Comment by themafia

Comment by themafia 10 hours ago

38 replies

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> We aren't going to remove the security state

What security state? They aren't doing this for anyone's safety. This is the surveillance and parallel construction state.

> What needs to happen is accountability.

No agency can have this power and remain accountable. Warrants are not an effective tool for managing this. Courts cannot effectively perform oversight after the fact.

> The only way to stop the rampant abuse is to treat data like fire.

You've missed the obvious. You should really go the other direction. Our devices should generate _noise_. Huge crazy amounts of noise. Extraneous data to a level that pollutes the system beyond any utility. They accept all this data without filtering. They should suffer for that choice.

ruszki 10 hours ago

> They aren't doing this for anyone's safety.

Strictly speaking, this is not completely true. When you call an emergency number, it’s very good that they can see exactly where you are. That was how this was sold 15+ years ago. But of course, that’s basically the only use case when this should be available.

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  • krick 7 hours ago

    Yet when I call emergency I must provide my location verbally, and then am usually contacted for a follow-up, because the guys cannot find the place. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that this location technology works perfectly well: just not for the "only use case when this should be available".

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    • mycall 5 hours ago

      It is also useful for emergency services to double check you know the situation at hand and to cooperate with verification SOPs.

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  • VerifiedReports 3 hours ago

    Except apparently they can't. I'm in L.A., a city where resources presumably represent what's available in modern cities, and the first thing I've been asked in any 911 call is "what's your location?"

    This is particularly offensive considering that everyone was forced to replace his phone in the early 2000s to comply with "E-911." Verizon refused to let me activate a StarTAC I bought to replace my original, months before this mandate actually took effect.

    Looking back on it, it was a perfect scam: Congress got paid off to throw a huge bone to everyone except the consumers. We were all forced to buy new phones, and for millions of people that meant renewing service contracts. Telcos win. Phone manufacturers win. Consumers lose.

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  • cpncrunch 7 hours ago

    Should it not be available with a valid court order as well?

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    • Forgeties79 5 hours ago

      Slavery also took advantage of valid court orders. “Because it’s the law” is not enough. Our rights should always be the biased stance.

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    • p-e-w 6 hours ago

      Why? What is the rationale? Unless of course you subscribe to the idea that anything goes as long as a court decrees it, in which case there’s nothing to debate really.

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      • _heimdall 6 hours ago

        Court approved warrants are pretty fundamental to how our legal system works and how some level of accountability is maintained. That system isn't perfect by any stretch, but removing it unlocks Pandoras box and I'm not sure we'd be better off without it.

        As it stands, a cop has to get a warrant to enter and search your home, for example. If we remove that hurdle because we also don't trust the courts then we just have more searches.

        I get the reaction to turn on the whole system, I have very little faith in it myself. But I don't think many people are really aware of or ready for what would come without it.

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      • direwolf20 3 hours ago

        That's how courts work. They have superuser access.

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      • angry_octet 6 hours ago

        A court order is just a hurdle that legislation (or a constitutional provision) dicatates, in the investigation of crime (or prevention of future crime...). The distinction is the rights of the individual vs the rights of other individuals in the dilute sense we call society.

        The problem is that individuals no longer have confidence in their institutions, for both good reasons (official corruption, motivated prosecutors, the dissolution of norms of executive behaviour) and bad ones (propaganda on Fox News, and the long tail of disinformation online).

        The question becomes: how can citizens have confidence their rights will be protected? What structure would protect the right to privacy?

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        • p-e-w 5 hours ago

          The only reliable way to protect rights is to limit power, and the only reliable way to protect fundamental rights is to limit power with absolute prohibitions.

          This was well understood in the decades following WW2, and many countries implemented protections of this kind, only to roll them back again later when people had forgotten why they existed, and believed once more that everything will be fine as long as the “right” actors were in power.

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      • cpncrunch 6 hours ago

        Im a little confused. Do you not believe there should be courts at all?

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TheCraiggers 10 hours ago

> Our devices should generate _noise_. Huge crazy amounts of noise. Extraneous data to a level that pollutes the system beyond any utility. They accept all this data without filtering. They should suffer for that choice.

I like the idea on principle, but I'll like it far less when I'm getting charged with computer fraud or some other over-reaching bullshit law.

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heraldgeezer 8 hours ago

You people are so cynical.

Its simply made for 911 calls.

In the 2G era there was no compute space to just put in extra evil shit for fun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_resource_location_servic...

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  • jmward01 8 hours ago

    This line of argument is common. We use the term 'wiretap' because that is what it was, a physical tap on a physical wire and it took a real person there to do it. Even then it took a warrant to approve it. Wiretap laws were written when the technology made abuse extremely hard and were likely appropriate for the time. Now we live in an age where abuse of millions can be done in a single key-stroke and often doesn't require a warrant or oversight of any kind because the technology has changed and evolved to provide loopholes around the laws. The intent was emergency services but the mass use has been anything but. That is the key point and those that have abused this, weather on behalf of the government or for corporate profit, should be held responsible. We should have laws that criminalize breaking the intent of use in ways that harm individuals. You found a technical system rife for abuse and you use it that way? Go to jail. Pay a fine. It is that simple.

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  • SturgeonsLaw 8 hours ago

    Made for, and used for, are two different things. The article gives an example of Israel slurping down that data constantly to track everyone, and you can bet they aren't the only ones doing that.

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  • themafia 6 hours ago

    > In the 2G era [...]

    ...you could just listen to calls in the clear. Pager traffic was completely unencrypted as well.

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