Using GrapheneOS makes you a terrorist now. I'm a terrorist.

Friend of a friend retired several years ago from Intel. He'll go into detail about all the ways you're being spied on. He won't let you into his house with a smartphone; you have to turn it off and leave it in your car.

I used to think he was just paranoid...

or just get on the alternet. If you and your peers care about communicating and you dont feel like doing state witch craft, the easiest thing is to just setup your own opt in systems and not use facebook, etc. run your own IRC server, file share, whatever. self host. it's easier than ever. Don't use discord, run your own communities, etc.

“Chief, we got a citizen here with a suspiciously small online footprint. Investigate further?”

> Unlinking one's identity from one's actions and speech

This is an odd formulation. What is one's identity other than one's actions (physical body) and speech (mental state serialized into language)?

This is paranoid. It is not that hard. HN famously can’t keep people out of here. They make new accounts. It’s not enough to IP ban. It’s impossible to retarget people even without vpn, all I need is a different cell tower.

I interact at various levels of anon all the time, it’s easy just cover your:

-Network (geo/IP)

-Device (useragent, cookies)

-Fingerprints (browser vendor, screen size)

And you’re off to trolling

While this is true, it's not an all-or-nothing game. A little bit of countersurveillance is better than none, even if you're not that savvy. We can win by gradually raising the per capita cost of surveillance until it's infeasible to surveil everybody. Individual digital sovereignty will be achieved eventually, but we won't get there in a single step. Start small and iterate. Even simple things like periodically wiping browser cache or changing the apps you use can meaningfully raise the cost.

[dead]

> What is the point of all of this technology?

It is the over-reaction to 911. The 3-letter agencies were all traumatized by not knowing in advance that they pushed every single anti-privacy initiative possible. Like the PATRIOT ACT which was already written when 911 happened.

The current administration has shown that they use all these recording stuffs in order to persecute their political enemies.

It gets it wrong a lot and is automated. How would you feel about being falsely accused or misunderstood ?

Also, it lays the groundwork to absolutely crush dissent in the future .

Somebody makes a lot of money and generates a lot of power with it.

> What is the point of all of this technology?

When I look at something these days I ask the question "On the whole does this benefit society?"

Society here been scale specific, so local community, wider community, population of my country, population of the world.

I.e. bin policies changes by my local council aren't going to affect someone in Africa and so on.

Depressingly the answer is almost always in aggregate... No.

We seem to be determined to allow the worst of us to make things worse for us to their own benefit.

> influence your thoughts and what you do in the world

it is explicitly meant to do this -- that's the point of marketing and propaganda.

marketing exists to change consumer behavior. what do you think google or facebook intended to do w/ all of the data it's slurping up?

if they could beam a laser at your head to do full on mind control they would, and would auction off timeshare of the lasers to the highest bidder. failing that, they have to use more subtle methods

Thanks, very interesting. Basically the authors blast high-power (~92 dBA) ultrasound around 25kHz and hope that microphone non-linearities will overwhelm the audible signal.

This will sure make all the dogs in 20m radius mad. Hence the solution for the stealth recorder -- bring a dog, then complain about the ultrasound jammer (or at least to be aware of a jammer)

From the paper, it looks like the authors did not consider safety of animals, only human hearing safety.

How would this affect people with cochlear implants?

We need PII to be so toxic that companies run screaming from the liability unless they have explicit consent[1] and a legit reason to house it.

A company selling me widgets wouldn't store or let another company store extra information about me if it subjected them the widget seller to HIPAA. Or better yet, something more stringent.

We don't need the government to be antagonistic toward corporations; we just need a government that makes the corporations internalize the risk they're making us take.

[1] The fact that ToS are enforceable when every court in the country knows that only a vanishly small percentage of people ever read them, much less understand them, means that they're not doing their job.

> we need a government that is antagonistic towards corporations that are abusing us

Please don't. The entire civilized world for all of history and before has been built on the uncomfortable alliance between power/capability and governance/legitimacy. Protection-seeking is the primary support system for tyranny which is happy to induce the chaos they protect you from.

We just need enough negative feedback for any kind of abuse that it stops, because regulations have to be slow to be accurate and thus invite abuse innovation. The main part of that negative feedback is effective competition so people can vote with their feet.

So, ask not for antagonism but for real alternatives.

Pretty difficult when a lot of government people are in it looking for any opportunity to get into bed with private sector for their own individual gain, and when corporations have far more spending power and far less bureaucratic lag than governments. Governments are also just as hungry for data as corporations are.

And if you think a government has any interest in protecting their people, well, that is simply inaccurate in practice.

The government exists to organise and pacify its people, to prevent unpredictable or counter-productive behaviour. Primarily to protect the government from its people.

Regulation doesn't protect people, it protects the government, corporations, or both, in the same way HR protects the company from its employees. The people benefit coincidentally, if at all.

That would be child abuse, as corporations are born out of the state as statutory entities. Corporations used to be chartered to do specific jobs like build a bridge or whatever. Charter max was 20 years. This is why the first and second national banks ran for only 20 years each.

"The bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of modern industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway.

The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. "

but you don't have separation of church and state... thats a poor comparison. religious dogma eats into nearly all public discourse.

It has always been too cheap and easy for corporations to influence the government. The roi is tremendous. It is a problem that makes those hundred year old math proofs that AIs have solved small potatoes.

Corporations are the ones who make money for the government.

The people elect the leaders, and the corporations bankroll the operations. Every time a new hot startup comes about, the government anticipates an army of highly paid (read: top tax bracket) individuals being cultivated.

I wish that I could upvote this twice.

I would be fine with the NSA recording everything I do, if I had access to it as a backup. I think it would be a valuable service a government could perform for me - assuming there were a way to make sure the data was not accessed without my side of the key. I would also think it pretty neat, were I able to use it as a backup over my life, for my own purposes - if I could do it without involving the spooks. Like, let me use the technological spy infrastructure, and if I happen to commit a crime, well then - come on in, inspect my data by all means.

This, I think, is the only circumstance where it is justifiable - but of course, it is not reality. We have absolutely no agency over the activities of Pine Gap, etc.

However, corporations - for some reason - are given a pass.

What the world really needs, is for hackers to get user-facing operating systems which just really do, backup everything. It's okay, you can choose not to use it.

I'd love to have every single phone call I've ever made available, at this point in my life.

It’s not that wild: governments are made of self-serving people, and money from the industry finds its way into their pockets.

I was watching a documentary about the first food regulations in the US today, lobbyists are as old as the state here, good luck getting them out, the entire system was designed by and for them

Huh, almost as if the governments get something out of allowing the companies to abuse us...

I would be fine with the NSA[1] recording everything I do, if I had access to it as a backup.

I think it would be a valuable service a government could perform for me - assuming there were a way to make sure the data was not accessed without my side of the key. Like, it is only after I have been arrested that the data is accessible to the court in which I will have been presented to face accusations of a crime.

I would also think it pretty neat, were I able to use it as a backup over my life, for my own purposes - if I could do it without involving the spooks. Like, let me use the technological spy infrastructure, and if I happen to commit a crime, well then - come on in, inspect my data by all means.

This, I think, is the only circumstance where it is justifiable - but of course, it is not reality. We have absolutely no agency over the activities of Pine Gap, etc.

And there's the corporations who - for some reason - are given a pass. If governments can steal your data, so can Mr. FatCat and his team of merry department heads.

What the world really needs, is for hackers to get user-facing operating systems which just really do, backup everything. It's okay, you can choose not to use it.

I'd love to have every single phone call I've ever made available, at this point in my life, for review. This kind of super-wide view of things would be quite enlightening, I'm pretty sure.

[1] - just for the record, I think the problems that the NSA are trying to solve are obsolete; that there are far greater solutions to fallacies which support the utility of it as an organ of government; I am in the camp that this is a massive human rights issue, also.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Goomba_fallacy

please check this out

I don't think people want this. I think people want the other benefits that those things bring, and increasingly feel that it's impossible to escape being surveilled anyway so do their best to ignore the whole issue.

Being resigned to something is not the same as wanting that thing.

By leveraging mobile network infrastructure – towers, spectrum, antennas, and some hardware – ISAC can detect, locate, and track objects (including passive ones with no electronics). This will enable a wide range of use cases such as UAV airspace monitoring, autonomous vehicle safety, industrial automation, and immersive AR experiences. Commercial deployment is expected alongside 6G rollouts in the 2030 timeframe

https://www.ericsson.com/en/6g/isac

As someone who regularly attempts to give up a cell phone, it is not optional. A not insignificant number of things require it. It is the expectation society is now built around and therefore it is not an option. A car without telemetry is for the time being still optional. I take very good care of my old vehicles hoping I never need a new one.

I have seen enough instances of government authorities abusing their power (or even civilians using the courts against another civilian) to know that the best defense you have in a situation where you are the victim is to have your own recording.

Easiest example is having your own dash cam (don’t know why all auto manufacturers don’t have Tesla style camera recordings, especially given that all new cars come with cameras anyway).

Of course, now that video editing is cheap and difficult to spot, who knows if your evidence will make much of a difference.

The outrage isn't feigned; it just comes from a minority of people. The masses aren't established to "want this"; they may just not care.

There are multiple things we need to acknowledge:

- Consumers largely do not know these things. They are either not disclosed, or buried within a TOS that they cannot read. This is all done on purpose. The reason the TOS is obtuse, long, inaccurate, and updated weekly is so you won't read or understand it.

- In most markets there is no choice. For smartphones you do not have a choice, both Apple and Google do extensive surveillance. If you want to bank, get a job, and all around be successful, you have to swallow the surveillance cost. If you want a new car, again, no choice. If you work a job, again, no choice on the computer or software.

- It is not reasonable to expect consumers to do extensive research on everything they buy. Consumers have lives, children, jobs. They're not going to sit and spend 10+ hours researching every thing they buy, especially when most of that research is fruitless.

- There are tradeoffs with everything. Yes we can use Linux, I sure do. But for other consumers, now they need to spend a lot of time understanding that. Yes we can use Graphene OS, but certain apps won't work.

Traversing life without a cell phone is a fun experiment. Here and there I forget mine and spend a day without the distraction - glorious way to spend time.

> For all the feigned outrage, people want this, and will work hard every day to pay for the next iteration of the surveillance apparatus.

My sad realization is that the Buddhists were right all along. The primary drivers of human mind, before self-purification, are greed, anger, and ignorance. What you are describing here is greed. People want to get useful things for free. This is the core of the problem. If people were, by default, expecting to pay for everything they use, spying on them would not be accepted. Instead, they want stuff for free and they choose to be willfully blind to the spying.

It's hard for me to take this perspective seriously when you describe a cellphone as "entirely optional". Our society is structured around the assumption that you'll have not just a cellphone, but a smartphone. Without acknowledging that, how can we have a realistic discussion? Many businesses require you to use a smartphone in some way. Some government services also require one.

Before cellphones, there were payphones everywhere for people to use when they needed to get into contact. Now there are hardly any left in most countries, so your ability to communicate would actually be worse than in the pre-cellphone era. Sure you could ask someone to use their phone, but if a stranger asked me that these days I would likely refuse.

> Most humans use Meta products regularly; also optional. For all the feigned outrage, people want this, and will work hard every day to pay for the next iteration of the surveillance apparatus.

This is a perfect example of the revealed-preference fallacy. The use of providers like Meta does not reflect a well-informed, freely chosen preference. Meta spends a ton of money to squash competition, remove viable alternatives, and to make their products addictive.

the main solution is the same as with many other problems - education on what's wrong + making the right way as easy as possible

it's easy to fall into complain hole, as that seems to fulfill the 1st part

but 2nd part is as much or even more valuable

People wouldn't want this if they were adequately educated.

5G edge devices already have support for mmWave and beamforming. The ability to track the micromovements of a person’s trachea as they think in words (”internal monologue”) and reconstruct their thoughts from movement data reduces to a software problem: the hardware is there and the algorithms have been established in literature.

Almost every person installs security cameras hoping that one day they will "catch the criminal" unaware that the footage probably is used in all possible ways all the time, yet in case when the crime against them finally happens the footage might not be admitted as a proof.

I don't think they are optional in today's world. There's a lot of places where it would be prohibitive to try to live without a smartphone and what does it even cost to remove telemetry from a car?

6G standard for cell towers is planned to include ISAC (Integrated Sensing and Communication)

Yikes, was not aware of this

For anyone that didn't read that book, I can't recommend it highly enough.

What a wild, victim blaming take.

Zero people want to be surveilled. They want the other benefits that come with technology and reluctantly accept, as a cost, some lower of privacy.

hey i just want to be able to install graphene os on my iphone hardware. if only.

so obama was doing what in 2019? are you an LLM trained in 2023?

This puts me in mind of the infamous GMail Man commercial that Microsoft put out:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oR4jTvxPruw

It's about intention. I don't want someone threatening or evil going through my info but don't mind stuff being public in general, like this comment for example.

i get a little thrill knowing im that important to someone :)

No. Why should I find you repulsive?

You might find something I wrote interesting. Then whatever public info there is on me helps you to get to know me a bit better. You may stop there and forget about me, or you may try to reach out.

There is nothing wrong about that.

I think people's idea of privacy is very simplistic and personal and relies on the disgust of a human peering over your files. Most laypeople don't have the same disgust of machines peering over their personal files that is why the weirdo video recording elicits a negative response but Meta or Alphabet doing it doesn't. Plus the fact that they "depend" on Meta and Alphabet tech makes it easier to give them a pass not unlike fans of [insert your favourite celebrity] who happily look away or justify the celebrity's bad actions.

You've tripped right over the difference though.

Corporations aren't people. They do not and cannot present a personal threat to you.

Even your trailing example falls flat on this: for the activity to be distressing you had to recontextualize it back to the individual level.

One of the few reasons to use iPhone is that it doesn't constantly surveil you. If Apple would just pivot and say "next iPhone will constantly record everything it hears and sees to process for our AI (Apple Intelligence(tm))" a lot of people would drop iPhone.

Apple Watch is just extension of screen and notifications from the phone, so there is no overlap.

AirTags have nothing to do with AI stuff.

AirPods apparently now have some translation stuff, but again no constant monitoring.

Apple does not produce glasses and seeing the backlash to Meta's glasses I don't think they will. A pin or pendant might be more acceptable, although hiding it will be just as big of an issue as with the creepy Meta glasses, but any AI thing Apple makes should be a separate product if they want to maximize profits.

Song lyrics for those curious: https://genius.com/Dire-straits-on-every-street-lyrics

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This is what we should have put on the golden record sent on Voyager so the aliens don't get paywalled when they try to check out our content.

They might be trying to make contact, but they're shadowbanned. Neither party knows the message is being blocked.

We've added that URL to the thread header.

We don't make a gift link the primary URL because we always want that to be the canonical URL for the article. But it's good to have a variety of options for paywall workarounds.

How about Archive Buttons? [0]

I don't know what's going on behind those 5 buttons, but this was the first, and who knows?

[0] https://www.archivebuttons.com/articles?article=https://www....

Don’t click that link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Archive.today_guidan...

copy the original link then go to archive .is then paste the link into the second field than choose any result. not a rocket science. the article is not interesting tbh.

Why does the Atlantic get shade?

Theocrats have not been known to believe in a power higher than themselves. They just believe that you believe.

You don’t need the country to become a dictatorship. Private companies will gladly do the job of surveillance and selling your data.

But also, lower your guard long enough and it might be taken over by any of two or three religious groups that only seem to be growing.

A government with total control over the population can turn into whatever it pleases, whenever it pleases. A catalyzing crisis can always be manufactured.

An autocracy or illiberal democracy is perfectly possible. It's happened to several countries recently. And Russia at this point is a dictatorship.

I do believe people still vote for dictatorship if they think it will fuck over others much harder, then themselves, and "they deserve it".

I’d imagine some people would actually find that useful if they offered a backup and restore feature.

No more “why did I come in this room again?” moments.