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Comment by akersten | Hacker News Reader

If you like this, I have some other innovations that you may be interested in:

* A car that automatically pulls over when a police cruiser attempts to intercept you

* A front door that unlocks when a cop knocks

* A camera that uses AI to detect and prevent the photography of minors, police, and critical infrastructure

* A Smart TV that counts the number of people in your living room to ensure you aren't performing an unauthorized public broadcast of copyrighted content

Surely, at least one of those sounds ridiculous to you. As well-intentioned as this scanning may be, it violates a core principle of privacy and human autonomy. Your own device should not betray you. As technologists, just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.

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No need for hypotheticals, 2020 was a huge win for the police state.

The UK and Israel allowed cops to monitor cell phone locations to crack down on unlawful gatherings in private homes.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/israel-to-trac...

The problem with allowing this is that you’re paving the way for future tyrants to use it against us.

> The problem with allowing this is that you’re paving the way for future tyrants to use it against us.

It's funny how everybody talk about the future. This is happenning now. Remember how a certain german guy took the power some 90 years ago ? He was elected.

Not your point, but: Technically he was Austrian by birth, stateless sind since 1925 and tried at least 7 times to get German citizenship before elected in 1932.

I trust we live in a different world today, but it is concerning to read about mandated vaccines to get a job and mandated contact-tracing in countries such as Germany.

Apps weren't mandated, restaurants and such are required to request you check in, but people didn't always fill them or otherwise filled them with junk (especially after they were abused)

Why does this surprise anybody?

People nowadays voluntarily carry tracking devices. This will not stop getting worse until that behavior is denormalized.

The power to be gained from abusing it is beyond irresistable. Expecting those in power to not abuse it is like expecting a heroin junkie to be a good pharmacist.

> People nowadays voluntarily carry tracking devices

on the strict premise that tracking is exceptional fair use from a law enforcement agency. Do not mix up the voluntary accolites of Zuck and people who want tools. (The use of 'tools' in the sentence is an originally unintended pun. I will keep the term 'accolites', though tempted to replace it for the pun.)

All this feels like it's just matter of time.

The technology is there, now we only need the motivation. If politicians decides that they want it now, they can simply orchestrate a media campaign and have it. The next time an "outrageous" act of crime is conducted, they can make sure that it stays at the media attention and be portrayed as "If we don't act now very bed things will happen", then slide in their solution.

* Cars can automatically pull over by installing a cheap cut fuel cut switch that can be activated by short range radio. In many places people are used to add devices for toll collection anyway. People are also used to pay for regulatory inspections on their vehicles.

* For the old cars, simply connect an NFC reader that unlocks the central lock system of a car by a master key. For the new cars, simply make manufacturers add a police master key.

* Commercial drones are already stopping their users from flying over forbidden areas, simply extend that to smartphones. Smartphones have enough power and sensors to identify forbidden locations and persons. Add NFC kill switch, meaning the police can send a signal to lock down cameras.

* There were reports of Smart TVs that record all the time, simply mandate it to all manufacturers and enforce automated inspection of the recordings.

Uneven application of the law seems crucial to keep the system functioning and technology can erode that. Many simple laws, if enforced thoroughly and without prejudice, would become absolutely draconian. It is not even possible for a human to know all the laws we are meant to follow at all times, yet computers can.

Printers and scanners have refused to process imagines containing certain patterns of stars for decades and it seems to have worked out OK.

Could you elaborate?

Printers recognize patters of stars on currency notes and will not print them and sometimes even notify the police.

I suppose GP is referring to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code And https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

No it really hasn't worked out 'OK' because here we are now.

> Your own device should not betray you.

Apple devices already betray their "owners", and they've been doing it for a long time.

You can't repair them.

You can't run your own software.

You can't use a better, more compliant web browser.

Businesses have to pay a 30% tax.

Businesses are forced to use login with Apple and forfeit a customer relationship.

Businesses have to dance to appease Apple. Their software gets banned, randomly flagged, or unapproved for deployment, sometimes completely on a whim.

Soon, more iDevices and Apple Pay will lead to further entrenchment. Just like in the movie Demolition Man, everything will eventually be Apple. Your car, your movies, your music, your elected officials.

While these things are reprehensible, I don't see much of them as "betraying" me, the user, as much as I do this new tool.

A lot of folks here need to go into a city.

People WILL be a fan of all of this if the alternative is lots of robbery / car theft etc etc.

We see this globally. If the state is not offering security now - they will accept incredible craziness for security.

One note - in most cases folks trust Apple MORE than they would for example the Trump administration. Food for thought.

I live in a major city and I’m a fan of none of these things. I’m only one data point, but yours is a sweeping and inaccurate generalization that “cities are frighteningly unsafe”.

Maybe one trusts Apple more than <insert politician>, but they cannot so easily elect away Apple.

Apple has generally locked things down successfully.

There was concern about phone's being grabbed - street robberies. Regardless of whether you believe their were sweeping generalizations - apple ended up creating more power for themselves with their activation lock system. If they don't want to let you sell your phone to someone - they can block use of your phone. But folks trust them to operate the system reasonably, and so far so good there.

They have locked down their app store very tightly for a variety of reasons including supposedly for security. Users have accepted that.

Apple's competitors (google photos etc) generally are directly scannable in the cloud by google et al. Facebook and others routinely scan users photos. Youtube scans their videos etc. My guess is apple will explain why they are doing it and users are going to be happy.

And yes, users are linking things like ring doorbells and home security video cameras together or registering them so that the police state can use them.

I'm okay with all of those things. Keep everyone protected and safe.

That is a really esoteric flavor of boot you seem to be enjoying to lick there…

Why do you not accept the trade-off to protect children but give up a little bit of "freedom"?

How is that fourth point keeping anyone safe?

It prevents the illegal distribution of copyrighted material.

I repeat how does that keep anyone safe?

By enforcing the copyright laws that exist already to protect content creators from being counterfeited and ripped off by illegal scammers and bootleggers. Are you saying you don't agree with the concept of copyrights?

How does showing Lion King at your kids birthday party qualify for any of that?

I know I know, Disneys inability to collect money for every pair of eyes watching their movies during VHS times literally made it one of the poorest companies on the world. /s

Does this mean you don't support copyright?

Do you support mandatory cavity searches after every shopping trip? Property laws are important, you should do your part to uphold them.

I think this kind of client-side hashing and comparing to a database list is similar to the scanners at every Wal-Mart and the procedures at airports.

I don't remember airport security scanners at my local supermarket.

I think that fits into the category of the Wal-Mart scanners which are at many stores.

Lots of people don't support copyright. It's a concept that should be abolished in it's current form. Right to attribution is OK. Ability to restrict other forms of use is not OK.

Does that mean if someone spends time and effort writing a book or painting a picture that I can resell it for less than them without their permission?

Why would any fan of someones work buy a knock-off copy? We can safely assume they are a fan, otherwise why would even buy it?

Also, painting is a physical object. It's a one of a kind.

EDIT: your objection and many many other questions like that are nicely argued against here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhBpI13dxkI (The Surprising History of Copyright talk by Karl Fogel)

Do you think people will want to create new stories if others can undercut and sell their work for less?

Yes. Definitely. Absolute staggering majority of people writing books don't sell even one copy. And my bet is - they know what are the chances.

EDIT1:

More than that. People don't live of royalties. Publishers do. Can people create without being paid upfront by publishers? Obviously yes. They can be paid upfront in kickstarter-like arrangement. They can be paid via donations later. They can even be paid via "retroactive funding of public goods" [0]. Or they can be never paid - just as they are today.

[0] - https://medium.com/ethereum-optimism/retroactive-public-good...

EDIT2:

Also, imagine how much good could come of long-standing IP properties owned by Disney if not for them sitting on it. Vide disaster that is current management of Star Wars.

Do you know how many stories cannot be published because people sit on the IP? There are unpublished "movies" that only exist to maintain exclusive licensing deals that outright prohibit studios from sitting on the IP, letting the original authors work rot until it is forgotten.

Or we can talk about the mess you get with too many groups involved? Do you know who has the rights to Westwoods Dune? Westwood itself had a limited time license for games based on the movie Dune, which also had a license based on the Dune books. So you would have to deal with three license owners to make a Game involving the Ordos faction. Have fun convincing EA, whoever owns the movie rights and the original authors family that you can make a new game worth their signature on a new licensing agreement (you could probably manage if you have a small country to sell).

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