
What the World Can Learn from Hongkong [video] - HelenePhisher
https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10933-what_the_world_can_learn_from_hongkong
======
imgabe
There is a lesson here about the push for privacy laws. If you can't trust the
government, why trust that they would uphold any law about your privacy?
Privacy has to be established from a technological perspective - strong
encryption, don't put information on the Internet if you don't want it
compromised. Laws require a government that will respect them.

~~~
yummypaint
There has to be a multi-pronged approach. The central prong is organized
public will, without which neither laws nor appropriate tech will be adopted.
Governments may violate people's privacy in spite of laws, but without such
laws governments will absolutely do so with impunity. Visible evidence of a
government breaking its own laws to harm its people draws more citizens to the
fight and helps move regime change forward. That being said, everyone should
still use the strongest encryprion available for all communications, including
boring and unremarkable communication.

~~~
BurningFrog
This posts seems to assume laws and government are separate.

In reality, government makes the laws. They're an expression and codification
of the ruler's will.

~~~
shaki-dora
The quickest way to autocracy is pretending there's no difference between it
and democracy.

This is civics 101: There is no "one ruler". There are parliaments, with
multiple, opposing fractions. Then, there are administrations (te "executive
branch"), which are separate. Then, also separate: the judiciary.

Of course you already knew that, yet you chose to double down on OP's cynical
take declaring democracy dead and asking people to stop trying to save and/or
improve it. Why vote, if law has no power? And, for the odd politician that
happens _not to be corrupt_ : why bother, when your constituents are just
going to spit and yell conspiracy theories in your face, with absolutely no
attention being paid to your actual work?

~~~
tasogare
That may have been true in the past, now it’s one more fiction. The real three
powers are: the rich (which decide laws in the background), the politicians
(gov+parliments that use the existing institutions to push laws decided by the
rich) and the media (that create and drive public opinion and chose the
politicians). The first two classes are not truly separated anymore, and one
may pass from to another (best example is being France’s president Macron).

------
dirtyid
Youtube link:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jobckq4USM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jobckq4USM)

TBH myopic analysis that doesn't acknowledge subsequent protests from around
the world have tried to incorporate HK tactics are getting crushed left and
right. Military intervention, hundreds dead, media and internet black outs, to
the utter indifference of western media or public sentiment. There's a slide
acknowledging other protests at 1:25:30, "If you care any of these things,
then you should care about it in more than one place". But we know this is
demonstrably not true.

Operationally, there's not much to learn except that HK police and the
mainland has been forced to be extremely lenient and permissible (by most
relative standards) due to structural factors like HKs unique geopolitical
position, the geographic strengths of a city state, or other political
constraints that put comprehensive crackdown off the table for HK. The
operational lessons, which this talk is about, will be clearer over the next
few years. I surmise the the government will be able to exploit the massive
data collection on the ground after things settle down. Retaliation will come
in a variety of ways i.e. employment opportunities and other algorithmic
biases. Multinationals in HK are already reluctant to hire locals because it
may jeopardize their operations in the mainland (like Cathay).

~~~
hjkjhwe9084
> _I surmise the the government will be able to exploit the massive data
> collection on the ground after things settle down._

True, the deadliest enemies are invisible.

I bet that at this moment at least 10 universities in mainland China are using
the massive surveillance data being collected (security cameras, phone
location data, ...) to figure out how to track protestors back.

And even if there is no true leader, surely there are a bunch of people who
are more lider-ish than the rest. Some networking analysis, like NSA pioneered
surely can be applied here.

China has the time advantage, Hong Kong is not going anywhere. A brutal
Chinese intervention would be the worse possible mistake for China to make, it
will be hard for the West to ignore that. But keep the policing relatively low
key, and the other countries don't have an in angle.

~~~
magicsmoke
The operational tactics and technological tools China develops by
experimenting on HK are probably going to be packaged and sold to foreign
governments. If HK is pacified successfully, a few years later there'll be
Chinese consultants selling their services around the world, and exhibit A of
their marketing decks will be HK. This could be a massive cash cow that'll
give China a high tech product they could sell that Western democracies can't
or won't develop. In fact, they might even be customers. Imagine being able to
maintain a veneer of democracy while using data analysis and surveillance to
select dangerous individuals to disappear. Or passing laws to restrict the
liberties of citizens secure in the knowledge that the resulting protest
intensities can be predicted and managed.

------
superkuh
I enjoyed the part where all the different types of protestor 'classes' were
explained like it was a video game.

------
elifoxx
can't China gov just watch this and use it against the protesters?

------
unixhero
This talk should also have a Mandarin translation.

~~~
yorwba
Translations are contributed by volunteers:
[https://events.ccc.de/congress/2019/wiki/index.php/Static:Tr...](https://events.ccc.de/congress/2019/wiki/index.php/Static:Translation#As_a_Translation_Angel)

I don't think they usually add translations after the talk, but I guess they
wouldn't outright reject it if someone provided a Mandarin translation.

------
neltnerb
Add note that the actual content is an audio clip.

~~~
yorwba
It's actually a video of the talk. If you only get audio, something's going
wrong on your end.

------
hydgu
Where's this girl from? Intrigued about the accent. Is it a German accent?

~~~
HelenePhisher
Somehow. Her grandfather was from Hongkong but she was born in Germany. As far
as I know she has been living in Asia for a couple of years and studied in
Oxford and at the MIT.

------
archie2
The lesson I learned from Hong Kong is you will never take the 2nd Amendment
from me. Just come and try and take them. Take a cursory glance at what is
going on in VA right now to know what is in store for you if you do.

~~~
hjkjhwe9084
This line of thinking never made sense to me.

How are you going to defend against SWAT teams with whatever guns you have?

Organize a militia? Then how do you defend against the army?

~~~
godelski
We've run this experiment several times and gotten the same result every time.
Hence the forever wars. Hillbillies with guns and IDEs have shown to be pretty
effective against militaries.

~~~
hjkjhwe9084
Against foreign militaries.

Even if you are right, that would imply that the US would enter a protacted
civil war that would impoverish everyone. I have a feeling popular support
would swing away from the millitias very quickly, just how long do you think
millenials will survive without their avocados, yoga classes and fair trade
locally brewed artisanal beer.

~~~
godelski
> Against foreign militaries

I'm not sure why you started with this. Your odds are way better if it's
against your own military, especially in the West. There's going to be a ton
of defectors. Have you met anyone from the South? Those same people who are
extremely anti government are usually vets. This isn't just speculation
either, there's very clear examples.

But something people constantly forget is that you can't rule the dead. People
are a resource. You need them to produce your economy, make your food, tax,
etc. But there's also an argument here on the converse side, to make your
people rich to make your ruling class even richer. But short term thinking...

------
boyadjian
What the world can learn from Hongkong, is that overpopulation kills
democracy. It is the same story, all over the world.

~~~
adrianN
I really don't think that people in Hong Kong get their democracy taken away
because there are too many people on the planet, or in the area around HK. Why
do you believe that overpopulation is the cause?

------
maxdo
It’s in French :(

~~~
atoav
It isn't. There is a German, a French and a English version of the talk online
and the original Audio seems to be in English (note the gear icon on the lower
right corner of the video).

------
1996
that the government is not your friend?

(That I can do even without understanding any German)

~~~
HelenePhisher
The talk was held in English. The website seems to push the wrong audio track
in some cases but you can change that with the little gear icon at the bottom
of the video.

------
incompleteness
If anyone has tips on how to build privacy-preserving social media without
being marked a Nazi, a terrorist, a pedophile or a totally regular suicide I'm
listening.

Edit: I'm totally serious, even Signal barely manages to exist, is blocked
from federating for reasons of the preservation of the developers' personal
safety and has publically been compared to the KKK by FBI officials. It's not
a fun or bright situation but it is how things are right now.

~~~
shaki-dora
Maybe start by not conflating privacy with concerns about censorship.

Then, it'd be great if privacy-focussed platforms would show a commitment to
find privacy- and freedom-preserving ways to tackle the very real problem of
these platforms overflowing with actual, self-marking Nazis.

As an analogy: if the cryptocurrency community can find ways to curb problems
such as scams or the waste of energy with technology, it can avoid the
regulation to that effect it so much fears. But every time some cryptobro
opines that people really deserve to be scammed if they did not go through
each single line of source code their bitcoin wallet depended on, the idea
that these communities are sticking up for some larger values and not feeling
quite ok with scammers and Nazis loses a bit more of its legitimacy.

~~~
rebuilder
It would really be great if privacy and anti-censorship advocates could solve
the problem of extremism! Seems like a bit of a tall order, though.

What you're really proposing, IMO, is this:

Privacy and anti-censorship advocate (PA): I think we're throwing the baby out
with the bathwater when we're trying to curb extremism by requiring messaging
services to police their users. The problem is real, but the methods being
used to address it are completely antithetical to the fundamental principles
of free societies. I want to let people talk to each other on-line without
anyone listening in on them or stopping them from saying whatever they want to
say.

You: OK, you can do that if you can make sure no Nazis can use your service to
further their agenda.

PA: That seems impossible, given the goals I've stated. Furthermore, this is
precisely what I meant with "throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

IOW, I don't think there's a technical solution to be found here. This is a
fundamental ideological divide, and needs to be dealt with as such.

