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Comment by outside1234 | Hacker News Reader

We know what it’s like - the question is, how do we, as hackers, stop it?

Since you used "we" and are on HN should I assume a typo?

You probably meant "how do we stop building it?" Which is a bit of an easy question, just stop building surveillance systems.

The hard part is how do we, as hackers, accept that most of our fellows will gladly do this for pay. Because it was fun to pretend they cared and be part of the subculture, but they never actually did.

We're building it, as the society. And we, too - or at least big part of us - want to stop it. Not only stop building it, but also stop that which we, other we, are building.

That's a multipronged task.

nobody said it would be easy, but here are six ideas for stopping the problem.

1. don't work for companies that surveil or support surveillance and don't hire, associate, converse, or lend aid to anyone who has worked for those companies

2. don't work for companies that produce weapons that will be used against civilians and don't hire, associate, converse, or lend aid to anyone who has worked for those companies

3. don't pay taxes to a government that treats you like a prisoner, and don't hire, associate, converse, or lend aid to anyone who has worked for that government in an intelligence organization, surveillance organization, or police organization

4. organize with your neighbors and coworkers to work within the political system to prevent abuses (we have already failed this option in the USA)

5. sabotage internet infrastructure of companies and governments wherever possible

6. revolution

none of these options are palatable, and none should be jumped into rashly. but do not assume that they are not necessary.

I sincerely hope you know this very far fetched to achieve. Some are self-inflicting wounds, and for the most part untenable. And finally some way more harm than good (sabotage and revolution demand heavy prices, larger than the debt you're trying to get out from under).

the beauty of it is that most of the items are easy to achieve. individuals can do steps 1, 2, and most of 3 without investing any actual effort.

step 4 requires some minimal effort, and more people are getting there. finishing step 3 requires the confidence of having enough friends-- which is rapidly approaching for many people, tbqh.

the other steps are for people more serious about making rapid change, and frankly i don't think most people are there yet-- but they would be if they thought they had friends who were. for now, it's step 4.

Labor organization with the express aim of putting an end to Surveillance Capitalism.

Google and Facebook can’t withstand a sustained disruption of their workforce, which is why they spend so much time paying lip service to social issues. They have to create a constant illusion of concern for rights and justice to prevent their employees from actually demanding them.

> Labor organization with the express aim of putting an end to Surveillance Capitalism.

The article is talking about the extensive surveillance of an authoritarian government that heads a planned economy. What does it have to do with capitalism?

Regulatory capture is a dominant force in western capitalism. To the extent that is “planning” the economy, the article could be talking about the US. We certainly have a more extensive surveillance apparatus.

From what I can tell China keeps most of its oppression inside its borders, at least compared to the US.

Look up forced labor in immigrant prisons, or the 1,000,000 current cholera cases in Yemen / estimated 7,000,000 victims of famine coming soon — the US is actively working to expand that humanitarian disaster as you read this.

Also there are 100,000’s of legal immigrants we’re planning to send back to failed economies and war zones. All of that is happening today. If you go back a decade for more context, you can add torturing civilians to death, establishing narco states, etc, etc.

I was going to add “funding terrorism” to my list of past events, but I just remembered we’re actually in the middle of active military strikes that are meant to help Al Qaeda ground forces.

All of these violations of basic human rights were very profitable to campaign donors.

To make it worse, from what I can tell, some members of our congress think it is appropriate to let the president replace the head of the FBI with a yes-man specifically to block an investigation into the president’s ties with organized crime and foreign powers. That will give him some degree of legal impunity, and also control of a massive domestic surveillance apparatus (much of which consists of commercial entities).

How did this happen? Trump hired a foreign-owned company (Cambridge Analytica) to use the tools of surveillance capitalism to squeak through the electoral college with a record-low percentage of the popular vote.

Sorry for the long-winded answer, but that roughly summarizes the state of survelliance capitalism in 2018, and what it has to do with the article.

Thank you.

Agreed. But the hard problem is "How do you sell tech workers on labor organization being necessary".

The whole culture depends on pampering and aggrandizing tech workers as individual heroes for whom collective action would only hold them back. You have to overthrow the entire mainstream worldview about employment in tech before you can get a foothold on that front.

Labor organization is one option, that I think is widely unattractive to this industry.

What about Labor Disorganization. Simply stop working in "the industry". Simply stop accepting ego-stroking emails from recruiters. Simply stop playing their shitty game. Quit, quit, quit.

Stop buying new shit. Pay down your debts. Get away from consumption & move towards genuine ownership of the means of our own production.

Use some fucking bitcoins and stop paying taxes to a corrupt and oppressive regime.

I was just talking about this with a friend on the way home from work today. He mentioned an article[1] about how you could use makeup and weird hairstyles to confuse facial recognition AI and we joked about this becoming an actual near-future (cyberpunk!) style. I was wondering if there was some kind of device that could emit infrared light in all direction that would cause cameras only to see a bright reflection in place of your head but I don't know how actually feasible that is.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/makeu...

One way is working on one of the many internet (re-)decentralization projects, since that is one of their key goals.

We won't. Many of the brightest and best paid of us are busily working at places like Google, building ever more powerful surveillance and analysis machinery to target ads. Of course it will be used for more than that.

speak for yourself. some of us refuse to answer when we are called to serve something we don't believe in-- even if answering the call causes us to miss out on prosperity.

You're not necessarily disagreeing with the parent's first sentence. One can believe we won't "hack" our way out of this problem while also refusing to work for companies developing/leveraging the surveillance infrastructure.

Yeah, that's what I meant. The economic and political incentives for this are gigantic. There's no reason not to collect data if you can.

Combine that with the lucrative pay for the workers and whatever... It's a bit like trying to convince coal miners to stop working because of global warming, but instead make coal mining a very cushy job with 3x the pay.

Most people would do the same as you do, even people working for Facebook and Google. I have friends who work at Monsanto and are absolutely believing they are doing good for the humanity. Look at Agent Orange by Monsanto, I wouldn't think any scientist who worked on it thought it would be used as the something that made thousands of newborn lives to live in hell. They thought you made a herbicide to help the poor farmers, in reality, the government used it as a defoliant chemical in wars, and tens of years later, the real reality turned out to be deformed children. How do we know what happened to Agent Orange won't happen again with sweet corn, GMO, social profiling, facial recognition, voice profiling, etc?

However, if we're afraid to do anything for fear of bad consequences, we could as well do nothing. I don't think that there is any way to know for sure. All we know is that right now, we do see here, a possibility for bad consequences to happen. Real-life situations are not as black and white as a call from Kim Jong Un asking us to nuke the world. We aren't smarter than the guys telling us to use the talents we have to serve their purpose. The only thing I could think of so far is to not depend on their pay or their recognition or personal fame.

I have a family member who was associated with Monsanto and - by extension - the Manhattan Project. It's a fascinating, inspiring, and unsettling part of my family's history. It also reinforces how thoroughly internal narratives are developed to justify actions that may otherwise be against a person's moral code. Further, it reminds me that I can sit here clearheaded and accurately argue that I wouldn't support these companies or their choices - but, then, no one has ever said to me hundreds of thousands are dying in this war. What are you willing to do to stop it?

Those are nice analogies, but what is actually confusing about building gigantic data-mining and surveillance infrastructure, like working at FB and Google? At best it's used to manipulate and sell ads, at worst it gets turned over to the secret police.

Given the work I do at Google and FB doesn't harm other people, then I am doing a very good thing for the world.

1, It makes a lot of money for me, and I'm a happy person

2, I spend the money I earned to buy products and services, contributing to the global economy.

Ah, the old, "it's good because I make money off of it", the argument of scoundrels and thieves.

Yeah I don't think you can.

The only way to resist is to watch the watchers.

Keep a camera/phone on you at all times. Distribute secret cameras near Govt buildings.

> Distribute secret cameras near Govt buildings.

wat?

Ok, doesn't need to be secret. Perhaps better not being secret. It's merely demanding that politicians are subject to the same rules as the general public.

Ideally, the press would do this job as in the link below.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10141790...

Is there a good guide you're aware of for personal surveillance--wearing a camera, audio recorder?

It's a good idea not just for civic pride, but for personal safety and liability--the same reason drivers use dash cams.

You might be interested in a human rights organisation I helped build out of my student house and that now specialises in covert filming for human rights:

"Videre: the secretive group on a mission to film human-rights abuses"

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/videre

"Hidden Cameras Film Injustice in Dangerous Places"

https://www.ted.com/talks/oren_yakobovich_hidden_cameras_tha...

http://www.videreonline.org/

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