
The Panopticon Singularity (2002) - smpetrey
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/old/rant/panopticon-essay.html
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notahacker
How well do these predictions stack up?

DRM obviously existed to an extent at the time, and now millions of people use
locked down mobile OSes as their everyday computer, but to an extent some of
its more intrusive practices have been rendered obsolete by the software
provider taking total control of how, when and to whom software/content is
served via the SaaS model.

Gait analysis is one which obviously has thus far failed to be anything more
than an unreliable supplementary information source with dreadful test
performance even amongst small samples not trying to disguise their walk[1],
it's not widely used outside the clinical context of helping patients to walk,
and given how much other surveillance technologies have improved it's
difficult to imagine it ever being that important.

Is anyone actually doing anything with "celldar"?

[1]see e.g. [https://royalsociety.org/~/media/about-
us/programmes/science...](https://royalsociety.org/~/media/about-
us/programmes/science-and-law/royal-society-forensic-gait-analysis-primer-for-
courts.pdf) is a discussion recommending scepticism about its use as

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jonathankoren
I think looking at this from specific technology predictions is a bit myopic.
Gait analysis is/was simply a technology for identifying and tracking
individuals. The fact that facial recognition won out[0] for this task is
irrelevant.

The more important issue is pervasive mass surveillance that can be leveraged
against you, not just by the state but also by private parties that can be
leveraged by the state.

[0] [https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/12/17110636/china-police-
fac...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/12/17110636/china-police-facial-
recognition-sunglasses-surveillance)

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denom
And as Cambridge Analytica has shown, mass surveillance can be leveraged
against you by private parties for a pittance. There are now vast numbers of
small private entities dabbling in what was the exclusive domain of the state.

