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Comment by choeger | Hacker News Reader

Forget government. China actually shows what all governments more or less publicly desire: Better and deeper control of their feared enemy: The population.

In fact, I think we are about to enter an era where our personal devices not only don't work exclusively for us but instead work explicitly against us. It will take a while for governments to gather some experience, but I won't be surprised when data gathering becomes mandatory.

Wouldn't it be great for instance, if police could just tap into Alexa's records to clarify a case of rape? Or throttle down your intelligent thermostat because you are wasting so much of our CO2 budget? Or stop your car because it already entered that particular city twice this year?

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> we are about to enter an era where our personal devices not only don't work exclusively for us but instead work explicitly against us.

About to? LG smart TVs send filenames on connected storage devices back to LG, Google's phones by default (and until they were caught, even if you explicitly disabled it) send your location to Google for logging, that is then accessed by police with geofence warrants, printers add tracking dots to deanonymize you, Intel and AMD refuse to sell CPUs without their management engines (except to special customers), printers want "authorized" ink, and all of DRM is explicitly anti-user.

We are already firmly in that era, even if you ignore China.

I read somewhere that the latest iPhone uses either sonar or radar to detect room layouts and many other things now. It's crazy how we're actually paying for the very devices that monitor us and share information back to the companies that sold us the devices... I don't do anything illegal of course, but it's just wild to me that we now pay for our own "wire taps" without any real public transparency about it.

> China actually shows what all governments more or less publicly desire

I doubt China is the best example for what "governments desire". Many people of different kinds go into politics for different reasons, and i personally doubt controlling people is among the top ones. Enriching oneself, having power and reputation, fixing things, etc. seem to be more popular.

In what respect is "having power" different from "controlling people"?

Does Bill Gates have power? Does Bill Gates control people?

My answers to those two questions are Yes and No, respectively. That is the difference.

Bill Gates got his power by amazing wealth that buys the things and activities that he needs. He still magnifies that power by harnessing the latent power of money over people.

Politicians as a rule get most, or all, their power by getting themselves in a position where they can control people.

A distinction should always be made between the government and the elites who influence it to benefit their interests. Being a member of the elite doesn't preclude one of being a (high-ranking) member of the government, or becoming a member of elite that way.

There is usually a lot more accountability for corruption in being a government official than a private citizen in collecting and controlling private information. There is a lot more illicit profit in being corrupt as a private citizen than in being a government official who collects and holds private information.

This is why the government is the only one that should be authorized to hold LIMITED private information. Somehow it's mis-construed to private individuals and companies collecting UNLIMITED personal data on everyone. Strange times.

>Forget government. China actually shows what all governments more or less publicly desire: Better and deeper control of their feared enemy: The population.

After the uprising of the 17th of June

The Secretary of the Writers' Union

Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee

Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government

And could only win it back By increased work quotas.

Would it not in that case be simpler for the government

To dissolve the people And elect another?

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