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Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

I'm hesitant to even comment in threads on this topic it's so blown out of proportion in modern western society but some of the absurd things implied need to be addressed.

>Telegram implicitly allows the trading of CSAM in private channels.

You might as well say, "Private unmonitored housing and properties implicitly allow the trading of CSAM."

So...what about addressing the distribution of illicit sexual content by minors offline in the same way? Are we going to start saying that all inhabited spaces should be monitored by government cameras? Should all mail/packages be opened and read/scanned? Why are online spaces different than offline spaces? I'd argue it's because the people writing crap like this depend on FUD and ignorance to push their agendas and they have a monetary incentive in applying FUD to all digital spaces.

>Gift card swapping and exchanges, such as G2G, are a critical part of the monetization of SG-CSAM, allowing anonymous compensation for content.

Going to ban cash then too? This article is shallow, ignorant self promotion of their dept. to get more funding. It's almost offensive how they're exploiting chldren's safety for this purpose.

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> Are we going to start saying that all inhabited spaces should be monitored by government cameras?

"Americans under the age of 30 stand out when it comes to 1984‐ style in‐ home government surveillance cameras. 3 in 10 (29 percent) Americans under 30 favor 'the government installing surveillance cameras in every household' in order to 'reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity,'"

>Going to ban cash then too?

"Interestingly, more than half (53 percent) of those who support the United States adopting a CBDC are also supportive of government surveillance cameras in homes, while only 2 percent of those who oppose a CBDC feel the same,"

https://reason.com/2023/06/07/why-are-so-many-younger-americ...

There might be a very worrying ideological shift in how people view their own privacy.

Or maybe young people have new values than we do and we should let them do their thing. Trust they will figure out, since they are not any less clever than we are.

They may be clever but they lack wisdom of experience.

Funny, that's what the older folks said about us when we were young.

And they were right then too. We also lacked wisdom.

Buy they weren't right. There's a reason boomers fall for obvious scams and fake Facebook posts.

Because they are elderly and their minds don't work as well. When we were kids our grandparents were being scammed via letters and phone calls. It has nothing to do with wisdom.

Combining youthful new ideas tempered by the wisdom of experience is the ideal situation. The young person needs to accept that the older person may have already tried what they are suggesting, and the older person needs to accept that the younger person is capable of coming up with new interesting ideas that may be different than what their experience was.

Not if it affects me.

Or maybe they lack either the wisdom or experience to understand the extraordinary danger that comes with ceding privacy and autonomy to an unaccountable government.

Man this statement resonates with me.

I’ve found some folks view transferring power to benign government seems like good idea, but I think they fail to realize getting that getting that power back won’t be so straightforward if or when it doesn’t work out that government is no longer working for them or supporting their ideals, but the government is instead ruling them.

We have had to pretty good lately tbh in the US compared to some though honestly the could be questionable also depending on the values one has.

They also seem not to notice that government is never benign.

If the thought of your political adversary having a specific power makes you shake in your boots, it's not safe for your own side to have it either.

As long its not mandatory, I am 100% this. After all, it'd be great to have society that incarcerates more safety-obsessed white progressives

Clever is not sufficient. They also need to be informed.

From a practical point of view, they will be sleeping in that bed far longer than the older generations, so maybe “we should let them do their thing” and hope and pray that we won’t have to spend too much time in that bed. But then history and near-history call to remind that many instances of future generations almost cursing the lack of forethought of their predecessors when affecting fundamental changes. Those generations too have a claim in this sort of radical societal changes. Would a future generation trapped in a full-blown 1984 society think it “clever” of their grandparents that they have now put an end to “domestic violence”?

The overall red flag for me of this sort of remedy —- total surveillance to insure 100% compliance — are their absolute guarantees and promises of immediate results. Let’s take domestic violence as an example. Beyond pathological cases, in the main this is an area where we can aim for generational advancements in anger management, positive channeling of psychological stresses, and addressing other socio-economic conditions that contribute to engender this type of behavior. We won’t see immediate results but eradication seems in reach within a few generations. In the interim, there remains the possibility of social intervention via various legal and institutional channels.

> red flag for me of this sort of remedy ... are their absolute guarantees and promises of immediate results

This doesn't even cover the half of it. The problem with adding more central authority to any situation is the increased opportunities for confused deputies. In other words, abusers adapt their behavior - both conforming their behavior to the system's rules of what is considered acceptable, and leveraging those rules (and thus the power of the central authority) against their victim.

...why do we believe any of this is true though?

Because we can see evidence of it right here on HN almost every day. Once upon a time hackers in general were at the forefront of the fight for privacy, nowadays we seem to be the vanguard of its wholesale destruction.

I can say, anecdotally, people I've asked about their privacy will quite literally tell me that they don't care because they have nothing to hide.

> are also supportive of government surveillance cameras in homes

How about a compromise? If you want to do crime you can turn the cameras off for an hour a day. /s

Homes are already filled with cameras and mics that they don't ultimately control. All it would take is a change in policy to begin using these against you.

I'd be really cautious against reading too much into this. I think often times with this type of polling data, when you dig into the details you find that people aren't as far apart as you might think, but it's more that people tend to focus on different parts of how the question is asked.

The original survey data is at https://www.cato.org/blog/nearly-third-gen-z-favors-home-gov... (I'd also note this post is from the libertarian Cato Institute, so it's important to understand where their motivation comes from). The exact question was "Would you favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity?" It's not hard for me to think that younger people, many of whom just went through years of "Zoom school" and essentially had governmental authority piped into their homes, would just focus on "sure, reducing domestic violence and abuse is a good thing". Alternatively, you see that minorities, particularly African Americans are much more in favor than white Americans (33% vs. 9%). It's possible some people are coming at this from the point of view of "yeah, this would be like police body cameras ensuring that I'm not the victim of false reporting."

I don't mean to whitewash the differences, and as someone who thinks the idea of government installing cameras in your home is the absolute definition of "the end of the free world", I don't mean to minimize it. But I think you might get very different responses if you just asked "Would you favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household?" without the rationale behind it. I also think that if you dug into it and asked people follow up questions (e.g. "Where should these cameras be installed") you would get more agreement.

I guess my overall point is that I think the differences in responses have more to do with how people interpret the question (though it's certainly fair to be concerned about that) than more fundamental differences around "comfort with government in my bedroom" that the Cato Institute's interpretation might lead one to believe.

I don't see how this invalidates the data at all. If/when government surviellance is pushed into our homes, "to protect people" will absolutely be the reasoning used.

I agree that zoom school and body cams might be responsible for this shift in mentality. But that doesn't make it a good thing. All you've done in your rebuttal is state the reasons why attitudes towards government surveillance have shifted - you don't actually dispute that the difference exists.

My point is somewhat nuanced so I'll try to explain it more clearly. When these types of polls come out, often the reaction is "Wow, <other side> is definitely crazy, how can they want this?" But when you get down to the details, I think you'll find that the envisioned "actual implementation" of how this would play out is not as different as people think.

Simple example that could at least explain some of the difference. Younger people and poorer people (and, it the US, there is a strong correlation between economic status and race) are much more likely to live in communal setups, e.g. dormatories and apartment buildings, compared to older and more affluent people. So it's possible one group is thinking about this more as "There are already cameras in our hallways, why not hook them up to stop abuse?" while the other group is thinking "You want to put cameras in my bedroom."

That is, any pollster knows you can give extremely different responses solely based on how you word the question. I'm arguing that you could likely word this question differently and you would see responses that didn't nearly differ as much.

More than that, though, I totally agree that "'to protect people' will absolutely be the reasoning used." But I think even then it's important to understand the real underlying fears people have, and then point out that there can be other solutions that are much less intrusive and open to abuse, rather than completely discounting those fears to begin with.

Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy strikes again.

"SG-CSAM". Talk about jumping the shark. I don't know if it's possible to demonstrate consent any harder than someone taking pictures of themselves. And to the point that minors might be doing something that they don't fully understand the implications of - that is an issue of age-appropriateness better addressed by parental guidance rather than federal felonies. And the current legal regime is basically the strongest possible set up for parents to avoid trying to engage with their children's activities.

To be fair, the article says, right at the beginning (emphasis added):

> selling self-generated illicit sexual content

There are at least three things going on here, done by three different entities:

1. Someone creates the material (the “SG-CSAM”). Let’s refrain from nitpicking about the A in CSAM there.

2. Someone operates (usually for profit!) the forum on which the material is transmitted. And some of these forums (accidentally?) help match buyers and sellers.

3. Someone buys (and I guess requests?) the material.

I think it’s pretty clear that #3 is frowned upon and is quite illegal in most jurisdictions.

The article is largely about #2.

#1 is interesting. It’s not the same thing as the usual concept of sexting. The article does not argue that #1 is or should be a crime.

I personally find online content recommendations systems to be deeply problematic, and the (emergent?) behavior of Instagram’s that the article discusses is rather distressing.

> I personally find online content recommendations systems to be deeply problematic

I'm right there with you, and have wished for these needless centralizers to crash and burn for decades now. But if we imagine that Instagram/Twitter/etc were out of the picture and these kids were selling their wares on decentralized P2P platforms - it would seem that the main thing that would change would be a lack of possibility to centrally study and police the behavior. In other words point #2 and thus the whole focus of the article would vanish, yet the overall behavior would still exist. Looking at it in those terms, it feels a bit ridiculous to be pinning blame on centralized platforms for having not fully controlled their users, when a fully efficient market just wouldn't have those centralized choke points in the first place.

> You might as well say, "Private unmonitored housing and properties implicitly allow the trading of CSAM."

The article is IMO utterly failing to distinguish between what I think are two products that are very, very different. On the one hand, there’s Telegram, which is effectively a private, unmonitored space. On the other hand:

> Instagram's popularity and user-friendly interface make it a preferred option for these activities. The platform's recommendation algorithms effectively advertise SG-CSAM: these algorithms analyze user behaviors and content consumption to suggest related content and accounts to follow.

That is not a private, unmonitored space.

I tend to think that service providers that recommend content should be responsible for their recommendations.

I feel like we have an uphill battle here. Most people these days are ok with government surveillance in the name of "safety". Go to a local city council meeting where they are discussing automatic ticket cameras and facial recognition in public places. Most people are totally ok with that.

As Ben Franklin said: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

If it's someone else's liberty to put me in danger, it's not really a liberty I want to defend. Speed cameras are a pretty good example of a surveillance technology that exists because a few self-centered people rip through residential areas at high speed. These people endanger everyone around them for their own sense of enjoyment and they should be fined for that.

I agree with you about facial recognition but you're absolutely wrong to apply that principal to speed cameras. I'm all for privacy but as a user of the road you have a responsibility to use it safely, and speeders are not safe users of the road. They should get ticketed as much as possible.

I agree with you in principle, but it's a fine line to walk. What about China's social credit score? It's all based on surveillance cameras that doc you points for breaking petty laws like jaywalking or littering. Yes, both are safety issues, but at what cost?

No it's really not a fine line. If you do something that harms someone else I think society should be able to curtail your liberty. Social credit is not really the same thing because when you speed you're increasing the likelihood of a devastating crash with another driver or a pedestrian. Having witnessed just such a thing a couple of weeks ago and having rendered aid, I can assure you there is very real harm. It is not something I will forget.

Those speed cameras take pictures of everyone's license plate to put into a behavior database (where you go, what time, etc).

Nor do they accomplish much that a speed bump doesn't accomplish more effectively.

I mean they can, but the burden of proof is on you to show that they do and that there is actual harm from it. I've yet to hear of a court case or warrant that was issued based on some notional speed camera database. If it's being issued on parallel construction that suggests there's some legal aspect of using those databases that prevents law enforcement from doing what you describe.

there's a reason why speed cameras are not very common in the US - they get vandalized by shotgun or arson if they're effective. doesn't matter if you like it or not, that's the reality of the situation.

they also ticket the owner of the car regardless of who is driving it, which is not very popular, to say the least.

See you fell for the standard trap by assuming you are only giving up the speeders’ liberty.

A typical speed check camera will not register the license plates of vehicles that are not speeding.

What do you base this on? That’s literally a treasure trove of “public data” that those companies absolutely love to sell.

I'm less worried about government surveillance than I am of corporate surveillance.

They're the one's actively interested in influencing our lives to give them more money.

Governments are the ones interested in influencing our lives to give them more power, and for all the uncritical talk of how powerful corporations are, governments are still vastly more powerful and it’s not even close.

I am not talking about which has more inherent 'power'.

I am talking about who is incentivized to employ intrusive surveillance to influence our lives. Which are corporations.

For example look at this "free" 55" TV:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/telly-offers-fr...

While U.S. Government does have a lot of competing interests that makes the management and control of such a costly surveillance apparatus highly unlikely (I am not talking about just listening to communication traffic but actively trying to run private American lives). That is, there isn't a way for one party to hold control over that operation and keep it hidden to such a degree as to not risk losing that power when different people get elected.

Compared to PRC there's already enough concentrated power to do an operation like that.

Answer me this question: If the U.S. government had a secret national surveillance system to have control over our lives, what would they actually be influencing us to do?

And the thing you’re missing is that they are both incentivized but for different reasons. Corporations mostly just want your money. Governments seek power, or rather the officers of government seek power.

> That is, there isn't a way for one party to hold control over that operation and keep it hidden to such a degree as to not risk losing that power when different people get elected.

If different people get elected. You asked what people would use a surveillance fielded by the US government to do, and the answer is: take out the competition, or try to. I’m not judging whether it would be successful, that would come down to the actual facts and circumstances of such a surveillance program and the people behind it, but with such a surveillance program in place you have a much better shot than without one at holding power long enough to take out the competition. And while you’re at it, why not change the rules of the game? And then once you’ve changed the rules of the game, why not change the entire system in which the game is played?

America is not exceptional in a way that would make the American public immune to this, but we are very resistant, as you have alluded to, to the US government trying in part because there is enough of us that are by disposition so extremely skeptical of anything the government wants to do for good or for ill that yeah, it wouldn’t be an easy operation to clandestinely pull off. But if someone did, they would use it to take out the competition.

Right so you're agreeing that the Government (U.S.) doesn't exactly have an easy path.

Hence why I am more concerned about Corporate surveillance than I am over Government influencing our lives.

Not having an easy path doesn’t make it less of a concern. Treating it like it’s something we shouldn’t be concerned about is how it becomes an easier path.

Corporate surveillance is by comparison much easier to deal with in your own home: stop buying and using crap that surveils you. If you don’t trust that something won’t surveil you, don’t allow it into your home. Now I say this is easier, but it’s still not easy, but at worst a corporation will get me to spend a little bit more money with them (probably not, I hate buying things). The worst a government can do is legally kill me with no repercussions to the people who pull the trigger or the ones who ordered them to.

> stop buying and using crap that surveils you.

What if there aren't any options?

Most stores are moving over to self-check outs with facial recognition...

More and more things are requiring smart phones. Job applications. Timesheets to log your hours worked. Digital tracking in equipment and vehicles. Insurance companies lowering rates if they can track your car. etc.

The worst that private companies can do is lobby government to make something innocuous but common illegal with unreasonably long sentences so that they can targetedly lock up a portion of the population and use them as slaves.

Maybe you’ve forgotten that we actually do live in a free country. There is always a choice and people make those choices every day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish

Even they have figured out how to work modern technology into their communities in a structured way. What you choose to buy and use comes down to what you value. How you use it is a reflection of how much power you give it.

> Most stores are moving over to self-check outs with facial recognition...

So what? You’re on someone else’s premises at that point. Your loss of privacy vis a vis what goes in the shopping cart is a given. 20 years ago cameras were already pervasive in supermarkets, they were just worse at being cameras than a modern installation. People have been giving up their phone number to get glorified coupons at Safeway since the 90s, which tags your receipt with whatever name you filled out when you punch it in. If you prefer not to do that, you look for the small grocers, or the farmers, or whatever but you structure your life around what you value most. If you value your privacy the utmost, you can have that up in Alaska hunting game with your next door neighbor 200 miles away. If you value a different lifestyle, you’ll have that instead.

> The worst that private companies can do is lobby government to make something innocuous but common illegal with unreasonably long sentences so that they can targetedly lock up a portion of the population and use them as slaves.

So the worst thing that corporations can do in your estimation is beg the government to spare some of the government’s power for their use; in competition with other corporations who might want to use it differently or have conflicting ideas about how the government’s power should be used. In the end it comes back down to the government’s power.

We live in a relatively free society thanks to our government and democracy.

> In the end it comes back down to the government’s power.

Right so it's important to keep government transparent and promote civil participation so that government isn't used by corporate interests to muck it up and prevent us from moving to Alaska or living however we like.

Personally I think that private prisons and draconian laws go nicely together.

Anything can be slippery-sloped into being horrifying for privacy.

If there were some kind of sensor that could detect, say, physical child abuse and nothing else—no video, no audio, just a binary yes/no is there physical child abuse (assuming an appropriate statutory definition of physical child abuse) you bet there would be lots of demand for that sensor -- and you could have reasonable conversations about false positives, risks of other data getting out, etc.

The difference between Telegram private chats and "unmonitored housing" is that the former has that kind of sensor available, and the latter doesn't.

Not to say you're wrong, but the initial answers to those questions are A) online spaces are pretty much only for trading information, unlike housing which is for sleeping, cooking, general use. B) gift card exchanges are pretty much only for suspect stuff, unlike cash which is much more generally used

I live in online spaces (chat rooms, forums, etc) much more than I live in physical spaces (bars, city council meetings, etc) and I'm pushing 40. I imagine the younger generation's lives are even more in online spaces. The internet is no longer just silly geocities sites and hampsterdance. People live here.

re: gift cards, yeah, gift cards are kind of lame. But attacking people's means to transfer value in the new digital living spaces is bad. Even if they're sometimes used for bad things.

Hi, I'm one of the authors of the report. You have pretty significantly misread it.

> You might as well say, "Private unmonitored housing and properties implicitly allow the trading of CSAM."

The issue with Telegram is that they explicitly disallow the posting of "illegal pornography" on public channels, but not privately. We are not calling for any additional monitoring, but private Telegram groups (which are not E2EE, btw) turn out to be a centerpiece of the commercialization of online child sexual abuse.

> Going to ban cash then too?

Nope. The paper makes no recommendations around banning gift card platforms, but we do think they might want to take steps when teenagers are publicly linking to their payment wallets next to a price list that includes bestiality videos or content created when the child was pre-pubescent.

> This article is shallow, ignorant self promotion of their dept. to get more funding. It's almost offensive how they're exploiting chldren's safety for this purpose.

Thanks for reading!

This is just whataboutism. The online aspect facilitates this shit around the entire fucking planet.

Online abstracts a lot of the "creepiness." You're going to be less inclined to take Polaroids of yourself to hand off to some sweaty mouthbreather hanging out the back of a panel van than you will taking selfies to send to some faceless internet "boyfriend."

As a quick example, here's a bunch of accounts of online grooming by anonymous females:

https://lolcow.farm/ot/res/303056.html

I don't believe these sorts of stories anymore (too much Munchausen-by-Internet these days), but one common feature is: intended victims panicking once things got physical/"real."

Being offline is a wake-up call. Nobody is mailing shit to anyone. That's not a Thing.

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