Comment by _m8fo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _m8fo | Hacker News Reader

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Personally I don't see the problem with surveillance. I have a problem with people who abuse powers they may have.

I mean honestly:

- Use Android? Chances are you're being watched by Google.

- Facebook tracks literally hundreds of millions.

- Post on HN? Guess what, you can't delete your posts after a while. Advances in stylometry in addition to more and more data being on the internet will mean your identity on here will be compromised eventually.

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However, using Android allows Google to have literally minute-by-minute traffic updates which allows our cars to move more efficiently.

Facebook's tracking of millions may aid in allowing smaller organizations to connect in a more programmatic way.

HN well, obviously is allowing you to read this now.

Things like privacy were forfeit the minute we gained the technology. If people have problems with these technologies being used in bad ways, we should punish the people using the technologies in such a bad way. The spooky "surveillance state" is a red herring imo.

Isn't it blindingly obvious that the abusers usually have power and money and can't be punished?

The googlefaces hire all sorts of behavioural scientists, paychologists, statisticians to get people more addicted to their ecosystem, spend millions on lobbying to bend the laws and generally do whatever they want.

People caring about this topic waste their time explaining for the millionth time why surveillance is bad to every innocent soul who bent their mind into a pretzel coming up with excuses for surveillance and spyware.

So what exactly do you suggest?

1) Ban surveillance. Not going to happen, if what you just stated is to be believed.

2) Complain about it.

3) Try to enact means to punish abusers.

> Personally I don't see the problem with surveillance.

Maybe that's because you don't actually SEE the surveillance.

Surely you close the door when you try on clothes at a mall, or when you use a toilet?

You're making claims that because we interact on the web we should not expect any safety. That's fine... but what about those of us who specifically don't use Google, Facebook, etc... we are STILL surveilled, constantly. The US Gov't is STILL trying to break encryption (for everybody) in order to surveil more completely.

Privacy is forfeit by participation in these types of forums (centrally administered), but not all forums are like these.

As distributed networks continue to develop, the arguments you've used to advocate a carelessness about your post-privacy lifestyle will no longer be valid. But the state apparatus and oppressive outcomes that type of intellectual laziness enables/encourages will persist.

I don't have a problem with surveillance either as long as the laws are fair, they are deterministically enforced and the judicial system is willing to let minor mishaps slide.

I don't think we'll be able to stop the surveillance state, but we should push for the right legal and judicial culture.

The laws aren't fair. They aren't deterministically enforced. And the judicial system is a fucking joke.

There is no Rule of Law.

But you may be right about trying to stop the surveillance monster... perhaps if you don't mind it we can put the cameras in your bedroom first.

So, you call me silly and naive because I want to fight for a rule of law.

And then you call me complacent for not wanting fight against surveillance.

So, do you believe that political fights are worth it or not? Make up your mind and stop bringing bedroom stuff into the discussion.

> So, do you believe that political fights are worth it or not?

I do not. They are a sideshow. Our systems have already been coopted by powerful, monied interests with armed guards.

Recent 702 vote made it perfectly fucking clear who's in charge (if it wasn't already clear from "this is how we know we're a family") and whose opinion matters.

It wouldn't be very nice of me to assume you're ignorant (and I don't, tbh), but I do find it frustrating that people feel there is room for returning to an imagined better place, where authority wasn't corrupt. In history, it seems to me, the news wasn't as thorough and the well-connected just as oppressive.

I feel your frustration. But history also shows us that things can get better sometimes. The country I live in went from totalitarian to democratic at some point in history.

Lots of people are doing it, so it must be okay.

Sorry, not down with your logic one bit.

Did you reply to the wrong comment? That couldn't be further from my point. My point is that if we have a problem with people doing bad things with technology, we should replace those people with people we trust, not the technology.

If we had mechanisms to identify people who were perfectly trustworthy, ensure these people are perpetually and exclusively in power, and construct perfect security for all involved computer systems then this reasoning would make sense.

It's impossible to trust people with power due to perverse incentives. That's why the ideas of democracy and whistleblowing exist. Those who find "trustworthy authority" less ridiculous than any other oxymoron might better enjoy living in a country whose government was not founded on the core values of accountability for those wielding power like maybe Saudi Arabia

You can trust a person you choose, perhaps. What about that person's successors? Data is forever, people change, people are coerced or bribed, and stuff gets stolen or compromised (or subpeonaed). Over time, databases are leaky.

Take the long view. I guarantee that the people collecting the data do.

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