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Comment by throwway120385 | Hacker News Reader

throwway120385

The only way to meaningfully defeat surveillance technology is to make a constitutional amendment that limits its use privately and publicly. We keep fighting it technologically which is an arms race. A cultural solution is the only path forward that will see meaningful success.

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> The only way to meaningfully defeat surveillance technology is to make a constitutional amendment that limits its use privately and publicly

So, contextually, a constitutional amendment to force private and public use of Juggalo Makeup?

It’s extreme, but bold change requires bold steps.

All in favor, say aye!

The right of the people to keep and drink Faygo shall not be infringed.

woop woop!

As a fan of ICP this is hilarious because it almost means we all need to become juggalos not just dress like them, even if that helps

> The Juggalo story, or Dark Carnival mythology, is the overarching narrative conceptualized by the hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse (ICP)—Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. It tells the story of a spirit world that judges the wicked, selfish, and cruel members of society, acting as a morality play meant to guide listeners toward a better life before "the end"

I just don't believe that can be effective.

Cameras are legal and too useful to ban. Facial recognition is just software.

And it's getting easier to make. There are open source solutions for facial recognition.

Malware is just software too, but we still have the CFAA.

Sure it doesn't prevent malware, far from it. But, it does relegate to basically only bad actors that we want in jail. Who are, usually, smaller and less organized.

Walmart, Amazon, the US government... these are big, big, big and very organized. If they use facial recognition tech, it's 1000x worse than some criminal. But if that's made illegal, they won't. Probably.

People find their ring cameras too useful, businesses love cloud based security camera systems, facial recognition and cloud backup are expected features of every phone's photo app, courts consider recording integral to first amendment expression.

These are some big rocks you'll need to move, otherwise your amendment won't be worth the paper it's written on. Just saying "you can collect all the data, but don't use it for surveillance" doesn't mean much.

I have no solutions, feels like we missed the boat if there ever was an opportunity to prevent it in the first place. We live in public now.

Not sure if I agree that the only solution is to give up now; we need sensible people that know how the technology works in power and that are not beholden to serve big corporations, but rather the average person. We need less populist and long-drawn campaigns. We need less politicizing. And we need all of that yesterday.

> sensible people that know how the technology works in power

You had me right up until that sentence. Good one.

You can have a ring camera- “just”make it illegal to share/sell the data from it. Have it be an audit item.

I don't think "courts consider recording integral to first amendment expression" is fully correct.

Otherwise there could not be states with two-party/all-party consent requirements for making an recording.

I think requiring all-party consent for facial recognition would not have 1st amendment issues.

Implementation details and effectiveness are, of course, very different issues.

>People find their ring cameras too useful, businesses love cloud based security camera systems, facial recognition and cloud backup are expected features of every phone's photo app, courts consider recording integral to first amendment expression.

As long as the recordings aren't centrally stored and sold in bulk, and sold to brokers and governments, that would still be ok.

Just this week I've been taking walks in my neighborhood, and the number of homes that chime or play a voice recording to indicate being recorded was shocking. I just indicate to them that I think they are number 1. In other situations where I'm in public with a camera cleary pointed in my direction I tend to do that with my hand in front of my face. If they are going to blur out the #1 sign, my face gets conveniently blurred as well. They might have a right to record, but I also have a right to silently express my opinion as well.

> they are number 1

Maybe I’m daft but what does this mean?

Giving the bird. Someone's not using their inner 12 year old self.

The ol’ double deuce. The finger. The salute. The bird.

When you're walking around with your finger over your face all day, you should extend your thumb as well, so everyone can tell you're a Legend.

Maybe I should just get a custom sticker for my forehead. I'd fit in at cons with everyone walking around as a hologram

You can demand companies to auto-blur faces unless people have consented to being recorded.

A tiny "By entering the area you consent to being recorded" sign oughta cover that.

In Germany it's just plain illegal to have public space within the camera's field of view. The camera must also be mounted in a way that it can't be rotated by software and can't be rotated easily by hand in a way that it is able to have public space within the field of view.

Cameras at main stations and within trains, only store their data for 24 and gets deleted afterwards afair, as long as it's not requested by some entity that a specific recording should be retained.

I don’t think it will happen for at least a couple of reasons. The “deep state” in the US and elsewhere will not allow it and would find workarounds ala five eyes. And two, the right wants to spy on the left and the left wants to spy on the right. Only a small sliver of libertarians are strongly against spying “the domestic baddies.” So there is no chance.

The only reason the deep state or anyone has any power is because most people don't care. If people cared, we could change. Modern politics is all about distracting everyone with some crazy as often as possible to keep shifting attention and basically disabling any progress.

There's some of that, there is also metric tons of money being used to keep the corporate status quo..

the deepstate has power because they will literally kill you if you don't and that's not the worst option. The deepstate will honeytrap, hack, blackmail, or otherwise destroy your life to get what "it" wants. People caring more isn't going to do anything if the Congressman doesn't want it known that he likes easy access to money and other illegal things.

We have a constitution because people demanded what they wanted at peril of their life.

The only reason the deep state or anyone has any power is because most people don't care.

I think bribery, blackmail, and extortion have a bit to do with it to.

>The only reason the deep state or anyone has any power is because most people don't care. If people cared, we could change.

Yes, but that's just restating the problem.

As long as it is accessible and useful, it will be used. Organized crime is around despite it being illegal. Considering how lucrative tracking people is, people will do it illegally. Even corporations as long as penalties aren't significant enough. We really need a three strikes law for corporations. Three egregious intentional violations and corp, is dissolved all assets going to support the needy.

"things should be legal because some people will do it anyways" is not a very compelling argument. I'm sure I don't need to explain to you why extrapolating this line of though to, for example, murder is silly and not worth taking serious.

My solution was to toughen consequences and I didn't directly respond to your tech solutions won't do it, the implication I was trying to make was take self defense class (tech defenses). This is so when the bully punches you in the face, you may not have a bloody nose when the bully gets suspended (ie ineffectual punishment like giving a kid a day off for bad behavior). I have a theory that good actors need to work harder to profit, since bad actors benefit from their unethical actions. Most good guys then get bought out at some point by a bad guy.

Love the last bit. Lack of accountability for corporations is a problem. That plus stiff penalties for executives or individuals using facial recognition without consent should put a stop to it pretty quickly.

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