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Comment by upboundspiral | Hacker News Reader

Unless we get legislation passed that bans this use in public and private spaces prepare for this to be combined with Flock et al to track your movements inside your house (already is being tested by some internet providers), track the moment you exit your house, track you along your route, track you inside all the business you visit.

Unless we do something, this will be used to covertly break the fourth amendment.

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Sadly, it’s too late. It’s quite clear we’re on track to a totalitarian surveillance state.

Ring cameras recording your movements around the neighborhood.

Flock (and other government) cameras recording all vehicle movements.

Cell towers and WiFi APs recording device ids and movements.

Recent legislation requiring driver monitoring systems in cars. Plus the fact that any EV can be remotely controlled and disabled.

And now we have AI systems that can actually aggregate and correlate all this data.

It’s over. We’re too far down this slippery slope, there’s no turning back now.

> It’s over. We’re too far down this slippery slope, there’s no turning back now.

Not with that attitude.

This mentality is exactly how we got here. Thanks

> This mentality is exactly how we got here.

That's why it continues to be peddled.

> already is being tested by some internet providers

I would say to never use a wireless router given to you by your ISP, and to install Openwrt on the one you do use, but the government is absolutely chomping at the bit to ban all wireless routers whose firmware can be changed and to force you to use their (soon to be if not already backdoored) ones.

I recommend not using wireless at all. Having a good wired home LAN removes a lot of headaches, especially if you like to experiment with alternative OSes.

Also, if you have a home NVR then wired cameras are definitely the way to go. Wireless cameras are susceptible to jamming and/or deauth attacks.

Not a solution for many people, especially mobile/tablet devices.

I recently upgraded my home network to 10Gbps. As it was when it was only 1Gbps, everything that could be using a wired connection is using one. The WAPs (now R770s) are used to provide Internet for mobile devices, and a few other IoT devices that don't have a physical Ethernet port.

WAPs are independent of routers, but many low-end consumer routers provide integrated WiFi, which can usually be turned off if desired.

Most WAPs provide a means to set the TX power levels, and some newer ones will automatically negotiate with the client(s) to use the minimum required power to close the link (just as cellular phones do).

"... but the government is absolutely chomping at the bit to ban all wireless routers whose firmware can be changed and to force you to use their (soon to be if not already backdoored) ones."

Any references to support these claims

The last computer I purchased, before the memory crunch, has no wireless card

I deliberately omitted it

I use this computer as a router among other purposes

Many computers work well as routers

A ban on wireless would be acceptable to me

Convenience and aesthetics aside, wireless sucks compared to wired

The only thing I think we can do is shield our private spaces from prying signals like we use walls to shield them from prying eyes.

We wouldn't have street lights if the Fourth Amendment could prevent the monitoring of people in public. If I can install a webcam pointed at an intersection and stream it publicly, anyone and everyone can, and eventually enough public webcams like that create a network that anyone can use to track what's going in public. The only thing we can really do is ensure knowledge of what people do in public is kept public.

Flock extracts value from public information and there's nothing Flock can do to prevent competition. Flock is only a problem for the moment because they have a relative monopoly on public information and can make claims or provide evidence nobody can contest, but eventually we're going to decide we shouldn't trust a private entity like Flock to accurately report reality any more than we should trust anyone else with a private agenda.

This would be extremely difficult to detect and enforce.

It’s invasive enough that we will need to do something about it, even if perfect enforcement is not possible. 6G wireless already plans to include these features as well. The business model needs to be made unviable or illegal somehow, perhaps under anti-stalking grounds.

Individuals may use this tech themselves, and businesses may use it on their own premises, which seems fine—the problem is with large scale deployments.

The Supreme court recently already ruled against warrantless mass surveillance along the lines you describe:

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-applauds-important-...

What we need now is laws that turn this ruling into action and policy.

That’s for the government, on fourth amendment grounds. But I also don’t want private companies doing this on a wide scale even for non-governmental use.

It's also for government warrants on 4th Amendment grounds. It does not cover the government simply purchasing (or asking nicely for) the information from a willing Google, perhaps also in exchange for the Justice Department settling an antitrust action, or for an unrelated lucrative contract.

Every "progressive" actually called you an extreme right-winger for suggesting that that was a problem in the government meeting weekly with every social media company making suggestions about who and what speech to ban. The brownshirts are already well-practiced. There is no one on the constitution's side, including the ACLU.

> It does not cover the government simply purchasing (or asking nicely for) the information from a willing Google

This is not entirely accurate anymore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine

> In 2026, the Supreme Court limited the application of the doctrine to digital location data as well. Chatrie v. United States held that law enforcement conducts a Fourth Amendment search when it compels Google to provide a user's historical location information, even though the data is held by a third-party techonology company.

There have been virtually no restraints on the Executive Branch for nearly 25 years now. The way we elect Congresspeople now exclusively produces ones who have no interest in the risks that come from actual governance, and exclusively act on the interests of their sponsors.

SCOTUS has ruled that tipping politicians is legal. Literally, not hyperbolically. Even if the Supreme Court couldn't be bribed like that (although they are eagerly and constantly bribed like that) because they don't have a fear of losing their jobs, Congress is the only court that can try a president for going against court judgements. Doesn't exist anymore.

The spirit of a hacker is not to ask whether it is hard, but whether it is valuable.

I find protecting civil liberties valuable.

I wouldn't expect the light I emit or reflect to be private, except where I build walls. Why would I expect any other wavelengths to be so, if I haven't taken precautions to shield my house for WiFi wavelengths?

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