

The Rise of the Cryptopticon - lermontov
http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/THR_article_2015_Spring_Vaidhyanathan.php

======
bikeshack
Privacy rich vs privacy poor is still a thing these days. I think it will be a
great day when not especially tech savvy individuals can opt into being
privacy rich. What alarms me is how absurdly difficult it is to get
bulletproof opsec for even the most mundane everyday tasks. Somewhere in the
early 2000s smart-phones were still being marketed as phones. Now it's
abundantly clear you own a beacon and a piece of SIGINT-enabled closed-
hardware. This is interesting reading, but throughout the piece, I couldn't
help yell: "Throw out your f __king smartphone then " if you are averse to
spying.

~~~
patcon
> "Throw out your fking smartphone then" if you are averse to spying.

It was like I was reading something I'd written, right up until this last bit.

(Just some thoughts. Not taking a point with or against you here.)

People want normality. Smartphones are normal, and so normal people want them.
I feel strongly that normal people also want privacy, but only enough to say
so and not enough to be inconvenienced or live abnormally. If told that normal
smartphones are incompatible with privacy, they will then start saying things
about not really needing or valuing privacy.

Cognitive dissonance in action.

imho the fix is still to work at making larger chunks of privacy free for
normal people :)

~~~
mirimir
No reasonable person would forgo a smartphone. And indeed, doing so would be
abnormal, and so bad OPSEC. What's crucial, I think, is being present at all
times to the fact of total surveillance. Given that, we can choose sometimes
to put the smartphone in a sound-proof Faraday bag. Or use a VPN and/or Tor.
Or whatever is appropriate to the context.

~~~
happyscrappy
What are the circumstances where normal people would need a soundproof faraday
bag?

~~~
mirimir
Going for an interview over lunch?

------
jewbacca
Note:

"Cryptopticon" (cf. "Panopticon")

not

"Cryptonomicon" (Neal Stephenson novel)

\----

Not that this isn't a valuable and fascinating article (and extremely relevant
to anyone who connected with that novel), but noted for other inattentive
readers who potentially started into it expecting something else.

------
pistle
This piece is a well-built observation; woven from the oft frayed edges of
film and books. Really cool to see someone have moderately concise and clear
thought that binds across the many fields interested in their respective piece
of the larger "issue" facing our current moment.

It's difficult to not share in the author's ambivalence, if not disdain, for
the passing dawn of techno-omniscience.

It's that theme of the opacity of the motivations creating a fear response
that's most interesting. Yes, we are enjoying these things because they are
designed to be enjoyable, free, helpful. But, how is this going to bite me
and/or us in the ass once it's beyond the ability to rein it in?

