
Surveillance Giants [pdf] - DyslexicAtheist
https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/POL3014042019ENGLISH.PDF
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cmdshiftf4
>The Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which data from 87 million people’s
Facebook profiles were harvested and used to micro-target and manipulate
people for political campaigning purposes, _opened the world’s eyes to the
capabilities such platforms possess to influence people at scale – and the
risk that they could be abused by other actors._

>Ultimately, _it is now evident that the era of self-regulation in the tech
sector is coming to an end: further state-based regulation will be necessary_
, but it is vital that whatever form future regulation of the technology
sector takes, governments follow a human rights-based approach. In the short-
term, there is an immediate need for stronger enforcement of existing
regulation. Governments must take positive steps to reduce the harms of the
surveillance-based business model—to adopt digital public policies that have
the objective of universal access and enjoyment of human rights at their core,
to reduce or eliminate pervasive private surveillance, and _to enact reforms,
including structural ones, sufficient to restore confidence and trust in the
internet._

Note: I only read the executive summary, emphasis above is my own.

We've had the Snowden leaks, Cambridge Analytica, and others in the last
decade which have brought the power, abuses and potential for abuses of
Google, Facebook et al. into the mainstream conversation on a number of
occasions. Brows furred, briefly, but ultimately society decided that it
ultimately didn't care.

Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Google (all products), Android, Oculus, Nest,
etc. etc. are all still soaring on success after success, despite mainstream
society having had their darker sides widely revealed to them.

The facts were laid out, even Colbert broke it down to a level of
"<Facebook/Google> can see your dick pics", society evaluated the situation
and ultimately decided it preferred "free" services, media, content,
algorithm-driven filter bubbles and more _above all else_.

These services are empowered by consumer choices (primarily one of convenience
above all else, there's no shortage of alternatives to these services) and
hence will only change due to changes in consumer choices.

Tech moves too quickly for meaningful regulation, tech companies are powerful
enough to lobby to gut most proposals and they are rich enough to have the
very best of legal counsel to actively utilize loopholes, and defend their
behaviour if/when someone does pull them up on it. The potential upsides for
regulation are minimal, at best. The potential downsides are absolutely
enormous and could readily result in human rights abuses that far exceed data-
driven ad targeting.

One example of the such potential regulations is the current talk about
weakening encryption to "protect the children".

Handing the regulation and well-being of the internet to government's that
change entirely every 4-8 years, and whose priorities change on smaller
timelines, who've been shown to use that internet to commit absolute acts of
abuse as is (Five Eyes et al.) will only end badly. As we've seen with China,
handing it to life-long dictatorships only ends badly also.

If people care, they'll stop using these services and products. Those that
don't accept the consequences they've acknowledged and signed up for. Based on
the outcome, that which is known as the internet will iterate and evolve to
meet whatever the new needs of the consumer are. Let's keep the government out
of it.

------
no_opinions
I view the real issue is the "why" behind the surveillance, rather than the
tool itself. Examples:

\- Consumer-based: Facebook and Google's type of data collection is best
handled through the use of GDPR-like legislation, in USA. It's just a matter
of these tech companies lobbying and watering down the statute so it's
ineffective.

When this conversation gets brought up in congress, I implore everyone to go
to [https://congress.gov](https://congress.gov) and read the actual bill to
make sure it covers everything they claim. Look at it side-by-side with GDPR.
Is it _really_ giving consumers the protections they feel they deserve from
businesses (I guess we can use the term "user")? Politicians are masters at
making bills seem like they handle an issue when they're stripping regulation
and giving a deal to business interests at the expense of natural persons.

Business get bail outs all the time and are very hawkish making sure their
legislation meets their interests. They have lawyers and team up to secure
objectives, no care is given to making sure it's not to the detriment of "us".
Natural persons are quelled by nice little platitudes, that's why reading
bills themselves instead of news articles/tweets is so important.

\- National security in terms of subversion: This is the one that worries me
most because it depends on how national security is defined based on a
countries policies. In China, this entails this Xinjiang and Hong Kong
situation. From their view, they are quelling uprisings, but one could also
intellectually argue HK / Xinjiang / so on should have self-rule and nation
status.

If you want to talk about human rights and surveillance, what liberties do the
people in Xinjiang have? Imagine being born in your ancestral homeland and
find your own culture is being methodically destroyed from foreign oligarch
bureaucrats thousands of miles away. If you were Uighur and born there, how
would you make sense of life?

When people in Xinjiang are being watched closely, the backstory has such
direct implication to people's lives, and what options do they have to leave?
To redress grievances? When does it finally end?

US and UK have a history of giving countries democratic self-rule and a
rolodex of success stories. There will always be surveillance in various ways,
hopefully in the future the backdrop with Xinjiang will be them 1. protecting
their own independent nation and 2. consumer data protection laws? (not to say
East Asia region are privacy sensitive as US/EU, heh)

\- What do people really feel?

Would an independent Xinjiang vote for a GDPR-like consumer regulation? If you
look at Kazakhstan, it doesn't feel like they care about surveillance at all.
It's not fashionable to pretend to care about, a la twitter, people have other
pressures in live to worry about.

On a final note, the few people in US that scoff at surveillance are the same
people who line up to get $1600 smart phones. They don't wait for GDPR laws to
pass before getting a phone, they hit "I agree" to the privacy policies on
tons of apps/websites. I wonder how much it _really_ matters to them. :P It's
not easy to tell what a society feels.

~~~
whinythepooh
> What do people really feel?

They probably feel being stalked. They must be anxious and paranoid.

> On a final note, the few people in US that scoff at surveillance are the
> same people who line up to get $1600 smart phones

Like they have a choice not to have a "smart" phone. Like with dumb-phone they
can avoid cell-tower tracking, voice recording. The people that scoff at
surveillance are an indicator that something is broken. State and corporate
stalking must stop.

~~~
no_opinions
> Like with dumb-phone they can avoid cell-tower tracking

I don't think there's any kind of cell phone that can avoid being
triangulated. I believe it has to do with call routing.

If that mechanism was completely removed, wouldn't there be no way for us to
get phone calls, and calls would drop between towers.

Wouldn't a better way of exploring this be to begin at who is accessing the
data and why? Businesses have a legitimate case to access their own
information to provide a better experience, at the very least.

Also if it's a criminal / national security purpose, what's wrong with the
idea of a big data / hay stack warrant, in certain circumstances? Isn't there
some situations where it'd clearly make sense?

> The people that scoff at surveillance are an indicator that something is
> broken.

While there's probably always a case to improve things, when I read
conversations on data privacy, I feel many don't want to draw nuance into the
technical and legal specifics.

Regardless of society, isn't there always a certain kind of person, due to
their upbringing, feels persecuted, though? Isn't there also a type of person
who just raises a stink out of pure catharsis? Aren't they almost always
ignorant of basics behind the law or technology of what they rant about, often
both?

If it was really a sincere thing, why not go into details: e.g. For instance,
GPS'ing a vehicle. State or federal law? What predicate / proof is needed? Is
there a notification or redress? How long does it last? Any
scoping/minimization? Is it supervised judicially or administratively?

While I think of it, maybe there's a reason these things are kept ambiguous, I
guess in every country: I don't think people want organized criminal
enterprises like mobsters, spies, drug lords, and terrorists gaming the
system.

> State and corporate stalking must stop.

I don't think all government surveillance is the same. In most cases they seek
authorization to access a private businesses data some how.

If someone is a "normal" consumer, a hospital patient, etc. I don't think the
conversation is the same anymore. Wouldn't this be what most normal people
care about?

~~~
whinythepooh
> If someone is a "normal" consumer, a hospital patient, etc. I don't think
> the conversation is the same anymore.

That's the thing. Crime-prevention is a plausible excuse. "Normal" consumer's
data is mass harvested, profiled, stored, and used for social engineering of
some more convenient "normal" consumer. Is there so many mobsters that require
exabytes of data storage
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center)

> Regardless of society, isn't there always a certain kind of person, due to
> their upbringing, feels persecuted, though?

Well there were some precedents of abuse in history. Secondly, people don't
like to be a subject to be ruled. Thirdly, some people are under(d)evolved and
still are primates that fear any powerful entity (leopard) watching them.
Surveillance makes them paranoid and then depressed and then they snap and bad
things happen.

~~~
no_opinions
> Well there were some precedents of abuse in history.

And in the case of Xinjiang is right now, unfortunately!

> Surveillance makes them paranoid and then depressed and then they snap and
> bad things happen.

Two points / ways I can take that:

\- Big picture: In Eastern Europe, the turning point was more more complicated
than that. Many informants / surveillance - but they were ancillary -
antagonists being monitored were eclipsed by legitimate beef with how they
were getting treated day to day. There were strikes, austerity things, and the
security apparatus clamping down harder was probably one of the last straws.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution)

The other thing worth mentioning is how the government monitored and disrupted
strikes in workplaces, which presents an impossible situation to employees. In
USA there are rules around that: [https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-
protect/whats-law/employers/i...](https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-
protect/whats-law/employers/interfering-employee-rights-section-7-8a1). In
this instance coworkers, eventually will talk to each other, and this
situation is so much more direct and practical rather than a vague
thoughtcrime thing

\- Individuals: There are people who develop schizophrenia, very rarely will
they be violent. That process begins partly due to biology and partly due to
trauma during childhood, and sometimes involves substance abuse. They are
super, super sensitive and associate conspiracies to objects, people, and
events. They attract attention to themselves, and the thing just feeds itself.

Persecution is a recurring theme (it's not that people are oh so nice! the
world is bad and spiteful), and it commonly manifests itself with suspicion of
being watched and followed. Also noteworthy is the intensity attributed to
events, and the compulsion they feel to keep bringing it up. Common is
bringing up sexual fears out of thin air
([https://youtu.be/5LPS7E-0tuA?t=525](https://youtu.be/5LPS7E-0tuA?t=525)),
superego run amok. The sad truth is many were traumatized as children and
further degraded as an adolescent. Not being able to process twisted family
situations makes it extraordinarily hard for them. You wouldn't want to trade
childhoods with them.

Normal people feel distrust, in these cases they're processing information
extremely dysfunctional way. Like people who complain about privacy, they have
an amazing pattern of not understanding technology, laws, and organizational
structure. Everyone is busy and stressed with their own lives and trying to
figure it out (and people are also caring, on the other hand, but they won't
accept that). You'll also notice the common theme of omnipotent
paternal/maternal persons or organizations. There's always an information
deficit, they don't go research or pull documents on a subject.

They feel there's no potential reality for them without a punishing,
omnipotent presence. So they're in hell, no doubt.

