[Aptorian]

I can be your Bottle, Sombra. China is obviously a dangerous government but personally I am all for 100& surveillance. Put a chip on me and plant a camera in my eyeballs. The more the merrier. In a healthy country that stream of information becomes a two way street. What the government sees is what we see.

You may not be able to prevent crime with surveillance but you can track down the baddies more easily afterwards.

[Maark Abbott]

Alternative Goose, on 04 February 2018 - 05:36 PM, said:

I can be your Bottle, Sombra. China is obviously a dangerous government but personally I am all for 100& surveillance. Put a chip on me and plant a camera in my eyeballs. The more the merrier. In a healthy country that stream of information becomes a two way street. What the government sees is what we see.

You may not be able to prevent crime with surveillance but you can track down the baddies more easily afterwards.

Living in the UK I can confirm that about all our extensive CCTV network is good for is making fine money off of people littering. When it comes to actual, tangible crime like robbery and assault, the cameras aren't much help because the perpetrators are 'too blurry on the image'. Unless they're known to police as well it's not feasible to track them.

The idea of surveillance sits ill with me anyway because to be watched it implies that you've done something untoward that has drawn such regard. I don't care for the fact that we seem to be headed towards the setting of Spoilsbury Toast Boy.

[Cause]

Coco with marshmallows, on 04 February 2018 - 05:24 PM, said:

Tsundoku, on 04 February 2018 - 10:30 AM, said:

Does anyone else remember Bottle, the Chinese government mouthpiece who was a member here waaaaaay back in the day? He'll be celebrating.

Yeah, he was an absolute fruitcake. Couldn't accept anything bad being said about China, ever. Was always the fault of the Japanese.

The Japanese have no cultural soul!

I miss that guy actually. And windcaster! Debate used to be more active.

[Morgoth]

Cause, on 07 February 2018 - 11:31 AM, said:

Coco with marshmallows, on 04 February 2018 - 05:24 PM, said:

Tsundoku, on 04 February 2018 - 10:30 AM, said:

Does anyone else remember Bottle, the Chinese government mouthpiece who was a member here waaaaaay back in the day? He'll be celebrating.

Yeah, he was an absolute fruitcake. Couldn't accept anything bad being said about China, ever. Was always the fault of the Japanese.

The Japanese have no cultural soul!

I miss that guy actually. And windcaster! Debate used to be more active.

Gem Windcaster certainly was a character. Arguing that she was the only one here with the capability to keep an open mind because of her bachelor in philosophy, while in the same post stating that the only way she'd believe in evolution was if it was filmed happening in real time.

[Aptorian]

Maark Abbott, on 07 February 2018 - 08:40 AM, said:

Alternative Goose, on 04 February 2018 - 05:36 PM, said:

I can be your Bottle, Sombra. China is obviously a dangerous government but personally I am all for 100& surveillance. Put a chip on me and plant a camera in my eyeballs. The more the merrier. In a healthy country that stream of information becomes a two way street. What the government sees is what we see.

You may not be able to prevent crime with surveillance but you can track down the baddies more easily afterwards.

Living in the UK I can confirm that about all our extensive CCTV network is good for is making fine money off of people littering. When it comes to actual, tangible crime like robbery and assault, the cameras aren't much help because the perpetrators are 'too blurry on the image'. Unless they're known to police as well it's not feasible to track them.

The idea of surveillance sits ill with me anyway because to be watched it implies that you've done something untoward that has drawn such regard. I don't care for the fact that we seem to be headed towards the setting of Spoilsbury Toast Boy.

Well, in regards to the quality of the camera footage, that's just an issue of megapixels and file sizes. By now, you'd assume most stores/governments would just install 50 dollar Go-Pro's and stream the footage to a server. At the technological level we're at now, it's not a matter of the hardware, it's just the budget.

The thing about surveillance is that it's already all around us. Your taxes, your phone records, your bank transactions, your travel cards, your social media activity, your general internet footprint - Everything is being tracked. And that's not a bad thing, despite what people argue. Big Data isn't just facebook selling your life history to political propaganda firms. It's also tons of statistics that helps society gain a better idea about every day life. I'm all for feeding more information into the machinery that runs our information society.

But... of course... Then you have this business with Cambridge Analytica and everything suddenly turns to shit. I just tend to remain optimistic on this whole Big Brother thing.

Anyway, reason why I'm bumping this thread is a discussion I was having with a work mate the other day.

I am worried about the fallout of Russia's meddling in the US election. Right now, the GOP is downplaying it and trying to sweep it under the rug - because it hurts their candidate - but what happens when the card house has crumbled and blame needs to be assigned and scape goats need to be appointed?

I think down the line, the interference with voting could become the 9/11 that destroys Internet Anonymity. It's not just the hacking but also the impersonation of people and the trolling via anonymous accounts. By blaming social media and the lack of awareness about who says what, where and when on the internet, the republicans - who seem to be backing the FCC attempt to destroy freedom of information - could demonize internet anonymity. It wouldn't take much to create a narrative that only enemies of the statete, terrorists and pedophules would use annonymous accounts and VPN's when using the internet. Leading to some kind of "citizen user accounts" and banned anonymity.

From a neutral perspective, I am not entirely against that, I think a form of "Internet Citizenship" is long over due, but it would become worrying considering how aggressive people become on the internet, especially when discussing politics.

This post has been edited by Alternative Goose: 25 March 2018 - 06:16 PM

[Mentalist]

Fuck Big Brother.

The less the government and big business know, the better.

Nothing useful to the individual comes from "consumer" data aspect of Big Data. The "convenience" aspect of targetted advertising is just another insidious manipulation technique designed to part people from their money. The "convenience" part is an incidental side-benefit, not the goal.

Likewise, surveillance as deterrence is ultimately futile, imho. No system is foolproof, and if someone is hell-bent on inflicting damage, they can always find a way. Surveillance is a stopgap measure that's presented as an alternative to addressing the systemic causes of why people decide to commit crimes/acts of terrorism/etc.

Re: public opinion manipulation via Internet. The appropriate response (imho) would be to adopt an attitude of healthy skepticism to internet info and promote a culture of cross-referencing, citing sources, etc. Russian botting to influence public opinion works because people are wired to pay greater attention to a message if a lot of people support it. This is an evolutionary response, one that is becoming obsolete. Rather then foster it and oppress those who try to take advantage of it, we should educate everyone about it, to make it more difficult for everyone (including governments and big business) to manipulate individuals.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 26 March 2018 - 01:31 PM

[Maark Abbott]

There's nothing positive about the big brother method. Surveillance doesn't benefit the common man often, but it benefits the bourgeoisie daily. I can't trust a monitoring system run by governments I can't trust.

[Nicodimas]

I was discussing this about a year ago, it’s great that this can be finally confirmed !

Your phones and how they spy on you:

https://www.activist...biometrics.html

Fascinating stuff really ! I mean you can’t make it up and the implications are endless... could someone just print this stuff off and frame someone ? Could the govt...

( the fact that Facebook allegedly retains and can figure out your medical data is really freaky, leave an email open with medical/finiacially data)

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 19 April 2018 - 05:38 AM

[Maark Abbott]

Nicodimas, on 19 April 2018 - 05:34 AM, said:

you can't make it up

Objection - supposition. Can't click through as I'm at work but literally anything can be made up.

[Mentalist]

Nicodimas, on 19 April 2018 - 05:34 AM, said:

I was discussing this about a year ago, it’s great that this can be finally confirmed !

Your phones and how they spy on you:

https://www.activist...biometrics.html

Fascinating stuff really ! I mean you can’t make it up and the implications are endless... could someone just print this stuff off and frame someone ? Could the govt...

( the fact that Facebook allegedly retains and can figure out your medical data is really freaky, leave an email open with medical/finiacially data)

I think it was the Simpsons that said it many years ago:

"If you've ever handled a penny, the government has a sample of your DNA.

Fucked up world we live in.

Makes me glad about 90% of my photos online have me wearing wraparound sunglasses.