowing my tax information, by comparison, doesn't seem so bad.

mikegioia 12y ago

I agree with you that the fight for privacy seems insurmountable, and the sacrifices (that you mentioned) far too great. But I think the solution lies not in sacrificing the conveniences, but in creating enough isolation between each service to reduce/remove any correlating.

blhack 12y ago

You could move out of the city.

greeneggs 12y ago

A direct attack on this surveillance technology might be a losing battle. But what about passing laws to mitigate its effect, and possibly in the long run help fight it? Two examples: 1. A law requiring the government to delete this data after a certain amount of time. 2. Legal penalties for abusing this data. Perhaps standards for how the data must be protected.

themartorana 12y ago
The problem is even prescribed penalties against authority figures are rarely enforced. There are a few low-level people in jail for torture of prisoners, but not one administrator. Bush and Cheney should have been hauled before The Hague, much as they would have demanded of any leader of any other country that had unilaterally broken the Geneva Convention, but Obama wanted to "look forward," not backward. There is/was almost zero prosecution of individuals involved in the global financial collapse of 2008. Occupy Wall Street protestors, on the other hand, were beaten, arrested, maced, and so on. Rules against authority figures in this country are for show at best. Didn't used to be that way, but here we are.
- joering2 12y ago
  Further, the IRS is a great example how they are being "punished". The only thing you can take from them is funding. So did Congress -- took away money from IRS and brought their operational budget to those levels from 2008. And now - pick one that is correct: A) The director of IRS cut off $80MM bonuses promised to all those hard working ants that scrutinized non-profit applicants and further lost backup tapes that have been miraculously found years later; OR, B) The director of IRS cut off funds for customer support telephone line, forcing people to wait minimum 30 minutes on the line before a real person answers, admitting on the record that majority of taxpayers won't be able to reach out for help in this tax period. Any solutions to this clear abuse of power and disrespect to fellow citizens??
  - angry_octet 12y ago
    Real whistleblower protection would help. Changing the perception so that the public viewed them as heroes when they expose political malfeasance and cosy back room deals.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

spain 12y ago

> I used to think we could escape surveillance using technology. Fool's errand. We'd need an entire culture change. It's gone. I seem to remember one of the Pirate Bay founders said something along those lines. Not even because it's "already lost" but because we need to start treating the cause and not the symptom. Yeah it's great that we can use encryption to avoid government snooping for now, but how long will that be feasible? The long-term solution would be to stop them from doing it in the first place.

toadi 12y ago

"Unless of course you're a criminal, in which case you can handily avoid a lot of this!" Actually it's even more serious. If you try to avoid it it's a criminal act and your labeled as a criminal. To be very honest I'd rather move to a remote place getting away of this evolution.

onion2k 12y ago
To be very honest I'd rather move to a remote place getting away of this evolution. Honest question: What's stopping you? A huge number of people say they'd readily give up life in a nation that infringes their privacy for a different life away from prying eyes, but very, very few people actually bother to do it. There are plenty of nations where surveillance is still at the 'none' level, beyond a few paper records for things like passports and car registration. And generally they're quite cheap to live in and have nice weather. So why are you still living in the apparently awful conditions where you are now? Could it be that privacy is actually much less important to you than ready access to, say, a good internet connection?

JonCox 12y ago

I sometimes feel the Hacker News crowd are a bit out of touch with the rest of the population. Here in the UK most people I know feel safer with surveillance, it's used primarily to keep law and order. We don't live in some authoritarian state where it's used for nefarious means, it's used to keep the public safe. And seriously, why would you care if you're sitting on a database? What difference does it make to anything? And I want to know when this mythical time was when we all had total privacy? I don't understand what bothers people so much about a person in a CCTV monitoring station looking at them sitting on a bus, or a spook reading the emails I send to my parents. Honestly, no-one cares.

radiorental 12y ago
"it's used primarily to keep law and order." Except when it's not. No one disagrees the advantages afforded to us with access to data. However with great power comes great responsibility and our leaders, including the institutional powers behind them, invariably show a lack of the latter. "Honestly, no-one cares." That is patently untrue. People who understand the disadvantages and pitfalls of unfettered access to data care very much and fight for our rights even if we are too busy to make it a priority in our lives. The EFF have made it their job to care for example.
- JonCox 12y ago
  > "Except when it's not. No one disagrees the advantages afforded to us with access to data. However with great power comes great responsibility and our leaders, including the institutional powers behind them, invariably show a lack of the latter." It would be political suicide for a UK politician to use the data the police and security forces have for political gain (assuming they got caught of course). It just doesn't happen. > "That is patently untrue. People who understand the disadvantages and pitfalls of unfettered access to data care very much and fight for our rights even if we are too busy to make it a priority in our lives. The EFF have made it their job to care for example." It's nice there are people out there making sure things don't get too out of hand. I just question their underlying beliefs about our need for privacy. Also the "no-one cares" goes both ways. I seriously doubt the state cares about my conversations with friends, most people just aren't that interesting. Perhaps Hacker News suffers from collective delusions of grandeur ;)

throwawayaway 12y ago

I think making access to records of you, paper, video etc could be made a legal right. If somebody is filming in an area, they are required to provide you access to the footage. If somebody has accounts of yours, same deal. If someone is logging your access to a something, they are required to provide you with the logs on request. I think Europe at least would go for it. In Japan telephone cameras are required to make a clicking sound. This is an extension of the concept.