In a sense the age of moving fast and breaking things helped us see what the system is made of: What sort of moral reflexes exist, how quickly they get mobilized, where this happens institutionally, geographically and socially etc.
Needless to say that it has been the bleakest of revelations.
What is deeply ironic though, is that the system is in self-destruct mode.
The privacy destruction happens in parallel with the annihilation of ownership / copyright that is discussed in other threads. A new "world order" is instituted, uglier and poorer.
The prosperity and social stability of the West has been based on instituting, respecting property rights, privacy, individual agency as the bedrock of liberal market democracy.
It turned out the pillars on which the edifice was standing have rotted over time and nobody knew.
People like to portray their least favorite countries as being engaged in corporate espionage in other developed countries, but what stops your favorite big corp from stealing what you create? Going forward, the value of eyeballs on ads might not be much compared to the value of business ideas, strategies etc. a corporation can access by violating your privacy.
Think of it this way: If you are a business owner, how successful would your business be if every second of the day, your fierce competitors had access to all your phone calls, texts, google docs, spreadsheets etc.? What if your competitor is already established with much more resources to create and get to market before you can?
I'll take this a step further into the Sci-Fi realm: what if your competitors could use all that data to model a simulation of your thoughts and generate your own ideas faster than you can?
There's a philosophical argument here as ownership of those produced thoughts are contestable. The data is from you, so do you have the rights? The machine that produced the thoughts was built by a different person and they fronted all the costs and other such things, just not the data. You can make strong arguments either way.
And to keep with the sci-fi dystopian theme, would that society stop communicating openly and watch their words carefully?
I'm dialing it up to 11, but in some respect this is possible today or in the near future. But for our scenario, let's keep it dialed to 11 and assume this is/can be perfected. (I'm not convinced this would be effective today fwiw, far too much noise)
I think we already live in that society, to be honest.
There is tremendous knowledge to be gained also, to call the opposite of privacy social freedom, is disturbing to me. If you are more private in some aspects of your life does not mean you cannot be more social in others.
Chrome, Edge both by default send your URL's back home. This is just the official telemetry features you can turn off.
I try to avoid both Edge and Chrome. Brave seems better (of course we are taking them at their word).
IMO, it's not only Big Tech that poses a threat on privacy and freedom. Big Governments are other threat that, IMO, it's much harder to fight against it.
And so monetised has it become that any attempt by government to reign in the pervasive surveillance, it could potentially have a noticeable effect on the employment rate as all those "smartest people on the planet working very hard on getting better click rates" in the big tech surveillance industry are legislatively made redundant. Bad politics.
This would also dry up a fair portion of the ... lobbyist funding ... governments receive.
Plus governments handily use these private enterprises profiting from pervasive surveillance to take the pulse of the citizenry for the purposes of staying in power - the very reason they're in government in the first place.
So, yeah, Government, as they are, are a significant part of the problem from a number of angles.
Taking the U.S. federal government as an example, by my count we've already seen over 60 notable breaches in just this young decade: https://github.com/MattHJensen/US-gov-info-losses. Certainly many others have gone unreported or unnoticed.
Whenever people complain about Big Government I like to remind them that any attempt at regulating industries like Big Tech is decried by the owner class as "Big Government", which is often parroted by conservatives, libertarians, and other pro-business groups.
So is it Big Government when it protects the interests of Big Industry to the detriment of its country's people, or Big Government when it regulates it to protect the interests of the people? They can't both be the same thing, and I would argue what most people call "Big Government" is what they've been told to call it, namely the regulation of corporate interests. Nobody ever calls the consistent erosion of people's individual rights "Big Government".
I've never heard anyone decry "big government" in response to governmental actions that they like, so I don't think it's usually a principled position.
We (the "owner class," parrots, what have you) would argue for the government regulating itself, not the companies. Facebook showing you fursuit ads as a result of your history isn't as big of a problem as the government showing up at your door now that you've shared the wrong idea online. Governments should not be allowed to indiscriminately collect data from (that is, to spy on) it's citizens. Giving the governmemt more power doesn't seem like the right solution here, being that that is exactly what we are trying to limit. Companies should not be unregulated, but more important is that the government itself should be regulated: specifically, minimized in it's powers.
I disagree. Big Government means the government getting into every subject possible. The opposite of this is that you have a government that only enters into essential matters for the well-being of society.
there are certain situations in which you might be OK with the privacy implication. I, for example, would be OK with receiving a free car ride if I had to watch an advertisement while traveling in the vehicle.
a better example would be something like being fingerprinted at the airport. Where it is not strictly necessary in order to accomplish the goal of security. In general I would say Big Government is more concerning than Big Tech. Is it unfortunate that Meta and Google track you across the internet? Sure, but it's ultimately not necessary for your participation in society, unlike say being tracked in order to get a state identification card, and thus do basic things like get a bank account.
I'm honestly astonished by this claim.
For many the products provided by Meta and Google--Facebook, Whatsapp, Gmail, WeChat, etc--are deeply important to their lives. These tools are the way people connect and communicate with friends and families, conduct business, and in general navigate the world.
It is becoming damn near impossible to avoid their prying eyes. And I know. I've tried.
So, I'm sorry, no, I completely disagree with your claim.
Is "Big Government" surveillance a concern? Yes. Absolutely.
But private company surveillance is every bit as concerning, every bit as difficult to avoid, and far harder to control (after all, I don't get to elect who runs Facebook).
Fundamentally though, even if you are tracked by Facebook you being banned on Facebook isn't going to stop you from living your life. If that is the case then that is indeed problematic.
We will have to agree to disagree. I care about surveillance only to the extent that if the person doing has the ability to stop my participation in society. To that extent Meta cannot do much damage (to me at least).
I'm going to push back on this. I've opted out of Facebook before when I was part of some active social groups, and known others who've done so. Opting out of these providers absolutely hampers participation in society, depending.
So many groups and activities require a Facebook account. If you're not there you miss out on discussions and maybe miss being invited to things altogether because "out of sight, out of mind."
At the minimum, not using these things introduces friction in participating in society. Whether they're necessary really depends on what you want your participation to look like and what you consider "society." For some people, it's very easy to cast off the Facebook chains because their social circles don't use Facebook.
But say you have kids and want to participate in a school parenting group or external activity and they've decided to organize things via FB. It's in or out. You aren't just making a choice for you now, it drags your spouse and kids into it too. Maybe your extended family.
And this is by design. Facebook absolutely designs its products to ensure that the maximum number of people must have accounts and that not having an account makes it difficult or impossible to participate or even observe content related to things.
Now, government tracking is harder to avoid and even more concerning, but let's not handwave away the impact people face if they refuse to use FB or Google. It is limiting for a large swath of people.
They don't see a loss of privacy and a very easy conduit for constant surveillance; they see free TVs with a decent enough sound bar
But now, comparing to back then, all other "tribes" can see what you are doing.
Anything to back that claim?
But the Internet and communications moving to online text, etc, greatly increases the provability of the gossip, if you will. Which is a major change that we as a society haven't really adapted to. We treat "private" or "direct" chats as like talking in a cornfield; but before you just had a he said/she said situation, now someone can "drop receipts" or you can have whatever platform you're on hacked and everything spilled.
Of course the state spies on you. After Edward Snowden everyone should know that. And thats a big problem because the state is the one actor that should fight to protect you from surveillance. But let's not claim that big tech is not the motor of the machine that is state sanctioned surveillance. Google allowed the US to read your e-mails. A yahoo software was responsible to access your webcam from the outside. NSO sold Pegasus to state actors.
That sounds bad enough. But if these companies would care about their users they would stop this from happening. Right? Of course these companies will tell you that they need your information to provide you with the best service. In reality they want to collect the biggest value as possible from you.
In the past you would just pay for a service and the service would provide a service. If the company wanted to extract more value from their users they would raise the prices. But today is different. It is no longer just a transaction between you and a company. It is also a transaction between the company and a third actor who is interested on spying on you.
The motivation changes. It is no longer about protecting you country or whatever. It is about money. And companies want to make money. And if companies see a legal opportunity to make more money they will take it. They will sell as much of your data as possible.
Now you will tell me that I should just stop using these services. But that's not so easy. Network effects are real. If they aren't real for you? Great. But other people have friends outside of tech circles. Now if you want to have a social life you need WhatsApp or other services. This is an even bigger problem in developing countries that are literally dependent on these "free" services.
Normal people wont buy a homeserver, self host a matrix instance and convert literally everyone in their friend group to element. They will go for the cheaper solution and just download WhatsApp. But they don't know that they are paying for this service with their data. E2EE? Yeah right, your Messages can only be read by me, you and Facebook.
This is why we are in dire need of anchoring privacy into law. People will go for the cheaper option. But if you are in need of using a service it should not come with strings attached. And if your service is only sustainable by selling the private correspondence of people it deserves to die. There is plenty of great OSS that just doesn't have the network effects of proprietary ones.
Something something, salaries depend on not understanding the objections to invasive surveillance capitalism (or not caring), and egos depend on always being the hero of their own stories.
Imagine some strangers decided your house was a tourist attraction and developed a subculture and social scene around it. This might seem insane to you, where if your sentiments toward them as the resident did not matter to them, but the symbol of being somehow associated with your home and property did, this would be an encroachment on your privacy. To them, legally they're just in public looking at things they desire (your property), and using the peace and effect of your property as their own relative privacy so that they can have sex in their cars away from people who might recognize them.
The lack of privacy in this case is a lack of shared norms, and an inability to enforce or resolve them without conflict. When it comes to electronic privacy, the same dynamic applies, where you're "just a user," and not a person, but rather an object that is subject to some process by an other.
Privacy also definitely breaks down at scale, and it might actually be defined as relating only in a context on a certain scale - or that privacy itself is an artifact of context in a given scale. It needs re-thinking because it's not a value that is universally shared, it requires an enforcement mechanism, and it also seems to require a certain belief in basic dignity that is separate from material concerns. It presumes some natural rights that are not natural to everyone, and I don't think it's something an individual has unless they can actually defend it.
But ya. May as well ask pigs to fly.
Which brings up another point. Isn't it crazy how our society bends over backwards and twists, chokes and contorts itself? To accommodate the existence of wolves.
https://www.wired.com/story/telly-tv-free-privacy/
I think the real wet dream of the security state is to have a software agent for every human on the planet. Something rather like this was at the core of DARPA's "Total Information Awareness" program of about two decades ago (later absorbed by the NSA and private contractors IIRC). Today's LLMs help make the concept clear - if you could collect enough data about a person you could create a software construct that could predict how that person would respond to different stimuli - an advertisement, a news story, etc. It would be the greatest tool for mass control every invented in the history of humanity - and those in control would use it to create the most dystopian authoritarian state imaginable - and yet those who lived under that state would probably think they were 'free people'.
The idea was nicely laid out in the 1995 movie, "Twelve Monkeys":
> "Jeffrey Goines : When I was institutionalized, my brain was studied exhaustively in the guise of mental health. I was interrogated, I was x-rayed, I was examined thoroughly. Then, they took everything about me and put it into a computer where they created this model of my mind. Yes! Using that model they managed to generate every thought I could possibly have in the next, say, 10 years. Which they then filtered through a probability matrix of some kind to determine everything I was gonna do in that period. So you see, she knew I was gonna lead the Army of the Twelve Monkeys into the pages of history before it ever even occurred to me. She knows everything I'm ever gonna do before I know it myself. How's that?"
It's the FBI keeping files on citizens, but on steroids. Those claiming 'this is fine' generally don't like to talk about who would get access to the database of agents, and who wouldn't.
But is privacy really important to mankind?
If we look at mankind as an organism, the organism can function better if each part knows what the other part is doing. If the left hand knows what the right hand does.
Isn't it the same with mankind? Maybe a society is more efficient without privacy. And more efficiency of the society would benefit its members.
Taken to the extreme, wouldn't that also mean no privacy for your thoughts, brain, mind, but everything should be transparent? Welcome to the Borg, hell of an efficient society.. but not what makes life worthy... so imo no, privacy, free thought, freedom, and likely more just go together, as philosophers long established.
It is one of most foundational human rights!
Hand as argument's to "NonOfYourBuisness.app" on my phone.
Though I get it’s a stretch - I re-read the story so it’s fresh on my mind.
That said, our laws represent our values. We have a complete lack of tangible privacy laws and any ability to enforce them, and that doesn’t seem to be changing despite decades of these calls. GDPR delete requests are a joke because of the 17 marketing excel sheets with user exports floating around and forgotten in downloads folder that every tech company with user data has in some form.
Western culture, in its current form, doesn’t value privacy. It’s nuking privacy bc of tech-enabled capitalism and a decentralized mess of efforts to hit OKRs, love of social media by users, making that next VC raise, do that compliance check on user origin.
Everything about tech can’t function without that stream of user data. Every company is about tech now. Every company can’t function in its current profit mode without user data.
I’ve benefited greatly from capitalism, so I don’t get too bent out of shape. But you have to spend just one quarter with access to user-facing logs to know privacy is a lost cause, unless there is a significant reevaluation of tech regulations, and then you’d need the actual hammer-drop EPA in new 1970z style regulations. I don’t think we’ll get it.
So my conclusion is to protect yourself as able and otherwise ride the wave into what’s next.
Concern yourself less with the money of others. Spying on my wallet is not a basic human right.
These days there can be no such expectation, and we need to separate out discussion of day-to-day privacy from "if bad actors intercept my communication bad things happen".
We should aggressively maintain the security of privilaged communication, and not stress so much about day to day privacy in our lives; stop gossiping and judging others for actions that do not harm others, whilst allowing them necessary privacy for transactions that should remain privilaged.
Freedom from slavery!
Internet!
Progressing ethically as a civilization is nice.
Privacy, has grown in importance with the surge of digital communication and mass surveillance.
Regarding privileged communication, it is impossible to define the boundary between what should be private and what should not. Just because some information might seem mundane doesn't mean it lacks potential misuse by bad actors.
By fostering a culture of respect for privacy in our day-to-day lives, we strengthen protections against more significant intrusions.
Yeah right. You could walk any street, and people would not have known which street you walked before that. You could have your picture taken, and no one who saw your photo could know your name nor your birth date. You could enter a shop, and none of the shopkeepers would know which shop you went to before -- most shopkeepers wouldn't even remember what you bought a week before, unless maybe you were a regular. How can you say that privacy was rare, when it was the natural state of being before mass-scale administration and surveillance was possible?
Yes, I would argue that controlling information access to property should not be considered a fundamental right - in that it's practically un-enforceable for privacy purposes already; I do think there should be an expectation that you can walk around your property without fear of bumping into some stranger though.
Clearly it's not as cut and dried as that, as physical security is required to ensure that you can have information privacy too, but I think it's important to maintain the distinction.
There is a similiar meaning of "rights" as a word used to descibe what people are able to do. The fact that I have legs gives me the right to walk, for example. Within this idea, there is a further idea of natural rights, which descibes what the rights (that is, abilities,) of people in nature — or more aptly, people not in civilized society — have, which I think is what you are refering to. There are people who believe in human rights that use natural rights to discover human rights but it is not necessary to do so. A more popular definition of human rights is what the people decide or what people who study human rights decide.
Realizing that rights are not real, that is, something that you "have" or are born with, is important if you want to truly understand them.
That was my first thought - like, it would great if everybody agreed that it was a fundamental right, but other than as an empty political talking point, I'm not familiar with any government official in all of recorded history who's ever behaved as if they thought so. It's definitely not codified in any law I've ever seen.
Human rights are not intrinsic to human beings: they're fundamental to our civilization. I for one look forward to the expansion of fundamental human rights.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
Also, what does it mean to free from arbitrary interferrence with privacy? Interferrence implies more than observation, in my view.
Privacy for the general public has always been considered a danger, and wasn't even a concern for the courts until technological advances removed any limits on how much even uninteresting people can be surveilled, and how easily massive amounts of that data can be kept and algorithmically searched through. But even in the old days, the government would find time to go through your mail to see if you were getting any information about birth control, then arrest you for it.
I wonder how people can watch old spy movies now, where spies had to smuggle money to other spies, they communicated with tiny strips of microfilm surreptitiously dropped into trashcans, etc., if they think that in the past, people could communicate freely with each other and transfer money willy-nilly? The battle that snoops are involved in now is the same as always, except with extremely overpowered tools and access. This access will not be limited, and these tools will not be dropped, because these tools can be turned on any politician who seriously wants to do that.
The way they see it is the same way they saw the made-up "missile gap." They look at China, and its government powers over civil liberties, and see it as an arms race that they're losing. If you're anti-surveillance, they see you as holding back the West in comparison, and wonder why you would want the bad guys to have access to tools that the good guys don't have. So they not only want more surveillance, they want to use it to track the people who are against more surveillance.
This is another self-serving narrative that motivates western elites to exaggerate the capabilities and immorality of US enemies, just like the missile gap was.
BTW, 'Define "X"' sounds rather childish, whoever says it.
"Our actions, our words, even our thoughts, are being monitored, recorded, and analyzed. The sanctity of our homes, once our refuge from the world, is under threat."
"It’s not just mere data; rather, it’s a master key to the sealed vaults of our thoughts and experiences."
The mind-reading stuff is still a fantasy and will be so also in the future. Then:
"An individual’s freedom of speech hinges significantly on their ability to communicate privately without fear of reprisal."
True enough in principle, but I'd reckon that in the current infodemic it is more about who is given a voice (or a megaphone). Furthermore:
"Enterprises are no longer solely engaged in the commerce of goods or services; they are also playing a part in a grand, global data accumulation endeavour, where consumer data assumes colossal worth."
Once again true enough, but then again, most of data is garbage, useless beyond the immediate moment of pushing an ad or two. Finally:
"This isn’t a criticism aimed at those agencies responsible for our national security."
I am not sure whether their job either is made easier or worse by the vast amounts of garbage.
Haha, of course they don't literally read our minds, but with enough data, it's possible to gather a lot about the way a person thinks
Fantasy today, sure — judging by advertising categories I was getting placed in at least a few years back, the AI don't generally have the ability to infer much from revealed preferences, despite the odd headline every so often.
But in the future?
Even ignoring the possibility that the aforementioned advertising-AI get better, there's Neuralink and whatever competition it ends up getting.
I am skeptical. AI, Neuralink, or whatever might infer better on many things, sure, but these certainly will not be able to infer what non-dogmatic people think about, say, philosophy or politics already because humans have always a capability to change their minds, while AI is terribly bad at reorienting itself.
A trend that has been going on since at least 9/11. Alarmism is the norm. When alarmism is the norm, only escalating alarmism will be heard. We can't have a normal conversation anymore.
Before: Here's a problem, here's where I think it would go if we ignore it.
Now: Here's a problem, everyone is going to die!!!!!!!!!!!
Why the heck not? Snowden? NSA? GCHQ? FBI having 280,000 abuses? I don’t get this logic.
