[HN Gopher] Internet of Snitches ___________________________________________________________________ Internet of Snitches Author : nicolaslem Score : 297 points Date : 2021-08-12 17:19 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (puri.sm) (TXT) w3m dump (puri.sm) | swah wrote: | Who are the unlucky ones that will be double-checking the AI- | tagged images for child pornography, all day long? | turminal wrote: | The same ones that already do this for everything that gets | posted to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter... | | Underpaid, overstressed and overworked people. Imagine what a | job like this does to ones mental health. | CharlesW wrote: | https://www.wired.com/2014/10/content-moderation/ | notquitehuman wrote: | It's the same people who make sure that scamware doesn't show | up in the App Store. Apple does a good job with that, don't | they? | wizzwizz4 wrote: | Hopefully people with better conditions than the Facebook | moderators. | cortesoft wrote: | I have two issues with automatic surveillance. One is of course | false positives. When you scan everything, even a small false | positive chance will mean a LOT of people get swept up by false | positives. Scan enough things, and soon everyone will be victims | of false positives. | | This is compounded because people don't understand probabilities. | Take DNA... if someone says "the chance of this DNA match being | wrong is one in a million", people will assume the match is | correct, because that seems like a really small chance of a false | positive.. however, if you are matching that DNA to everyone in | the United States, that one in a million ends up with over 300 | matches that are wrong. | | Second, perfect enforcement of laws is not always ideal. If we | catch everyone who breaks the law, how can we ever decide as a | society to change the law? For example, if we had 100% effective | anti-marijuana laws, no one could have ever tried marijuana and | we would not have been able to determine that we actually don't | want it outlawed. If no one can ever break a law, we have no way | of testing whether a law is good or not. | skybrian wrote: | Compare with the current Internet of snitches, where people flag | posts and want something to be done about it. | cf100clunk wrote: | Purism's accurate take on Apple's recent CSAM-scanning | announcement is preaching to the choir since the typical consumer | use-cases for an iPhone versus a Librem phone don't overlap well. | Still, I'm glad Purism continues to stake-out and explain its | entire reason for existing. | Hackbraten wrote: | What do you mean? I've owned iPhones for 13 years and ordered a | Librem earlier this week. I'm determined to use it as my daily | driver, no matter how buggy it turns out to be when it arrives. | jcun4128 wrote: | The refund thing is odd... but I benefit from their mobile UI. | goatcode wrote: | It's interesting how much this topic has blown up, especially | compared to how it usually does, after pedophiles are targeted. | | It's also interesting that at least one prepared response will be | found to my point above. | sunshineforever wrote: | So how are we going to stop this if it becomes a reality for 99% | of phones sold? | | I'm very poor- like on and off homeless poor- and I would be | willing to pay up to $200 for a free phone, but I couldn't go | higher. I dearly hope that it doesn't become the case that any | "free" phone isn't a luxury like current privacy oriented phones. | stalkersyndrome wrote: | This is a great article. | | What I'm about to say is a bit controversial and cannot be | implemented by majority, or even a large minority. Maybe a subset | of HN that isn't already in this mindset: | | Treat all devices as adversarial as you possibly can within some | sensical reason. Use Tor, for example, but expect that everything | you do is being logged and that sometime in the future if a | vulnerability, exploit, whatever is discovered that can trace | these logs back to you, that you know what you're in for. Apply | this to whatever else you feel like could have a negative impact | on you. | | Obviously this is now coming to light because of Apple but this | has been an issue long before. | | To put it into more morbid terms: assume that the government | thinks you're storing CP and they're going through your trash, | and behave accordingly. | SixDouble5321 wrote: | I think it's good advice to assume your device is doing things | against your best interests, especially when running software | from MS, Google, etc. | | There are a few easy things you can do like use e2e encryption | wherever possible and trust as few things (devices, companies, | apps) as you can get away with. | | TOR has dubious value given the effort put in by various actors | to de-anonymize its traffic. | soco wrote: | Does this leave anything possible? | SixDouble5321 wrote: | Privacy and security. | inanutshellus wrote: | Kitten videos. | | That's about it. | ghoward wrote: | And then someone will come along and claim that kitten | videos are animal abuse. I wish I was being sarcastic. | masterof0 wrote: | I like Tor, but is just too slow. I use wireguard/proxies | instead, a subpar alternative security wise but with better | performance. | markenqualitaet wrote: | Y tho? Your advice reads like a recipe for a bad time. | | Mitigation is required, if you actually do have something to | hide. | | Freedom however is endangered, if you personally mitigate this | or not. I think for most people the best course of action would | be to speak out against this, boycott the companies or get | politically active, educate others about the threat to all of | us. | | And evading hostile tech's reach is really not a practical | every day thing. I mean look at the shitshow of browser | fingerprinting. Behaving vastly different than most will leave | a trace of its own, even if it's just the absence of common | information. | | The best personal protection is being part of a healthy, | democracy valuing collective not okay with this surveillance. | | And if you are about to explode the next big story, I would | probably advice migrating somewhere hostile to the country you | are about to piss off. It's not like they turn on your fridge | because you bought LSD for you and your boyfriend; I mean | generally buying drugs happens in public Telegram groups these | days... Politicians love spending money on surveillance tech, | but not law enforcement people. Nothing is gonna happen, if you | don't mess with powerful people's egos. | | The real damage of these trends is the self censorship and | permanent premptive self-surveillance you automatically do in | the face of it. Like treating every device as hostile! You are | killing off the mental freedom more and more, creativity, | possibilities. No one is going all to prison, but no one isn't | in prison a little bit. | [deleted] | SixDouble5321 wrote: | I think the main difference between you and OP, is your | optimism and OP's cynicism are opposite. | at_a_remove wrote: | What will be really painful is that you won't even be able to | prevent data egress, since these devices will just hit Amazon | Walk, or connect via some hidden 6G modem, or use DNS over HTTPS | to hide the network names. | | And you'll pay for it, too! | dgs_sgd wrote: | > This "Internet of Things" has promised people convenience, yet | we know that convenience has already come at the cost of personal | privacy. | | I really wonder if the privacy implications of the "internet of | things" are so dangerous that the internet of things should never | be realized to its full potential. There is the always present | temptation for governments to co-opt it as a surveillance | apparatus. It really is the perfect tool for Big Brother style | rule. | | The cost may be too high. | | Edit: grammar | dotcommand wrote: | The selling point of IoT is the data. It's the reason for the | heavy investment in big data/neural networks/nvidia/etc. | Preparing for the IoT world where there isn't much privacy but | lots and lots of data. | sumtechguy wrote: | Also consider most of those devices after 2-3 years as | insecure. Many running a decade old version of linux at its | core, and the other bits of software usually just as old. | Written by someone whos job was outsourced 4 years ago. Never | to be updated again. Just assume someone is going to do things | with it that you do not want them doing. That the gov wants in | on the action is just another in the list of threat actors. | giantg2 wrote: | Whenever I want an IoT type device, I would rather home brew | it. Technically my stuff would be more of a local network of | things since I rarely expose stuff over the internet, | especially due to lack of static IP. | jlengrand wrote: | What I really wonder is, once virtually everyone has crossed the | rubicon to reuse the article's expression, how long it will take | for whoever decides NOT to be tracked to look guilty? | | How long before people without phones, doorbells or smart watches | get frowned upon? | | At the rate we're accelerating, it wouldn't be crazy to see it | happen in a couple years. | legrande wrote: | Good old fashioned police-work is needed instead of back-doors | into our favorite apps. | | The Internet and app ecosystems can't work properly if they're | weakened by LEAs. People would just not use them if they know | they're being watched. I'm not saying the majority would switch | to Linux phones either (like Librem 5 & Pinephone), simply that | the two dominating app-stores (Play & Apple Store) would be | phased out and people would probably fund independent FLOSS app | stores to replace them. | | In the end, the people will speak out and respond to back-doors. | In-fact we need FLOSS app stores right now (Similar to | F-Droid[0], but baked in as the default store), and they need to | be funded properly & they need sound economic incentives to | continue. No more 'free' apps where you pay for them with your | data. It's possible to have FLOSS apps that are not _gratis_ | where people pay for them with _money_ , not their _data_. | | (The reason I suggest we switch to FLOSS app stores is that the | apps can easily be checked for back-doors or malicious code since | the code is open source. It makes the apps readily available for | audits too) | | [0] https://f-droid.org/ | wrycoder wrote: | As far as I know, a FLOSS store for Apple devices is very close | to impossible. | sschueller wrote: | CSAM also doesn't prevent children from being exploited. It's | an archive of past abuse. The police should focus and finding | creators of such abhorrent material and put them in prison. | [deleted] | lancesells wrote: | This would seemingly help police catch more of these | abhorrent people in less time. I think the question is does | that outweigh the eventual abuse of the much larger | population of non-abusers. | | Personally, I've been heading toward a life more free of the | internet and technology. This move by Apple is speeding that | up. | md_ wrote: | I think there are a few theories here: | | 1. CSAM production may be incentivized by consumers (either | because they pay for it or because they serve to encourage | the producers). | | 2. CSAM may (as, famously, with Backpage) be an advertisement | for real-world meet ups and further abuse. | | 3. Having pictures of one's own abuse further disseminated is | itself abusive and morally wrong. | | Obviously producers should _also_ be prosecuted, but while I | do think the American approach is in many ways informed by | puritanical beliefs, there are perfectly rational reasons to | pursue the spread of such material. | syshum wrote: | >here are perfectly rational reasons to pursue the spread | of such material. | | sure but people should also keep in mind that pursuit could | massively backfire, like in the case of backpage, where the | shutdown of the site actually made is HARDER to find and | recuse children being abused because now the traffickers | are using more secure, more underground platforms... | waterhouse wrote: | Does reason (1) mean that we should disincentivize CSAM | production by funding a large, free, publicly accessible | and searchable database of CSAM images, to make current | CSAM producers unable to compete with free? If we believe | the RIAA and MPAA, anyway. | | (2) and (3) can be handled by enforcing a delay of, say, 15 | years between CSAM being produced and it entering the | database (and censoring any identifying information, of | course), and by giving people the choice to opt out before | their pictures are added. | c7DJTLrn wrote: | I don't think the theory that consumption drives production | holds true when talking about child pornography because the | material can be copied infinitely, it's not a finite | resource. | judge2020 wrote: | Exposure to more people might lure more people into | becoming buyers; what's what CSAM distribution laws are | trying to prevent: showing them to more people. | Manuel_D wrote: | > as, famously, with Backpage | | This characterization of Backpage diverges significantly | from the realities of the site uncovered by authorities | [1]. Choice excerpt: | | > "Information provided to us by [FBI Agent Steve] Vienneau | and other members of the Innocence Lost Task Force confirm | that, unlike virtually every other website that is used for | prostitution and sex trafficking, Backpage is remarkably | responsive to law enforcement requests and often takes | proactive steps to assist in investigations," wrote | Catherine Crisham and Aravind Swaminathan, both assistant | U.S. attorneys for the Western District of Washington, in | the April 3 memo to Jenny Durkan, now mayor of Seattle and | then head federal prosecutor for the district. Vienneau | told prosecutors that "on many occasions," Backpage staff | proactively sent him "advertisements that appear to contain | pictures of juveniles" and that the company was "very | cooperative at removing these advertisements at law | enforcement's request." | | > "Even without a subpoena, in exigent circumstances such | as a child rescue situation, Backpage will provide the | maximum information and assistance permitted under the | law," wrote Crisham and Swaminathan. | | 1. https://reason.com/2019/08/26/secret-memos-show-the- | governme... | xfitm3 wrote: | Backpage had a staff of ~75 employees dedicated to | manually reviewing all adult ads and they were the #1 | source of trafficking tips until they were shut down and | the owner jailed. | | They truly did good work and were an unfortunate casualty | of a political pissing contest. | anthk wrote: | >. The police should focus and finding creators of such | abhorrent material and put them in prison. | | Good luck with that. They are in Russia/Eastern Europe, | behind mafias. | [deleted] | dghlsakjg wrote: | I hate slippery slope arguments, but.... | | How long until media players and display devices are hashing all | of our media to check for copyright violations. Right now it is | effectively impossible for a consumer to buy a TV that doesn't | include a computer capable of this. | | CSAM is one thing, and from reports it sounds like checking | hashes isn't really that effective. However, this paves the way | for hash checks for a variety of scary things. | | What happens when governments start distributing lists of hashes | belonging to "subversive" material (this isn't pipe dream, | numerous large countries already block subversive material on the | internet). | [deleted] | anthk wrote: | >How long until media players and display devices are hashing | all of our media to check for copyright violations. | | It has been rumored back in the day that WMP 10-12 would be | like that. | jerf wrote: | "I hate slippery slope arguments, but...." | | Slippery slope is vastly oversold as a logical fallacy. It is | only a fallacy in the absence of evidence that there is a | slope. If there's a multi-decade trend of which this is only a | single step, and there's no visible mechanism for making it | stop here and go no farther, then the logical fallacy is in | believing with no reason that the trend line will stop here. | | It is not a fallacy to speak as if this is only the beginning | of a huge push into intrusive monitoring. It is a fallacy to | pretend otherwise. | | Slippery slope is also a fallacy if you take one instance of a | trend and then logically project it to an absurd extreme, but | this is not what we're doing here. We're simply looking at the | next obvious, logical, well-evidenced step, with plenty of | people who obviously want this even if they are a bit too | discreet to come right out and say it in public. | | But it's not a hard leap to see that our rulers today would | like to be in full control of everything bit of data we receive | and every bit of data we produce and the only things stopping | them are technical possibilities and whether or not we'd put up | with it. I see nothing else stopping them; not scruples, not | morality, no existential awareness of the sheer staggering | amount of responsibility they would be pushing on to | themselves, no concerns about how it may hurt anyone, nothing. | mikepurvis wrote: | As in all things, it's important to seek out evidence | elsewhere that it might exist. For example, the US is already | significantly "behind" many other developed nations in terms | of not just how much surveillance and censorship is | tolerated, but also in other freedom-oriented areas like | choice to own firearms, choice of whether to have medical | insurance, etc. | | So it shouldn't really be necessary to have any of these | arguments based on speculated future scenarios when you can | look to Canada, the UK, Australia, etc, and see that slight | increases in surveillance, censorship, gun regulation, health | care availability, etc might actually have some benefits and | certainly don't necessarily put you in the instant quicksand | toward fascism/communism/scary scenario X. | JadeNB wrote: | > So it shouldn't really be necessary to have any of these | arguments based on speculated future scenarios when you can | look to Canada, the UK, Australia, etc, and see that slight | increases in surveillance, censorship, gun regulation, | health care availability, etc might actually have some | benefits and certainly don't necessarily put you in the | instant quicksand toward fascism/communism/scary scenario | X. | | There are a _lot_ of benefits to living in countries with | different governance approaches from the in many ways | ultra- _laissez faire_ approach taken in the US, but I don | 't think you'll find many takers here for the idea that the | physical and internet surveillance of the UK and Australia | are a model to which to look forward. | abraae wrote: | > I don't think you'll find many takers here for the idea | that the physical and internet surveillance of the UK and | Australia are a model to which to look forward. | | Given the binary choice I would rather have the | surveillance instead of the outrage-driven anti-science | hordes that have been empowered by those US gifts to | society Facebook and Twitter. | anthk wrote: | >have been empowered by those US gifts to society | Facebook and Twitter. | | Hope you are kidding to us... | | FB and Twtr are huge turds full of anti-science mobs | composed anti-vaxxers sharing fake news everywhere. | | There is more science in all the IRC and Usenet subnets | today than in the whole FB network... | stevenicr wrote: | Not a fan of binary choices myself, I'd like to consider | these options: | | 1 - everyone believes every single thing they see on fbk | feed. 2 - everyone is well versed in how to highlight, | one-click / tap search ggle,ddg, bing - for more info | about highlighted thing (taught how to determine what a | good source is). | | See, the first way can work mostly, but many problems | emerge in short while. The second way empowers people to | think before acting and to learn more and not buy what X | is selling automatically. | | (I have witnessed first hand the damage done by 'fact | checking' on fbook - people 100 believe a false post | because fbk has not labled it as misinfo - for three | days) | mikepurvis wrote: | Oh I know. I'm being downvoted to oblivion already-- | that's the reality of HN being US-centric (I'm Canadian). | | But my point is less about taking a stand on any of one | of those issues and more just that US-based advocates | making slippery-slope arguments often resort to wide-eyed | speculation about the future rather than evidence because | they're unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge what the | realities are elsewhere in the world. | namdnay wrote: | To play devils advocate for a bit, London is an | incredibly safe city at night compared to say Paris or | Rome or Madrid or Amsterdam. I'm pretty sure part of that | is down to the staggering amount of cameras | anthk wrote: | How is Madrid unsafe? Have you even been there? | | As if London didn't have its own and huge pack of | chavs... | Stupulous wrote: | Personally, I find Australian censorship and UK | surveillance have already crossed the line. I'm not | convinced that censorship ever has benefits, so any cost | seems too much. Surveillance helps catch more criminals, | but the US hardly has a problem finding people to put | behind bars. | | I don't hate Australian gun control- it is a little | overzealous but within reason imo. I'm not someone who | values gun ownership, so others might disagree. In the UK, | however, | https://twitter.com/mayoroflondon/status/982906526334668800 | is a line crossed for me. | | Even if there is a slippery slope that just ends at those | levels, I think we should be fighting it. And it's not | clear to me whether the slope does actually stop there, and | that the UK and Australia aren't still sliding. | barrkel wrote: | What happens in practice, is that police stop | investigating most crimes where there isn't good CCTV | coverage. The cost-benefit tradeoff is much more | favourable in surveillance conditions. After a while, the | public learns that if they want the police to do | something about thefts and robbery, they need to support | more cameras. | | (Victim of one motorbike-jacking, one attempted motorbike | jacking and 5 separate motorcycle thefts in London.) | joek1301 wrote: | I think Scott Alexander's piece on slippery slopes and | Schelling fences [1] does a nice job delineating between | good- and bad-faith slippery slope arguments. | | "Slippery slopes legitimately exist wherever a policy not | only affects the world directly, but affects people's | willingness or ability to oppose future policies." | | [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kbm6QnJv9dgWsPHQP/schelli | ng-... | wyager wrote: | It's not a fallacy at all under Bayesian reasoning; it's a | very powerful heuristic. | unbalancedevh wrote: | > Slippery slope is also a fallacy if you take one instance | of a trend and then logically project it to an absurd | extreme, but this is not what we're doing here. We're simply | looking at the next obvious, logical, well-evidenced step, | with plenty of people who obviously want this even if they | are a bit too discreet to come right out and say it in | public. | | What makes it easy to oversell as a fallacy is that | everything you described that defines it is subjective, and | easily argued about. People disagree a lot on what's "absurd" | or "obvious" or "well-evidenced." | ShrigmaMale wrote: | Ahh yes, the slippery slope fallacy fallacy: assuming that | all slippery slope arguments are fallacious. | | https://twitter.com/vitalikbuterin/status/987274961659232256. | .. | godelski wrote: | > assuming that all slippery slope arguments are | fallacious. | | They literally stated when it is and isn't a fallacy with | differentiating conditions... | voltaireodactyl wrote: | > Slippery slope fallacy _fallacy_ | | I believe the poster you're responding to is making a | joke. | godelski wrote: | Ops. Sometimes those things don't come across as well | over text. My mistake. | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: | "Slippery slope" is so overused that we forget the original | analogy. It needs to have a pressure in one direction and | very little to resist that pressure. That is, it has to have | a slope and that slope has to be slippery. | | In this particular case, it's a slipper slope on which we | already have a ton of momentum. | kordlessagain wrote: | Political leaders feel compelled to provide a "service" in | which they "solve" societal problems. Not all problems can be | solved across the board, however, so what happens is a | sideways motion into violations of privacy in exchange for a | visible "difference" in handling illegal behavior which was | previously beyond the reach of law enforcement. | | This fallacy is a direct result of the technologies developed | and discussed here, so we're all culpable for what has been | already laid down. Maybe keeping this in mind with AI will | help, but given corporate stakeholders, probably not. | visualradio wrote: | Getting rid of patents would probably help. | | With stuff like phones there's probably plenty of options | for mass production of open source hardware modules | purchasable from electronic hobbyist stores anonymously | with cash which would allow anyone to build their own | personal communicator with radio, SIM, wifi, quantum, etc | modules. | | The issue is that competitive mass production of many | independent compatible modules would required a public | description of an applied system that everyone can debate | and discuss and agree to on technical merits, but people | self-censor and don't want to share ideas for such applied | systems online because they think some monopolist is going | to patent everything in order to arbitrarily halt | development for 20 years. | | In order to achieve such a cultural shift it might be | necessary to reform the religions. | squarefoot wrote: | > Right now it is effectively impossible for a consumer to buy | a TV that doesn't include a computer capable of this. | | Digital Signage Displays come to the rescue, although they cost | more and some are starting to put Android inside, which however | can be kept offline as the device would work merely as a | display. The upside is that they're designed to work 18/7 to | 24/7 and won't easily break like cheaper Smart TVs; setting up | a wall of screens in a mall can be a real pain in the ass if | every month some guy needs to climb up there and swap the one | that died because of bad capacitors etc. That stuff must last | or it becomes a huge waste of money. | | Then the necessary tuner can be either bought stand alone (and | kept unconnected), or enclosed in a Linux/Kodi mini-PC in the | form of a cheap USB dongle. | https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/DVB-T2_USB_Devices | | The result can be bulky and probably Grandpa wouldn't welcome | it, but for technical inclined users, the level of freedom and | security that can be achieved is worth the effort. | paulcarroty wrote: | > How long until media players and display devices are hashing | all of our media to check for copyright violations. | | Heard Sony TVs doing it right NOW. | miketery wrote: | Why do you hate slippery slope arguments? They tend to be | right. It's why we have the saying - the road to hell is paved | with good intentions. | | Edit: rather than "tend to be right", I should have said can be | right given the right argument and evidence. | umvi wrote: | The problem is that one man's hell is another man's paradise. | | Gun-free America, strong covid public health policies, "hate | speech", device surveillance, etc ... you name the slippery | slope and you'll find at the bottom of the slope that it's | hell for some people and paradise for others. Some people | prefer highly authoritarian governments that manage (and | minimize) life risk and others prefer hands off governments | with self-managed risk. | coding123 wrote: | The GOOD news is that there is no One World Government, so | people are able to buy their transfer to another country to | better fit their definition of paradise. | _jal wrote: | For the vast bulk of people, you may as well suggest they | move to a different planet. | | The even worse problem with this line of thought is the | econ-101 conclusion - that they must be OK with things if | they don't demonstrate otherwise by voting with their | feet. (Not ascribing that assertion to the parent.) | tobmlt wrote: | Yep. You've found one of the true purposes of immigration | law. As with barriers to free competition among employers | in the market for employees acting to suppress wages to | benefit companies, so with nation states in their control | of citizens immigration allowing for higher repression | and exploitation of various forms. | randompwd wrote: | As a native English speaker, I'm having a lot of trouble | parsing your comment. | Sebb767 wrote: | The BAD news is that there are so many government options | that it will be hard to find a country that will fit you | perfectly and some countries tend to overreach their | borders very far so that you cannot escape their tyranny | even if you move. The WORSE news is that even if they're | able to find a country that fits them better, they still | need to invest a lot of money and time to move (if they | get in at all) and leave their family, friends and home | behind. | | Seriously, moving to a different country is hardly an | option. In nearly all cases, fighting to keep your | country good is your best bet. | kook_throwaway wrote: | We might not have a world government on paper, but | governments around the world tend to be largely on the | same page. Those that aren't following the lead of the | world hegemony have an unfortunate tendency to get | invaded, have uprisings of dubious origins, or other | inconveniences like assassination[1]. Considering how | long that list is, I don't think it's unfair to assume | there's many more subtle instances where foreign | governments decided to cooperate that we don't even know | about. | | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involve | ment_in... | anthk wrote: | You can choose gun control, universal healthcare and fight | device surveillance. | | You know, that's called... Europe. | josephcsible wrote: | Europe's privacy protections only seem to apply to | companies. Their governments seem to be perfectly happy | with invading your privacy as long as they're the ones | doing it. | sunshineforever wrote: | Authoritarianism doesn't only swing in the liberal | direction. Until the last generation most authoritarian | policies were of the conservative sort. | | And with regards to this specific debate, being tough on | crime and (largely unnecessary conspiracy level) fear over | pedophilia are both conservative darlings. | | The 2nd amendment has typically been the only love of | conservatives. | | Where were they when the police illegally searched us in | dozens of ways, or when free speech was limited to easy to | ignore "free speech zones"? | | They've only clamoured to defend free speech once the right | to freely abuse weaker social classes was at risk of being | taken away. | gotoeleven wrote: | What's at risk of being taken away is the right of weaker | groups to abuse stronger ones, at least to some degree. | | Stronger ones always have and always will abuse weaker | ones. It's pretty much a tautology. Freedom of speech and | classical liberalism in general is the only defense the | weak have. | enlyth wrote: | It is coming, and there is nothing we can do about it. | | There's a chilling feeling watching this all unfold, as our | freedoms get taken away and we're powerless to do anything | other than complain on a programming themed social media | website. | | We'll be labelled as conspiracy theorists, wackos, nutjobs, | unintegratable people. | | That meme you shared with your friend in a private chat? Sorry, | was a bit too anti-establishment for our tastes. | majormajor wrote: | Display devices do this, but for advertising targeting, not | copyright violation right now. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognition | | Detecting copyright violation would need some sort of license | info side channel so your TV knew what subscriptions, what | digital copies, what BluRays, etc, you owned. Fortunately | that's basically an impossible thing to wrangle currently, but | if things like Blu-Rays go away it starts to be more feasible | ("Oh, you're watching this show in 8K? Please connect your | Netflix account to verify your access.") | | Once the technical capability is there, how can we best stop | it? That's where I don't have good answers. | | Possibly the only thing unique about what Apple is doing is | that they _announced it._ | jrumbut wrote: | > Detecting copyright violation would need some sort of | license info side channel so your TV knew what subscriptions, | what digital copies, what BluRays, etc, you owned. | | An anti-piracy scheme that respected legitimate use would | need this. History suggests that breaking existing media so | that you have to buy (or rent) new copies of the same content | over and over may be seen as a feature rather than a bug. | tomxor wrote: | > slippery slope arguments | | There is a stronger 2nd argument, but it's buried towards the | end: | | > Now imagine an Internet of Snitches doing it badly. It's easy | if you try. Some vendors already do a bad job of keeping | customer data private and will continue that track record, so | you can expect public leaks of databases that have flagged | suspected criminals. Other vendors will write bad machine | learning algorithms (or biased ones) leading to false positives | and ruined lives. | | No slippery slope is needed, CSAM alone is extremely sensitive, | a false accusation is ruinous... if automated client side CSAM | scanning becomes a wide spread practice with Apple leading the | way, it will be an "AI" of the flies... Apple has also | demonstrated that it's willing to use ML as an unquestionable | source of truth before with it's in store security, using | facial recognition which is blatantly wrong to prosecute the | innocent. | howaboutnope wrote: | > If we forget, no other forgetting will ever happen. | Everything will be remembered. Everything you read, all through | life, everything you listened to, everything you watched, | everything you searched for. | | -- Eben Moglen, https://benjamin.sonntag.fr/en/2012/moglen-at- | republica-free... | javagram wrote: | This has already been happening since 2012, just for blu ray | players so far rather than within the TV itself: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia | dec0dedab0de wrote: | I think the only reason we haven't seen the MPAA/RIAA suing | people already, is the backlash from the crazy p2p lawsuits a | while ago. | | Just search HN for TV, and you'll see plenty of companies | uploading screen shots and file lists and who knows what else. | | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... | Lammy wrote: | Sadly the "display devices" ship sailed a long time ago. Smart | TVs were phoning this stuff home way back in 2013: | https://doctorbeet.blogspot.com/2013/11/lg-smart-tvs-logging... | | Of course that was just file names and TV tuner/input metadata | like channel numbers, not even MusicBrainz/Shazam-style | fingerprinting like they would probably be capable of these | days with beefier SoCs and more widespread always-on | connectivity. Files-on-USB are no longer "en vogue" anyway with | everyone and everything moving to streaming services where the | surveillance is built right in by definition. Every time I | watch something on Netflix/Hulu/Disney they're watching me | right back even if it's ostensibly for my benefit e.g. for more | accurate recommendations. | rblatz wrote: | No, they 100% have services that buy data from SmartTV | manufacturers like Vizio and sells this data to advertisers | to help track attribution and campaign effectiveness. | | A big one is iSpot.tv, the TV will use a fingerprint of your | commercial and determine when/where it was watched, and help | you tie back the attribution of a customer that visited your | site. | coding123 wrote: | Well, the good news is that the vast majority of those | monitors and TVs need a WIFI connection, which is optional to | set up. However, unfortunately, we're on the cusp of devices | having their own permanent mobile phone network connection. | Rozzie can confirm. | alpaca128 wrote: | All they need is flip a few bytes in the software and all | newly sold screens only work if they're registered with an | active, unbanned and non-anonymous account and were online | in the last 12 hours. | | And then you won't just get randomly banned from Facebook | or Google with no human support staff to talk to, you'll | also lose access to half your media devices. This is | already true for Oculus/Facebook (and probably some | others). | umvi wrote: | > What happens when governments start distributing lists of | hashes belonging to "subversive" material | | Soon for any device containing a computer: "We are just | including this hash check feature so we can do business with | China, don't worry it'll be disabled by default for western | countries" | guerrilla wrote: | > How long until media players and display devices are hashing | all of our media to check for copyright violations. Right now | it is effectively impossible for a consumer to buy a TV that | doesn't include a computer capable of this. | | Not my area, but wasn't this part of the point of HDMI... So, | the slope seems slippery and pretty vertical to me | armSixtyFour wrote: | It's right to be critical of the slippery slope argument, | except that you can take a look at history and see how even in | western governments in "free" societies have spied on those who | challenge the status quo. I think we're right to be skeptical | of surveillance as there is a proven track record of this kind | of behavior from governments and corporations. | | Take a look at a law that's being proposed in Canada right now. | It includes allowing the government to request take downs for a | broad number of reasons including otherwise legal speech that | they consider to be offensive, data retention, what essentially | amounts to a national firewall etc. | | Cory Doctorow, who is from Canada originally, has a good write | up on it: https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/11/the-canada- | variant/#no-ca... | zepto wrote: | Governments already are. The question is what safeguards you | have against _your own_ government doing this. | | If we weren't worried about government overreach, we wouldn't | be worried about CSAM scanning. | | In another thread someone suggested that the 4th Amendment | might be a protection in the US. I am doubtful about this, but | I am interested in what actual law might help. Breaking up | large companies doesn't seem likely to protect us from the | government. | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: | As this blocklist issue gains increased contemplation lets not | forget that this is a "new feature". Lets consider the silent | remote access subterfuge that has become known as "software | updates". | | Therefore, as the hardware vendor installed local blocklist is | a "new feature", 1. it does not apply to older computers, | particularly ones that are not remotely acessible by others to | install their opaque "updates" and 2. on newer computers these | lists can only be dynamic if the owner allows "software | updates". | | The moral of the story is (a) not all "new features" are ones | the computer owner may want, and (b) older computers have | value, if only becoause they lack the bad stuff that greedy, | manipulative, overreaching "tech companies" are building into | new ones. | | There is nothing wrong with updates so long as they are | granular1, transparent and optional2. It is the owner's | computer and the owner has a license to the software installed | on it at the time of purchase. Any party wishing to install new | software on the owner's computers should need the owner's | permission. Owners should have a reasonable option to deny such | permission and to review and install updates themselves, or to | reject individual proposed "new features". | | 1 Here "granular" means avoiding a situation where the user has | to install a feature that she does not want in order to get a | feature she does want. | | 2 Manual installation of updates should always be possible. | fidesomnes wrote: | How long ago were you born to not realize this is already the | case for almost everything you already use? | noja wrote: | Your Smart TV is already doing this to sell targeted adverts | aimed at you based on what you watch. | meowster wrote: | A friendly reminder/suggestion to people looking for a TV: | | Sceptre makes consumer 4K "dumb" TVs upto 75". Walmart sells | them. | sunshineforever wrote: | Thank you so much! | | I remember reddit being stumped by this question years ago. | memco wrote: | I heard in some other HN thread that the quality isn't that | great on these. Was that an issue for you? I looked into | NEC monitors, but they're a bit pricey. Does anyone know of | other options? | bitwize wrote: | I bought a Sceptre TV. Quality seems fine, but I'm no | videophile. It could be that when displaying certain | shades of blue, the display is four or five nits dimmer | than spec, but I wouldn't know if it was. | meowster wrote: | I don't own one, sorry :-/ | wheybags wrote: | That's not even a slippery slope, the ps3 already did that | (refused to play video files of Sony pictures movies) | 2III7 wrote: | Got any more info on that? I don't recall the PS3 refusing to | play movies. | fabianhjr wrote: | > Right now it is effectively impossible for a consumer to buy | a TV that doesn't include a computer capable of this. | | I buy monitors or projectors, no TVs for me. | LanceH wrote: | It would be criminal to drop spyware onto a product sold by an | individual to a company. | ohiovr wrote: | 5,000 page long EULAs make it possible. | nyx-aiur wrote: | The only thing I see is everyone giving snooping for | "advertising" a free ride while crying about the same technology | working against CSAM, scams and malware. I don't get it stop | complaining about stuff when you only complain about it when it | hurts your bottom line. | npilk wrote: | Something the whole Apple kerfluffle has revealed to me is how | many services were _already_ scanning for CSAM in the cloud and | reporting to authorities. E.g. Google, Facebook, Microsoft. I | consider myself tech-literate and had not known about this. | | Are there other types of material or kinds of activity that cloud | services might already be scanning for, but might not have much | public awareness? | judge2020 wrote: | I guess you could consider Paypal/Venmo which scan for words: | https://slate.com/technology/2020/02/paypal-venmo-iran-syria... | | Another is that Google Photos and Facebook both do | classification for objects and text within photos - eg. a | Kohl's ad in my timeline on Facebook has image alt text of "May | be an image of 1 person, standing, footwear and outdoors". I'm | sure their detections look for TOS breaking content or other | pictures showing illegal activities. | sunshineforever wrote: | What the heck is "little women bootleg dvd" doing on there? | | CP? | bitwize wrote: | A film adaptation of _Little Women_ by Louisa May Alcott | was released a few years ago. | judge2020 wrote: | Not sure why the author thought that would be flagged - | it's in the "not flagged" list of phrases. I can't find any | other reference to it either. | truffdog wrote: | I think everyone who allows users to upload images and is | medium sized or larger has to- you really don't want to be | hosting CSAM, for legal and moral reasons. | rootusrootus wrote: | I have to give Apple credit for unintentionally making this a | well-known topic. Suddenly people are realizing that their | content is being scanned constantly. Now they care. | blisterpeanuts wrote: | Interesting take on the situation. It's even possible that | Apple did this deliberately to get people talking about | privacy. | | Child porn is an odd hill to die on. Of course pedophiles and | purveyors of child porn need to be locked away; no one | disagrees with that. | | But to pull this out of seemingly nowhere, and inform all 300m | iPhone users (plus however other millions use iCloud on Macs) | that they must submit to a search, because we are all suddenly | suspects... this is beyond the pale. | | Like others, I have baby pictures and kid pictures. I'm | thinking about a couple of pics my wife took of our 18-month | old, in the bathtub with her equally young cousins. I am | wondering whether these pictures might get flagged in some way. | Apple claims that they are only looking for known pictures | already in a particular database, but that is cold comfort. If | somehow one of my pictures pops up because of an A.I. decision, | and a human decides it qualifies as child porn, my life is | ruined. | | As a side note, I was planning to upgrade later this year from | a Samsung to the latest iPhone. That plan is now on hold | pending review. | | In fact I'm suddenly much more interested in the Librem phone, | purveyed by the author of the article. As I recall, it's about | $2000 USD so I had really not considered it seriously in the | past. Now I am considering it seriously. I hope a whole family | of new Linux-based smartphones can jump into this market and | take advantage of the situation. | | It'll be interesting to see how things shake out. Will this | move by Apple go down in history as a textbook example of | shooting oneself in the foot? Or will the masses simply grunt, | and accept the inevitable? | Popegaf wrote: | How many do care though? The vast majority has swallowed | whichever pills were laid in front of them and fully believe | the "I have nothing to hide" message. | | It's not hopeless, the people with money here should be putting | it where their mouth it and actually buying things or donating | to projects that make a positive change. | hypothesis wrote: | There is hope. Shock to the system is how one disabused of | trusting to benevolent companies. | | Instead of upgrading to next iDevices, I ended up getting a | much cheaper de-googled device and will split the different | by donating to privacy advocacy organizations. A bit harder | for other family members, but I did that before by converting | everyone to a Linux laptops. | protoman3000 wrote: | How come ubiquitous swarms of camera-equipped private and | governmental drones are not a reality yet? I'd assume technology | is far enough to make this happen. | hypothesis wrote: | There is no need for them to be ubiquitous, just a few large | drones will do. | | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare | md_ wrote: | I'm reminded of Moxie Marlinspike's comment about emails that | come with a PGP signature. | ghoward wrote: | Can you give me a link? I would like to read his comments. | md_ wrote: | Oh, I was just joking about the author's prominent pgp key: | https://moxie.org/2015/02/24/gpg-and-me.html. | neolog wrote: | "Snitches" makes it sound like I'm doing something wrong that my | devices reported me for. In fact, they're spying on everything I | do. | [deleted] | dotcommand wrote: | The title reminded me of an intro to one of packt's books. | | "At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses | very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our | works in any form on the internet, please provide us with the | location address or website name immediately so that we can | pursue a remedy." | | They want their readers to be the their personal snitches online. | What a crazy world we are headed towards. | renewiltord wrote: | I think I would be content with the panopticon if it were All Can | See All. That way I know there is no selective enforcement. That | way I know that if a law is overly restrictive I can apply it to | the guys making the law too. | | Actually, no, I'm not okay with that but I'm okayer than with | others can watch me and I can't watch anyone. | sailorganymede wrote: | It'll be interesting to see if there's a market for "dumb" | technology. I still use my iPod Shuffle because it doesn't buzz | when I'm listening to music while working. I can imagine regular | HD TVs that are not "smart" could become popular again. | maerF0x0 wrote: | > Your voice assistant could use machine learning to ... | | At least the owner of "Happy birthday" would start to get their | rightful royalties each time we sing that god awful song. /s | blisterpeanuts wrote: | You make a good point, but your example is out of date; "Happy | Birthday To You" melody was recently found to be copied from an | earlier composition "Good Morning To You" and the copyright is | therefore invalidated. Decades of royalties for a stolen song! | sunshineforever wrote: | "You should have control over your own computers. Your phone | should be your castle. True control means controlling your | hardware and software. It means picking hardware that doesn't | depend on absolute trust in a vendor for its security, but gives | you control over your own security so you don't have to ask the | vendor's permission to use the computer how you wish. It means | using a free operating system that lets you install whatever | software you want and remove any software you don't." | | Has this ever been the case even since the _very beginning_ of | smartphones? | joe_the_user wrote: | No, smartphones have historically been under the control of the | phone operators. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be true. | I'm looking forward to getting a Linux I control and which | provides strong protections. | ohiovr wrote: | iDevices = spy devices | spicybright wrote: | eyeDevices | masterof0 wrote: | What is the alternative? Android phones aren't any better. A | 2000 dollar phone that barely works? Besides custom open source | android ROMs, I don't see any other way. | ohiovr wrote: | There is no alternative. Eventually Colossus and Guardian | will have full control of everything. | linuxhansl wrote: | That is exactly why: | | 1. I only run Linux where possible, and I install myself (and I | realize I do not control the BIOS, etc). OpenBSD would probably | be even better. | | 2. I assume that Google knows everything that is going on my | Android phone, Apple knows everything on any Apple device, and | Microsoft know everything going on on my son's gaming PC. | | This is a dangerous trajectory and we'll hear "But think of the | children!" or the good old "If you have nothing to hide you have | nothing to fear." ad nauseam. | | We've been over the fallacy of these statements already, so I | will just quote Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up | essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve | neither Liberty nor Safety." (Although apparently the original | context of that quote was not about Liberty at all.) | zamalek wrote: | > But think of the children! | | This also goes both ways: there are children with phones, in | terms of reality, not morality. These children are being spied | on. | | That's what people don't get about these backdoors and | sidedoors (?). There is no way to guarantee that a malicious | actor hasn't gained control or knowledge of them. | rootusrootus wrote: | It was never going to be as simple as all or nothing. We have | to define where to draw the line, and not everyone will agree | on where the line should be. So this is a good conversation to | have, and "do nothing" is not an answer most people will | actually agree on. | User23 wrote: | And, perhaps more to the point, with what exactly will said | line be drawn? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-08-12 23:00 UTC)