The problem with surveillance tech is that even if it was initially implemented with the best intentions by good people that aren’t seeking to abuse it, it can change hands.
Comment on Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 weeks agoThat’s going to be unpopular to say around here, but the truth is that technology is largely amoral.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
Enabling a surveillance state is not amoral.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Your phrasing seems to imply I said it was, but I never said that.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
The technology enables the surveillance state. Therefore the technology is not amoral.
JollyG@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If you are in a discussion about the development and deployment of technology to facilitate a surveillance state, then saying “technology is neutral” is the least interesting thing you could possibly say on the subject.
In a completely abstract, disconnected-from-society-and-current-events sense it is correct to say technology is amoral. But we live in a world where surveillance technology is developed to make it easier for corporations and the state to invade the privacy of individuals. We live in a world where legal rights are being eroded by the use of this technology. We live in a world where this technology is profitable because it helps organizations violate individual rights. If you live in the US, as I do, then you live in a world where federal law enforcement agencies have become completely contemptuous of the law and are literally abducting innocent people off the street. They use the technology under discussion here to help them do that.
That a piece of tech might potentially be used for a not-immoral purpose is completely irrelevant to how it is actually being used in the real world.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
to make it easier for corporations and the state to invade the privacy of individuals.
And that is what we need to focus our messaging on. The evil people and institutions enabling this as those are permanent. Tech comes and goes (and should not be anthropomized). Focusing on the tech just means in institution looks for another path. Focusing on the institution is to block the at the source.
bobs_monkey@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
While the tech may be amoral, its still implemented and utilized by pricks whose goal is control.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yup, and its important to communicate that or we risk losing our voice in the general public and look like Luddites
Feyd@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Just FYI, using the term luddite derogatorily may not be as cool as you think it is. They were essentially an instance of organized labor flexing their power and not really “against technological advancement” like the term gets bandied about.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I am aware, but i am using it in a colloquial sense. And you understood my point; which is exactly how the general public that needs to be swayed will interpret it.
MangoCats@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
The real conundrum is: once you have unique identifiers on vehicles - which pretty much all countries with cars have - where’s the line? Do you require people to visually read the plates and write them down on paper? Who is allowed to keep databases of the information? How do you prevent people from keeping their own private databases? How do you prevent someone from creating a dash-cam app that does GPS/time coded databasing of all plate numbers it observes while driving? If a neighborhood HOA wants to network all their dash (and fixed location) apr-cam information into a central database, when does it become too much to allow? And how do you possibly enforce overstepping of the limits?
Scenario: A HOA has fixed cam automatic plate reader information and video evidence that proves XM3 5D9 was out smashin’ mailboxes on Friday night. The HOA president is cruising downtown Saturday morning and finds XM3 5D9 parked on the street, using his dash mounted apr software, calls the cops (in a vain attempt) to have them come arrest the mailbox smashers who were recorded in close-up 4K high def night vision doing the deed from the window of their car. This feels close to the over-stepping limit, but what if there were no cameras or software involved and the same XM3 5D9 plate ID was used by the same people to make the same accusation of the same mailbox smashers, this time based on telephoto chemical film pictures?
ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
This also ignores the fact that the person in the car the second time XM3 5D9 was spotted is not necessarily the same person in the car the first. So one could easily false accuse.
MangoCats@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
Oh, that’s what the photos / videos are for… but, sure, circumstantial evidence is super basis for harassment of the innocent.