People Staring at Computers (2021) | Hacker News Reader

People Staring at Computers (2021)

kylemcdonald.net

159 pointsthrowaway743121 comments

The police forces were created to protect property and 'the system', not people, and that's what they continue to do.

https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the...

> The police forces were created to protect property and 'the system', not people, and that's what they continue to do.

I think it's rather naive to consider otherwise. Somewhere along the way we were fed this childish mythology about the importance of the individual, which is definitely captivating, stirring one's imagination with sparks of creativity, but the truth is that institutions and 'the system' are the bedrock of civilization and thus society. Fanciful thoughts of some anarcho-libertarian ideal state are cute, but much farther down the list of priorities than the continued function of the machinery of civilization, on which everything depends. And the enforcement required so that state continues is liberally allotted to almost every government agency.

Except government can't stop growing, so that eventually doesn't end well.

In these discussions, there's always an implicit assumption of certain intentions being the "real" ones. Statements like "police were created to..." first imply that there was a creator whose intentions define the police through incarnations, a kind of "god of police," and, more likely, if it was not a single individual, it is a "pantheon of police" composed of its creators and sustainers. And then we have the image of the state as a composite entity which exerts control over the pantheon without being corporeal itself, maybe as the composite will of a class of people.

To me, this idea of the personification of state power into an all-powerful driving force seems more mythological than the importance of individual decisions being made by those who carry out the work of the state. An individual officer may have a similar belief in the intentions of the state, but their actions are ultimately their own.

It seems ironic that the more we tend to be critical of state power, the more we tend to mythologize it into a kind of personification. You might not fall into this trap, but many do. But why should the intentions of the composite pseudo-entity matter more than the intentions of the real individuals who carry out the work? Isn't each police officer a person who has different goals and ideas about who they are and who they serve? Is this really so insignificant, or is it so overwhelmed by institutional goals that it becomes irellevant? Or could the real people and not their abstractions be the real bedrock of civilization?

What is to make of the overlap between institutional goals and those of individuals?

We live in a time where people are developing institutional abstractions as their civil bedrock. How can we reasonably differentiate institutions that are fundamentally man-made from the men who are the means of the institution’s goals?

My answer would be that individual intentions are ultimately the only thing that matters, but they are shaped by cultures which use abstractions to communicate and connect. Social control means learning which abstractions will stick, like finding a catchy tune, but the most memorable ideas aren't always the best. When an internalized abstraction leads to negative consequences, people tend to rebel against it and find another one.

The goals of abstract institutions are abstractions of intentions. They exist in both the minds of those who write them down and those who carry them out, and a perfect translation between those two groups will never happen. If we want to get down reality, we have to talk about the intentions of the actual people involved.

Who decides when the “tune” of an abstraction becomes stale? The people, but which people? And how is it determined that an institution is yielding negative or positive results?

Every individual makes this judgment all the time. When people notice a problem with their ideologies, sometimes they will just ignore the issues, and other times they will decide to rebel. When enough people make that choice not to follow the tune, there's a revolution. That's why power is so precarious. It's hard to get people to dance to the same tune forever.

Do you get upset when people say "evolution does X"?

It's the same thing, it doesn't really matter if the process is clean or tumultuous, it's a reasonable heuristic to understand the status quo.

I'm not upset in either case, but that's another good example of the problems in attributing personified intelligence to an abstraction. Especially in the early days, people tended to substitute "God" with "evolution" and shoehorn evolutionary processes into areas where they didn't apply because they used to attribute them to God. This still happens! Sometimes, it's just "the universe."

This was usually based on the further misunderstanding that evolution represents a progression from lower to higher life forms. For example, Engels was especially influenced by the idea that political processes followed Darwinian principles and that societies inevitably move from lower to higher forms, leading toward perfection in communism. In the U.S.S.R., science fiction assumed that aliens would all be Marxists because it was a fundamental law of the universe.

Even in the case of evolution, there are minds with intentions. Our ancestors wanted certain things, and the ones who were able to get them passed on their programming to the next generations.

Put another way, society and culture are things that are essentially imaginary. They take place in the mind, and I doubt society or culture could organize itself without some shared imaginary space strewn with personifications and myths. Take that away and society and culture become impossible.

Your unease is more warranted for things like evolution, which does not depend on a shared imaginary space.

>Put another way, society and culture are things that are essentially imaginary.

Where did you get that from GP's post? They're simplying saying not to anthropomorphise societal systems.

I meant that the qualms he was enumerating could simply be restated this way, and my only addition here is that these societal/cultural things all are essentially imaginary (and depend on anthropomorphism and metaphor), unlike something like evolution. Apologies for my phrasing.

I like this explanation, but I might say abstractions are mutually translatable in a society. People having similar ideas is convenient but not necessary. I could imagine a society where everyone thought differently but used AI as a universal translator to make their ideas and personalities compatible.

Maybe you wouldn’t consider it a real society if they depended on machine translation, but we’re partially there already. It would still be a collection of minds with their own identities and intentions coordinating through an abstraction.

Evolution depends on multiple minds coordinating. A virus’ fate will be decided by thinking people eventually. It’s not fair to talk about something as broad as evolution if you only focus on the early period where determinism is easy to represent with math. The process involves intentions as much as anything.

Who said anything about personified intelligence?

"X does Y" implies nothing of the sort.

If I say "The River Flows" am I arguing that the river is intelligent?

No, absolutely not, you've setup a strawman from the very beginning.

"The police are only there for ... " does not imply there's some overlord with a power point document with a bullet point outlining what the police are there for.

I’m talking about how the framing makes people think and how we can drift toward abstraction over reality. When we talk about the police or the state being created to do something, we’re implying that the intention involved in its creation might be the most important thing about it. At least it still expresses the will of it’s creator. For something involving as many people as police or states, I think this undervalues the importance of individual intentions over abstract insitutional goals.

For specific examples here like, “the police are not there to help you, only the rich,” you can easily find counterexamples, but let’s be a little more generous and imagine it means that the individual intentions of officers are negated by something else. That something else is more likely to be the interests of real living people and not abstract institutional purposes for which the police were created. The institution might provide them an opportunity to pursue their goals because of the power it presents, but any misalignment of goals with public interest is because of the intentions of people in the system, not the will of the system itself.

Maybe that seems too obvious, but I think it’s established that people tend to anthropomorphize things, and when we talk about the will of the police or the state or a corporation, it’s easy to slip into thinking of an abstract entity as a person with thoughts and desires, which only hides the problem.

The term is "reification".

Personification is a special case of reification, but it is the underlying issue. We reify signifiers based on memories.

Pretty much like HR in companies

If HR isn't there to protect a company, who would? Or is the argument that it isn't needed?

> The police forces were created to protect property and 'the system'

If that is the case, why is civil asset forfeiture a thing? It seems to undermine property rights and is a glaring failure in the system.

No policing system is perfect, in any complicated enough system there will always be rules that undermine that system slightly. It's like asking "why is cancer a thing, it undermines living organisms".

Not your property, the aristocracy's property. Cops don't work for peasants.

The "aristocracy" has their property seized all the time, for unpaid taxes and a litany of other crimes.

Those aren't the true aristocracy.

Nor true Scotsman, apparently.

I mean the definition of aristocracy is basically the people who get to make the rules. It’s the core point.

Without making a falsifiable claim about who this “aristocracy” is whose assets are the only assets protected by the police, it’s hard to test your statement or see how it provides value.

They’re the ones the police don’t fuck with.

Do you live in the US? It’s pretty trivial to figure out who is and isn’t allowed to drive around with large sums of money, or carry a loaded weapon, as an actual practical matter.

A good way of thinking about this is to understand that there’s an in-group that the law protects but does not bind. And an out-group that the law binds but does not protect.

It’s a dark vision of the world but there are many in the in-group who seek to preserve it.

"No true Scotsman is not Scottish" seems true, definitionally. Same applies for aristocracy: they are the ones who are served by special interests, by definition.

> Same applies for aristocracy: they are the ones who are served by special interests, by definition

I'm not sure I follow. Homeless military veterans are served by extremely well funded special interests, but are not aristocrats.

Clearly they are not being served. That is the difference.

replace "Aristocracy" with "political class"

In the US, they don't work for aristocrats, ether. Sometimes, it's really unclear who the boss is, but it is clear that they get paid by the public.

The whole "let's turn this into a libertarian political-philosophical discussion" angle is a misdirection.

(And an increasingly common one, eg., cf. crypto).

The guy installed spyware on laptops in a commercial store and then publicly displayed the data collected. It's an open-and-shut case.

Almost any person who went to that store, and any store owner, would be furious. It is these people the law here protects(, and damn right too) -- the interests of the artist aren't "the little guy's" and more than a burglar is the underdog.

A burglar claiming the police are corrupt for protecting property owners is as meglomanical as this guy. This isn't some middle-aged academic wishing he were in a mythical past, he's a guy breaking into computers, stealing data, and using it to boost his own career.

> It's an open-and-shut case.

Why was it dropped then?

Little public interest in the secret service pursing a 25yo megalomaniac moron, who thinks installing spyware makes him the hero against the forces of institutional evil.

I imagine apple contacted the secret service in the first place because they weren't sure what else he'd done, other than, installing spyware across NY's apple stores.

Once they realised it was just an art project, I imagine they backed off to be kind, not because he couldnt be prosecuted. He clearly violated the CFAA

So you have it all figured out, including motivations not expressed in the piece.

Of course they're not expressed. I did however go and read articles from 2011, which give a clear account consistent with my interpretation.

Your descriptions of a mustache-twirling villain are overstated to say the least.

my impression was that apple initiated contact based on an assumption that i was running a keylogger or other information that could be used for identity theft. they quickly learned it was an art project but decided to apply force via the secret service to keep it from gaining too much publicity. after that caused a bit of a streisand effect, they decided not pursue a civil case. i would guess that the judge decided not to pursue a criminal case because it would have been an obvious waste of resources.

The illegality of it might be clear cut, but the immorality of it is not.

And why should the store owner be furious, and not amused, or embarrassed? It's just things, nobody got hurt. It is a very libertarian idea that violence against property is morally the same as violence against a person.

Right... but who's interest should the law here represent? There is no single common interest: this guy wants to install spyware and hijack pictures of customers for his own ends; apple doenst want that; customers dont want that (or even, of course, know about it!).

So "immorality"-wise, who here are you empathising with?

I, as a customer entering a store, do NOT want any burden to go and google whether that store has been hijacked by spyware and my data shared, etc.

I want ZERO such burden. And i would expect the police to seriously deter any such "stunts".

This guy has a sob story in which he's the hero... are you just going to take his framing?

Empathise with the random guy in the store.

A better question to start with is "where does the law fit into this?"

What is the material consequence of this action? How does this affect people's lives? Why is that something that needs legislation?

I'm not implying that there are no consequences, I'm curious how you interpret the issue.

> What is the material consequence of this action

Almost none. Which is why there was no further prosecution.

> Why is that something that needs legislation

Because this is very similar to other acts that could have worse consequences. Consider instead of "installed funny spyware on apple laptops" was replaced with "installed funny spyware on ATMs".

Lots of things "could" happen...

It is literal truth that the first police in the US were slave hunters and the first police station in the world was to protect from theft at the Wapping docks

There were constables in England in the Middle Ages. There have been local volunteer watchman and paid constables in the United States since the early colonial days. There was also "hue and cry", whereby someone witnessed a crime and then shouted out and all men were supposed to help catch the criminal. This, as can be imagined, was sometimes quite the shit-show.

What will you do if I rob you? Who will you report this to? What stops me from burglary?

Also, city guards have existed in Europe and China since before tge US existed. They didn't use the word "police" obviously.

I wish "cops = nazis" people would explain what they would have instead.

The idea that you can’t criticise the failings and nature of something you also use are so tiring. Crime happens for so many reasons, some of which force maybe required to stop or hold people accountable, and many of the reasons are endemic to the system we live in. Other things could be prevented by provisioning elsewhere.

When did I say you can’t criticise the failings and nature of something? I stated that your assertion was wrong, and asked questions that need answering by "defund the police" people. You never explicitly stated you want to dedund the police, but this is the argument those people make for it's removal. I read an article in the magazine of a major newspaper that said to remove prison and the police entirely, and this was before Floyd. I never said you support this position, and I never gave you any instruction. I asked you relevant questions and examined your statement.

You didn't respond to any of it

> What will you do if I rob you? Who will you report this to? What stops me from burglary?

In yesterday’s discussion about getting mugged in San Fran, virtually every comment said “the police did not help”.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. The artist seems pretentious, but self-aware. Annoying, but a great storyteller. The art and philosophical conclusions involved are dated and cliché but thought provoking at the same time. It's irritating, exciting, and comforting all at once. I don't know what to make of it but I'm glad that people like the author exist.

Agreed, I would have really liked the paintings by themselves with minimal context. But this kind of pretentious artíst archetype seems like its designed to alienate most people from visual art rather than invite them in. And even though I really love the paintings, they don't embody all the fancy ideas he's going on (and on) about in this write up. You're cool and smart, we get it. The paintings can and should speak for themselves.

Nobody made you read an artist's blog. It seems disengenous to go voluntarily read someone's writing then criticize them for writing and not "letting their work speak for itself"

It helps to consider the pretentious artistry as part of the piece. The writing about his experience doing the piece, and the experiences themselves are more interesting than the piece itself and need not be separate criteria.

It's okay for most people to be alienated by it. They are neither wrong nor right to be so: I'm just happy that this art form exists.

I met Kyle when he taught a OpenFrameworks workshop here in Toronto many years ago. He's not a pretentious guy at all. He seemed very chill and down to earth, and just deeply curious with a highly competent ability to use programming as a tool to investigate questions. I admired his steely patience trying to teach that workshop while a couple folks kept interrupting while they struggled installing the prerequisite tools.

I know the guy - this is a very accurate take. Recycling cliches and thinking that he's brilliant are par for the course for him. He _is_ a talented programmer but seemed to see engineering as below ˙him.

Installing spyware to make public the faces of others for implied mockery, when you see yourself as above criticism is poetic.

> Especially the parts where I chastise, "look, we've gotten so wrapped up in all these computers we have forgotten about the real people around us". Like one of those cafe signs that says "we don't have wifi, talk to each other, pretend it's 1995". I think this cynical, dismissive attitude towards networked technology was popular in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Now I can see I was just parroting it.

You aren't "parroting" a thing if you're feeling it. Sometimes a thing is part of our collective Zeitgeist because we all feel it, feel it's wrong.

Also, I don't think that this sentiment has gone out of fashion at all.

It absolutely hasn’t. If anything, the feeling has strengthened in people who once lived without these devices.

Publishing pictures of people taken with literal spyware isn't art. I have no idea what kind of fantasy world someone needs to be living in in order to think this is art. It's a wonder he didn't get prosecuted for it

It is not a product of privilege or the police existing to protect specific companies.

The secret service in this case were acting in the interest of public order, and if shopkeepers or franchisees couldn't have people installing Spyware on their machines prosecuted - it would make any kind of public hardware or software demo impossible.

It's true that good public order does have effects that "empower" some people and disempower others, and sometimes this is Bad(TM). However good public order is also inherently necessary to have a society at all.

Dunno how the hell one would not expect this to be be highly illegal. The guy literally wrote a software tool that covertly sends images from an unsuspecting device's camera to his personal servers, and installed+activated it on target machines belonging to the US's 3rd largest company by market cap in 2010 (now 1st largest). I get that in the pre-Snowden world, it felt like you were building a cutesy proof-of-concept to showcase to the world the possibilities of invasive mass surveillance, but that doesn't change the duck test that you actually built the mechanism and deployed it.

since he had legal access to the computer, I don't think what he did is legally want different than running OBS on your own computer.

He did not have legal "access" to the computer; this isnt how the law, or even basic common sense, works.

Apple made store computers available for demo, installing spyware on them clearly violates the level and kind of authorisation apple was providing. THe law makes these distinctions.

But likewise, so does anyone with half a brain. You cannot come into my house an d install a keylogger on my PC, even if I make it available to you to play around with for other reasons.

Apple made store computers available for demo and he didn't bypass any protection to run the software, and there isn't any agreement you have to sign to use one of the demo computers that lists what you are and aren't allowed to do with them. I agree this is on the edge, but looking through the CFAA, it isn't obvious to me which if any section applies here.

> law prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization

Excess is a very broad condition, and deliberately so. The law doesnt say what counts as auth one way or another, that's up to the courts to interpret.

It seems beyond doubt that any reasonable court would find this guy did not have auth to install anything, let alone spyware.

This is like claiming "You downloaded and ran my executable from the internet, so the fact it starting keylogging you is ok! I had totally legitimate access provided by you!!"

Apple makes the computers available for the purposes of demonstration. No rational person would ever think this includes installing spyware on them, so you are exceeding the level of authorization Apple gave you. I strongly believe a court would see it the same way.

> Apple made store computers available for demo and he didn't bypass any protection to run the software, and there isn't any agreement you have to sign to use one of the demo computers that lists what you are and aren't allowed to do with them.

Unauthorised entry is unauthorised regardless of whether you have to open a door or break a lock. Not having to circumvent protection measures does not make something legal.

The thing with authorization is... well... you can have authorization to go to a public park. But carving up a park bench is very much not authorized. You can be "able" to do something when the public has access to it. However the ethics of altering property that belongs to somebody else tends to lean from anywhere from "okay if you have permission" to "heavily illegal".

Anybody can install spyware on a public computer, anybody can install spyware when given permission by the property owner. Installing spyware on a public computer (that you do not own) without permission of the owner is very much illegal.

Do I have authorization to sketch highly-accurate versions of people's faces in that public park?

Public park yes, but in an Apple store is a different question entirely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_panorama#Laws_aroun...

odd how merely the existence of a mechanism to try and attempt to prevent access falls under DRM, the the non-existence of such a mechanism apparently doesn't imply permission.

I always wonder how skeezebags justify their actions, and there it is. They're deluded

Agree. it's not art. he made literal spyware

Sure, and I don’t support this guy.

I do find it funny though that the same government that does this exact thing at scale works so hard to go after people who do this.

It’s not that they think it’s wrong, it’s that they don’t want competition.

The point of government is to have a monopoly on various kinds of power and control.

It’s the core concept of the thing, with the first premise being a monopoly on violence.

It’s not hypocritical for a government to say it’s not wrong when they do violence and it is wrong when others do it.

A government may commit moral or immoral violence, or express moral or immoral values in its actions.

But it’s not hypocrisy to not want competition. It’s the point of the thing.

>The point of government is to have a monopoly on various kinds of power and control.

That one idea, of many.

The stores where this was done are chock full of purpose-built cameras performing more in-depth and persistent surveillance. The main difference is the proceeds from that surveillance system are generally kept hidden, so they don't provoke a base response.

This is yet another occurrence of the draconian CFAA being used to persecute individuals, often with severe life-destroying penalties, for what should be considered, at most, misdemeanor trespass - a modern day witch hunt. And since the CFAA hinges on this nebulous concept of "authorization", it's straightforwardly nullified by a contract of adhesion, so it does nothing to protect individuals from transgressions by companies.

When someone shows up at your door claiming to be the secret service and taking all of your valuable electronics, don't you verify them in any way? Can anyone just show up at this guy's apartment with a suit and a "warrant" and start grabbing anything they like? It would be perfect karma if this happened to the author by someone else doing their own "art" project. I bet the author will understand there's no need for his consent.

This article was a bit of a whirlwind for me, I had many of the reactions he later mentioned hearing in comments. I think where I settled is that this was an annoying invasion of privacy and ruined a good thing. I loved hearing about people recording music videos and doing real things in the stores, sucks to see that abused and put at risk.

Stand out for me, however, was this line from the EFF: “if you're ever thinking of doing something like this in the future, give us a call first.”

I think taking that action would have altered my opinion on it. Does anyone know if such a reach out would actually get a useful response?

> Stand out for me, however, was this line from the EFF: “if you're ever thinking of doing something like this in the future, give us a call first.” I think taking that action would have altered my opinion on it. Does anyone know if such a reach out would actually get a useful response?

At the very least the EFF would have warned of the potential consequences, which the author appeared to be blissfully unaware of.

“I remember being a bit nervous on the first visit. Not because I thought I was doing anything wrong, or because I was worried about getting "caught".It was more like stage fright. ”

“Sometimes I would open another tab and load Flickr or Open Processing so I had an excuse if someone asked why I was comparing every single computer.”

People Staring at Computers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799859 - July 2021 (337 comments)

When Art, Apple and the Secret Service Collide: 'People Staring at Computers' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4235037 - July 2012 (64 comments)

People Staring at Computers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2746026 - July 2011 (3 comments)

Feds visit artist behind People Staring at Computers, confiscate laptop - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740485 - July 2011 (50 comments)

Secret Service confiscates computer of "People Staring at Computers" creator - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740083 - July 2011 (1 comment)

> "Ok. Is there anyone else in the house?"

> "No sir."

> They opened up two doors and found my roommates sleeping. "Who is this?"

> "Oh, those are my roommates." I didn't realize it was 8 am. I was up late the night before, and I figured it was ten or eleven already, and that they had left for work.

That's making false statements, a felony punishable by up to five years in federal prison.

not quite.

..and that's why you never, ever, speak to a police officer. If a police officer wants to talk to you, they are probably conducting a criminal investigation. Do yourself a favor and exercise your right to remain silent.

not quite so. you may still be required to identify yourself and they may run background check

It is a felony to knowingly give false statements, meaning to lie.

But then you have a case where the officer will try and use what you said against you. So, even if it wasn’t knowingly in truth, in practice it will be up to you to defend that truth. Whereas silence saves you the hassle.

In practice, good-faith and respectful interactions with law enforcement have a positive outcome.

unfortunately the positive outcome they often have is teaching people that is a very bad idea to have goid-faith interactions with last enforcement.

In practice paying a lawyer $250/hour to sit with you while you answer questions (or not answer) is cheaper than missing out on five years of income and all of the other consequences that come with going to prison.

Somehow, I doubt you have much "practicing" this.

Good faith and respect in interactions with law enforcement only seems to go one way, though.

"It is a felony to knowingly give false statements"

I think that's only true if you lie to a federal agent. Lying to a cop is usually a misdemeanor. Depends on the state and the circumstances.

It's worth highlighting that it doesn't seem as though this caused any issue whatsoever for the author.

Had the government wanted to give him a harder time than they did, it could've been a significant issue.

FBI agents are trained in interrogation techniques designed to manipulate you into saying contradictory things, for the sole purpose of being able to slap you with a false-statements charge in case they can't get enough on you to convict you of the crime they were actually investigating.

Any idea why they do this? Is it a PR thing? Some angle like 95% of our suspects are convicted within 5 years.

Some people hear "Al Capone was only ever jailed for tax evasion" and think to themselves "that murderer deserved to be in jail, getting him jailed was just even if it wasn't for his biggest crimes"

There are historical reasons, like the fact that LE was created to protect a special class), which deeply impact the way LE is trained, which dictates how LE interacts with normal people. There’s what you suggested, that they want great stats, because political careers are made off of stats, and winning high profile cases (there’s a long list of questionable cases where DAs railroaded a person or group just before they ran for governor or congress.

The book “Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice” discusses a lot of the failings of the system, and gives suggestions on how to fix the system without tearing it down. In discussing the failings, he gives a lot of thoughts on why things are as they are, etc. It’s a pretty easy read.

In case you missed the link on the origins of police somewhere else in the comments: https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the...

It can help the FBI nail someone they know is guilty, but is somehow made of teflon so the prosecutor can't prove it in court.

It's also handy for dealing with political opponents. Like imagine Occupy starts up again and gains real traction this time. The sight of its leadership being perp-walked into federal court can be real demoralizing. If the FBI has the ability to arrest them on procedural crimes any time they want, they could break up the entire operation before it poses a threat to the status quo. Do you think COINTELPRO actually went away?

It's not illegal to make false statements in this context. It's illegal to knowingly and willfully make false statements.

If later, the author said something like "I was talking to my roommate in his room just before you guys knocked on the door", then he might be charged with a felony. But the statement by itself was fine, even if false. 18 U.S. Code § 1001

This story isn't a very new one, and overall repeats the same dated philosophical standpoints about both art and privacy, but man is the author's storytelling gripping. It was interesting to read about the secret service and how they didn't quite know what to do throughout the entire investigation. Or Apple, who opted to strong-arm blogs from allowing the photos rather than talk with EFF lawyers privately. It's funny to think how such an unsolvable question of "What Is Art?" was the deciding factor in how each party handled a case that could have easily been fought for and against the project fundamentally.

And for anyone who insists that Apple is one of the good guys:

> In response, Apple contacted the Secret Service and they raided my apartment. After censoring the work online, Apple did not pursue a civil case against me.

I don't know, seems like a pretty proportionate response to someone coming into your store and installing what's effectively spyware on your machines.

Sure, no harm was done and it was in the name of art, but how would anyone making the decisions at Apple know that?

Why would the SS investigate this? Seems like a task for state police.

I was curious about this too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service#I...

Cyber investigations include cybercrime, network intrusions, identity theft, access device fraud, credit card fraud, and intellectual property crimes. […] The Secret Service has concurrent jurisdiction with the FBI over certain violations of federal computer crime laws. They have created 24 Electronic Crimes Task Forces (ECTFs) across the United States. These task forces are partnerships between the service, federal/state and local law enforcement, the private sector and academia aimed at combating technology-based crimes.

(2021)

A bunch of previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27799859

> *(2021)

Isn't it 2012, not 2021? (The article footer says "Kyle McDonald June 12, 2012")

The first section (regarding the FOIA request and looking back from "ten years later") is from 2021. There is a signoff just before the picture of Steve Jobs that states "Kyle McDonald June 7, 2021".

Thanks, I had missed it.

Seems like it might have been a good idea to discuss this "art project" with the Apple store in question before proceeding.

I think the main issue with the original art piece was the lack of consent. The pictures are clearly of a single subject (the device user) and not of a space that mutiple unconsenting persons happen to be occupying, which makes the violation feel more egregeous and uncomfortable.

> How fruitful can a conversation be about consent and privacy, when an artist does not seek their subject's consent?

Agreed.

Wow!

author here. i'm deeply, genuinely grateful that you all care enough to revisit and discuss this decade-old work. special thanks to throwayyy479087 for stirring some shit on my behalf, saving me the work of creating a sock puppet just to cast shade and spread rumors. i'd be happy to answer any questions if you have them.

sorry it took a while to get to this post. i'm literally on a beach on a remote island in fiji, working on the next project. https://unframed.lacma.org/2021/01/21/art-tech-lab-project-u...

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