[Cryptography] "Most Americans Don't Mind Being on Candid Camera"

[ianG]

On 25/03/2015 21:31 pm, grarpamp wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 12:02 AM, Ray Dillinger <bear at sonic.net> wrote:
>> Privacy as we knew it is a memory.
>
> No. this memory... this privacy... is in part defined by what was input and
> remains in the brain memory of the individual.


Correct.  And what you might be missing here is that your brain and mine 
and everyone else's on this list is soon going to be replaced by a set 
of brains with different perspectives on the whole mess:  *youth*.

Spend some time with kids.  Teenagers.  The way they use technology is 
radically different to what we expect.  Their expectations are in some 
cases stunningly different and they literally break our assumptions and 
therefore *destroy our security models*.

(And that's just the rich/west/white/wasp sector.  Move a cultural 
barrier or three and it all changes again.  Hell, just cross the 
Atlantic and the other side has a diametrically orthogonal view as to 
who the enemy of privacy is.)

Which is not to say this is good.  Nor bad.  It is, and our task here in 
designing security and cryptography and surveillance and all so forth is 
made much harder because we're also shooting at a moving target.

> You walk through a park
> and on the whole, nothing in particular was ever specifically input, remains
> in, or is recallable from your memory.
> What we have now is an applied technological error against humanity
> occurring faster than the human capacity to process the ramifications.
> Some would say nuclear weapons fall into this same category. It's that
> old carnal visceral human control, power, advantage, destruction, against
> others and innocents thing for which the only real fix is self learning and
> moderation.


I think you're conflating human's visceral reaction to control with the 
technological advances.  They both exist, they interact heavily, but 
they are independent in origin, and neither can be stopped.


> There should be no cameras bulk surveilling public spaces, they
> are offensive to the individual and their memory thus their privacy.


No, they are offensive to our generation, the one brought up on _1984_. 
  The newer generation is a bit vague on it all, they've got snapchat, 
they've been using nyms for 15 years, mobile identity in their pockets, 
crowding and flashmobs, permanent recording of them and their friends, 
boarding, and all that.


> The only one who could have one there is the individual for their own
> purposes... a personal notebook, journalism, research. Not a larger
> corporation or the government against the privacy/memory of any
> individual... they both can do no more than record their own front doors.
> Cameras and databases are an affront to privacy whenever their context
> can be or does switch from seeing blurry anonymous mass, to the individual.
> Watching traffic flows is one thing, watching plates is another.
> Blobby humans moving around vs. doing facialrec on them.
> Yes, every individual in office of the government should be subject
> to surveillance by the public during the course of their duties when
> interacting with other officeholders. LE interacting public should be
> taped under policy of the public as vested authority accountable.
> But people need to get off the idea that if everybody watches everbody
> in one big happy camera pool that all is fair and that that excuses
> individualizable and individualized surveillance.


I don't think it is fair.  Nor an excuse.  I just think it is, it's a 
done deal.  There is no way you or anyone can unwind what technology 
made possible.  Or if there is, I'm interested to hear it, but it 
actually has to be realistic, not foot stomping and harkenings back to a 
more innocent age.


> And most certainly
> in public or databases where there is no individualized interaction,
> or permission of individualized recordee, with the recorder. That's
> incorrect and against humanity.
>
>> "Most Americans Don't Mind Being on Candid Camera"
> [quoting the subject]
>
> Bullshit. Ever walk up to someone and stuff a camera in their face?
> They'll tell you to fuck off and delete that shit, maybe smash
> your camera, and maybe even smash you.


No, that isn't candid camera, that's in your face camera, that's 
paparazzi surveillance.  That's aggression, bordering on assault, a 
completely different issue.

Not so many people mind if they are on candid camera, what they mind 
about is having the ability to control how their image is utilised 
afterwards.


> Same as if you try
> to troll through their purse, wallet, phone, house, car, or computer.


That's invasive.  That's crossing a line, that's entering into your own 
space.

> It's not that they don't mind, it's that humans don't tend to
> actively notice and rage against cameras mounted far away.
> But it does register in their subconscious and builds a silent well
> of rage that will someday explode singularly or in mass. Why?
> Because human DNA is a free range animal, not a caged
> one, and surveillance and databases are a cage. And like
> nukes, humanity is a bit slow to conciously realize those
> kinds of errors. The fact that people around the world are
> even talking about this should tell you that something's
> gone wrong and brakes need applied.


Sure.  People are talking about it.  But what to do?

How do you apply the brakes when you're not in the vehicle?  That's 
completely missing the reality of it - you have a well-funded 100k 
personnel and growing rapidly organisation that is breathing life into 
the starved old physical industrial military complex.  It routinely lies 
to all the regulators of same, in court.

Do you think it cares one jot what you think?  The 'people' think?

About the only thing you can do -- my thoughts only -- is to ring fence 
it.  By applying pressure to all the other agencies around the place 
that are currently, still, beholden to the regulatory structure called 
government.

And that, before it is too late.


>> Several times several thousand counts of murder.
>> Murder isn't political.  It isn't "war" unless it's a
>> dispute between nations.  Random yahoos with some islamic
>> jihad
>
> Terror is a fictional infection of news, politics, and the mind.


Yes - the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

The fact that it is a fiction doesn't stop it being one of the most 
powerful weapons used against own people we've ever seen.


> Rational people would know that, treat it as any crime,
> accept it as the price of freedom, rebuild and move on.
> Instead the world chose 15 years of ongoing irrationality.
> They'll be lucky to ever realize or recover from that error.


It is the world we live in.  Philosophically, we either abandon those 
who don't realise the irrational trap they let themselves get caught in, 
or we defend them.

This same debate has erupted over on OpenPGP.  Who is pgp for?  Is it 
for the masses, or is it for the experts?

What does 'pretty good privacy' mean, really, and who is it?



Strawman proposal:  you can't do both.  You have to pick.



iang