[1] https://gdcvault.com/play/1012227/Development-Telemetry-in-V...
[2] https://www.army.mil/article/85934/solution_to_weapon_develo...
The same code was used in another project of this same company. The project was a missile. It felt weird.
Eg. Flock cameras don’t help the military but do help the police state.
I would expect any invading forces would need to be surveilled by planes or satellites, or perhaps drones, since they would immediately destroy something like flock cameras.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/cour...
This isn't what the article is talking about at all. It never says don't build military technology. It says don't build things like a database of who in the country is and isn't gay and what religion everyone practices, for fear a future bigoted administration might use it to target those people. If your government is turning howitzers on you, that's less a police state and more a civil war.
I don't know what you do against that, but it's a different situation. There is precedent in the US with the Army being used to round up and forcibly displace native populations, but that really seems to be the kind of thing that requires a political solution, not prevention of any possibility. If we didn't have an Army at all, then secession would have succeeded, there would still be chattel slavery, and one of the hostile European colonial powers likely would have simply conquered the west itself and killed all the natives anyway.
It's the last step that's the problem, not the people who built all the things they stand on. Otherwise we'd be suggesting that no one build a database engine or a digital camera or a computer ever again in case they're used to build evil tech.
>How do you make sure a police state doesn't happen?
There is no way to be sure, all one person can do most of the time is make a personal effort and hope it is not overwhelmed by storm-trooper ambitions and communist-dictator tactics.
When I look at Flock, it is so sad. It's been 30 full years since I got my early webcams when they were made by Intel and were still expensive business machines intended for teleconferencing over dial-up. Without really needing the internet of course.
It didn't take long before I was using one for observing my fledgling company's parking lot 24/7, and on more than half my CRT monitor you could see every car that drove by on my street, which was almost constant during the daytime. This was 99% of the action compared to visitors who pulled in.
It didn't take that long before I could remotely call in to the cam plugged into the front office PC through dial-up networking in Windows 95, and when I got a smartphone in 2001 I no longer needed a remote laptop most of the time as long as I was OK with the small screen of the flip-phone form factor. Rather than leaving the spare land-line available for calling directly in, alternatively it was also possible to log into an ISP over dial-up from my company, then keep the line tied up so I (or anyone really) could have access over the internet.
When broadband internet came around it made a really big difference since the stream was not as compressed, and motion not nearly as blurry and jerky. It was nice having the choice between a private remote connection to my front office PC over direct dial-up whenever I wanted, as well as enjoying the faster speed of the public internet plenty of the time too.
Anyway it didn't take long to realize that if webcams ever really catch on, then our local law enforcement would be highly interested in what could be done if they could freely observe them like I was doing looking at my own stream. I didn't know anybody else that had a webcam at first, but for protection of my own building all I would have to do is give the law my IP address and they could pick up the stream no differently than I was. They already knew my location and I had an excellent relationship with all the first responders. Naturally nothing was encrypted back then so that wasn't even a consideration, there was really nothing confidential on my stream to begin with.
I really thought about it long and hard and it took quite a while trying to examine all the possibilities. There were a few obvious downsides regarding privacy which needed much further consideration, so I could not in good conscience pull the trigger until that had been justified very deeply.
I didn't expect to hesitate that long but it really did take more than a year to conclude without a doubt that the negatives outweighed the positives, but that was only in the short run. In the long run the virtually unlimited downsides could only accumulate in excess of the possible upsides, and it was a big unknown how scattered cams could be used to compromise general privacy. Eventually had to realize such a cam network would be more easily used in a predatory way rather than for protection from predators, regardless of who was watching or recording. At significant scale it seemed like it could very well become exponentially dystopian.
No big deal, if you're not capable of thinking of something overwhelmingly positive to base your business on, I understand.
At least I didn't pioneer it, and I assume a lot of other early webcam owners gradually engaged in some of the same thought processes or it would have gotten a lot worse a lot sooner. I sure did talk to a lot of them, as webcams got more popular over time. Most of them were on laptops though and very seldom were aimed at a public space.
There are so many worthwhile things to do which don't amount to spying on Americans.
Most of our electronics hasn't been American for quite some time now, so there is that. It really is made in, and for, less freedom & liberty loving countries, with the USA becoming more like collateral damage each decade.
It wasn't really this bad until Facebook came along whose sole mission ended up trying to monopolize PII as much as possible. And if not that at least put billions of dollars to work changing peoples' habits to neglect their own privacy anyway even if they end up on other platforms.
If privacy wasn't so valuable in a fundamental way, they wouldn't have been able to get as rich as they did by monetizing its removal.
Thanks for sharing!
It might actually be wise [1] to create a new, slightly less permissioned license for open source wherein the open is defined as anything that isn’t in a kill or surveillance chain or, more broadly, for military use…
[1] for the community
[0]: https://opensource.org/osd
If you actually wanted to respect such a license,you would have to endlessly argue what is dual use technology for example, the same as people argue if advertisements on project website or tangentially related donations make the thing "commercial"?
While at the same time, any "bad guys" will just ignore both.
Problem is in era de la grift we've sort of realized that they never needed permission - there's no precedent to set anymore.
Quite a lot of Richard Stallman's arguments are pure rhetoric, actually. And, I mean, I guess it worked, in that the GPL and FSF ended up being quite influential; but the trouble with building a philosophy on rhetoric is that people start to believe that rhetoric – including you –, and it erodes and replaces the foundations of their beliefs, so it'll all come crashing down sooner or later.
I don't really think we need to engage with the rhetoric on an intellectual level, since it's obviously wrong: far better to read philosophers whose reasoning is sound, or to come up with your own ideas.
For what it's worth, what I do believe is that our system of law was a good idea at one point but is totally ineffectual in the current context - that's my point about an era of grifters. Didn't get that one from stallman, measured that on the eyeball mark I.
I was abstracting Richard Stallman's argument to its (il)logical structure: P and ¬P are whether the license restriction is enforceable, etcetera. "Erosion" was talking about people who, seeing free software as a good idea, begin to adhere to Stallmanite orthodoxy (which is, largely, philosophically-unsound): that was not aimed at you, but at Richard Stallman himself (the Ur-Stallmanite, we could say). I saw this as generalising your criticism. I didn't notice you were making a broader point about the law, so this was somewhat of a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious non-sequitur; thanks for clarifying your point.
Being the most correct 20 years ago is fairly meaningless today - not making a judgement on whether D-Stall is, was, or wasn't. But it's important I think to deal with reality. Thanks for your clarification!
I realize I don’t have any code that would be of any use to any military. If I did, I don’t see how I could write a license to allow the use of my code by only people I agree with.
The OSI might disapprove, but you don’t have to listen to them.
Hi. Veteran here. I protected his freedoms to do just that. You asking this question in that way insults veterans, whether you intended it or not. People using this line of thinking usually only care about veterans when it can win them arguments, and do not care any other time.
> I don't understand this thinking at all
Then, instead of asking questions with inflammatory language, you should humble yourself and ask respectfully so you can understand.
If better artillery is being built on open source tech then everyone has better artillery. Not just the people "protecting you" but also the people trying to kill those people
Only if the end product is released as open source or even source available, which in many cases (all?) it has not been.
(This has never been done with a Linux based artillery system to my knowledge, of which there are MANY)
+
>risking their lives to protect your freedom
=
nonsense.
The only thing that protects my freedom is active peace-making at levels greater than active war-making.
We are all under a great deal of threat precisely because borderline religious warrior narcissism has taken precedence over emphatic, unstoppable peace-making.
The USA has been bombing people into oblivion "protecting peace", for decades now. Is the world safer now?
No, it very definitely is not.
>Why do you want the people risking their lives ..
I want people risking their lives to make great peace. That is not happening at the scale that it should be.
Instead, the lazy, less noble warrior narcissist, has the world by the nose. The only difference between an utter criminal and a war fighter is a very, very thin line of paper which makes murder in one case illegal and in another case, legal. This paper is tattered and torn and covered in the muck of the victims, held high by the victors to justify their crime.
However, we see today the fallacy of this condition.
If your country is going to shoot something, I want to be damn sure it has done everything ethically, technologically, and administratively possible to have first made peace, at all costs.
That is simply not evident in any of the current world conflicts.
Instead of engaging in foreign cultures, we in the West march in lock-step behind those who have deemed foreign cultures inferior and worthy of nothing but destruction and despair.
I want to see the warrior narcissist who profit from this condition, disarmed and made irrelevant. The only way that happens is if human life takes precedence over human identity.
No humans identity is worth more than another humans life.
Risk your life for true peace this way: Before you murder, abandon yourself!
I'm not disputing that one of the links from the comment that gmerc made came from a US military domain, but that's moot. A licence against military use covers every army, not the one you happen to identify with.
As an aside, I'm curious what nationality user gmerc is. If they're the person in the video that they linked to it sounds like they're German?
And this isn't being nitpicky -- it's really important in the context of this discussion. People from certain countries more than others seem to lack this concept of civic hygiene and clam up when the discussion comes up.
We should push past that awkwardness and keep having these discussions about concepts like civic hygiene. It's important.
I'm begging tech bros to understand that abusive governments _do not care about abusing you_
But maybe easier than it sounds.
All technology can be weaponized. It can also be de-weaponized.
One of my favorite late-night thought experiments, is "what would it take to turn an AK47 or an AR15 into a water pump?" .. the possibilities are endless. "How could a tank be turned into a bicycle factory?", another great one worth the effort to think about.
The only difference between peaceful technology and a weapon is the intention of the user. The very real spiritual intention.
De-weaponization starts with the human being. Those who think weapons are necessary must always take lesser priority than those who invent technology to make the lives of their fellow human beings better. There are so many examples of the tool-makers winning harder and at greater scale than the bomb-manufacturer. We wouldn't be here now if the balance was the other way - our world is however threatened by having this scale weighed heavily, by those who think murder is the solution to anything.
It's a spirit thing. Not spiritu-al, a spirit thing. What is the spirit of the designer? If they want to help humanity, it will be difficult technology to weaponize (although not impossible). It will be easy to de-weaponize, also.
We need to focus more on the spirit of help, and less on hurt.
Imagine if those F35 mounting pylons were used to drop field-portable water-purification systems directly where they are needed most.
Imagine if they could be used to drop a copy of archive.org, anywhere in the world, in any language.
Imagine if those ships were being used to bring power to the villages that need it most. Instead of glide bombs, we have glide libraries. Instead of cluster munitions, we instead drop cluster medical kits!
Oh, the glory to be had by those who would do this - the allies in the poor and weak of the world to be found! Imagine this happening, changing the intention from hate and fear, to respect and love.
All it takes is the spirit, a bit of imagination, and any and all technology can be de-weaponized.
It is the warrior narcissist who stands in the way of this. Disarm them too - smash their mirror: Drop books, not bombs!
And then a group that prioritizes weapons over human-life-improving-tools kills the group that prioritizes life and takes your resources.
This is like the larger group version of suicide by cop.
We've been playing this game for as long as human beings have existed.
>And then a group that prioritizes weapons over human-life-improving-tools kills the group that prioritizes life and takes your resources
Only for as long as those who make peace, don't pay attention to the prioritization of weapons - and that group of warrior narcissists whose identity is more important than human life must never be allowed to be bigger than the group who make peace - as is happening today at a pace far too great - because otherwise, we all die.
>We've been playing this game for as long as human beings have existed.
Yes, humans have been making peace at far greater scale than those limited few who make war. You just don't see them because a) you have your own warrior narcissist mirror obscuring your view, and b) those people are not narcissists, and are living human lives instead of primping their warrior narcissist identities...
What are you talking about? We're in the most peaceful period in human history by every objective measure and we spend almost a trillion dollars annually on defense. "Always" is objectively incorrect by basically every measure you use.
> Only for as long as those who make peace, don't pay attention to the prioritization of weapons - and that group of warrior narcissists whose identity is more important than human life must never be allowed to be bigger than the group who make peace - as is happening today at a pace far too great - because otherwise, we all die.
Word salad.
> Yes, humans have been making peace at far greater scale than those limited few who make war. You just don't see them because a) you have your own warrior narcissist mirror obscuring your view, and b) those people are not narcissists, and are living human lives instead of primping their warrior narcissist identities...
More word salad.
Except we can (and do!) accomplish that with much simpler airplanes. The staggering costs and complexities of an F35 (the thrust:weight, maneuverability, and stealth) don't make sense for any "peaceful" application.
Also, I think your description of "warrior narcissists" as a shallow description of the spirit of these people. You mentioned something about "identity" in later comments, and I cannot help but wonder what do you mean by that. I don't think Putin's main motive is his self-image, nor do I think Israel's leadership is murdering Palestine's populace to appear heroic.
It would also help to not assume the motives of people criticizing your ideas by presuming them to be "warrior narcissists" themselves. Elevate the discussion, not downgrade it.
I'll always appreciate the spirit of pacifism and collaboration, but your comments seem quixotic, and not in a good way.
All current war theaters are the result of a police state and these police states only function because of technology.
The subject is de-weaponization of technology.
First, you separate the technology from the person using it correctly - i.e. not to create a police state.
Then, the person using it incorrectly in a police state.
In this case, the person you don't want to have using technology to murder/do harm/violate the actual human rights of others, is the warrior narcissist.
So, as a technologist, I do not let my technology be used by someone who is only going to use it on others, for actual war-fighting/warrior purposes, for the purposes of protecting or promoting their identity over the life of others.
Because that is what good technology is - something which gives all users, equal rights. An equal, new identity, with each new form of technology.
So, de-weaponization means, disconnecting the user from using technology in destructive ways.
Constructive ways are easier, such as I demonstrated with extreme prejudice, such as the notion of the pink F35, dropping cluster medical supplies, water desalination pods instead of child-maiming fertilizer bombs, or indeed - fertilizer in the right place, with emergency seed-bombs for a 3 month re-supply of the landscape, food-wise, etc.
All current war theaters are the result of a police state and these police states only function because of technology.
These are parables I'm dramatizing, with intent. I do know there is no chance in hell of turning off all the weapons - I for sure know that there is a way to use technology to make sure a police state doesn't happen in the first place. (Because I've been doing exactly that with technology for decades.)
Putin is an identity of someone you don't actually know, but yet, you think you know the warrior narcissism in Putin - but it is actually the identity, not the individual, that I am talking about. I rate Putin among all the other war criminals of the world - they are there, because they have the technological might of their people - or indeed the ignorance of their people in spite of this might, or indeed even collective agreement on scale, to perpetuate that identity.
And lest it not be clear, I find that in order to be a good pacifist, you have to allow for new identity, always. It is the use of technological power to gain mass identity and exploit it for war, which I am specifically calling the playground of the warrior narcissist. Those who would murder to maintain their own identity.
Drop books not bombs, is legitimately the simplest pacifist view I can express. I see far, far more peace to be had in the world with the concept of dropping a complete archive.org gardening section from the pink F35, you know .. "turning the pistol into a pump" ...
>It would also help to not assume the motives of people criticizing your ideas by presuming them to be "warrior narcissists" themselves. Elevate the discussion, not downgrade it.
Apropos quixotic.
You might notice that I am manifesting the very thing I am resisting.
That is by design. For every excuse for murdering 'those people over there', I have and can spot a greedy instance of technological mis-use. There is no longer any good, legitimate reason for war - technologically. It happens, because technologists don't confront the warriors.
So I'm targeting warrior narcissism intentionally, and yes in a way guaranteed to create a cloud of smoke on the horizon, because .. after all .. dang himself, could prove the value of my point by switching me off right now.
Good luck - this flies in the face of the entirety of human history.
> "what would it take to turn an AK47 or an AR15 into a water pump?"
As someone who has manufactured these from billet: why would you do this? (hence "word salad") Why does one thing at all relate to the other? Why not just manufacture a pump from the same raw resources? Why not both?
> Those who think weapons are necessary must always take lesser priority than those who invent technology to make the lives of their fellow human beings better.
Did the Allies in WWII not "make the lives of their fellow human beings better" using violence? Why didn't they just ask mean old Hitler: "Hey, be nice! Have a good spirit!"? The world has finite resources, inherently making anything often denies those resources (your time, actual materials, etc.) to other causes. "Better" is subjective.
> There are so many examples of the tool-makers winning harder and at greater scale than the bomb-manufacturer.
These organizations are often one in the same.
> We wouldn't be here now if the balance was the other way
The balance is already the other way regardless of your citation-free assertion. You're using the internet to proliferate this tripe - famously a DARPA invention.
> Imagine if those F35 mounting pylons were used to drop field-portable water-purification systems directly where they are needed most.
Why is a high-performance stealth aircraft required for this? Why does one thing have anything to do with the other? What peaceful purpose does stealth capability serve?
> Imagine if those ships were being used to bring power to the villages that need it most.
No need to imagine, this already happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powership
> Disarm them too.
With what? Words? Precisely how do you non-violently disarm someone who is willing and demonstrated to use violence to prevent you from disarming them? Again, the world's resources are finite, and control of these resources inherently requires violence.
Your ability to spread these "ideas" are rooted in violence: taxation, freedom generally. Freedom isn't free, and the price is paid in blood.
I get that folks don't like war. I hate war. I've seen much more evidence that deterrence produces peace more readily than disarmament. On the flip side, more destructive weapons may be used more rarely, but they kill more people when they are used.
I'm not sure what the optimal approach is, but it almost certainly requires nations to arm themselves in case they are attacked. "Provide for the common defense" was not specified idly.
That they have not made that priority, choosing instead to prioritize their nations' collective warrior narcissist identities rather than valuing the human life of each, is why those nations are on the brink of destroying each other.
Warrior narcissism is infectious and contagious and insidious. You can see it at an individual scale and you can see it at nation scales, too. The solution is to smash the mirror: deny any and all of the identities involved their right to their own identities, until they see, underneath it all, the true value of human life.
There is no American/Russian/Ukrainian/British identity worth more than the human lives in each state. There is no Israeli/Palestinian identity worth more than the human lives in either state.
The fact that one identity is held as more valuable/important/special than the other, is what gives each the justification (not right) to murder the other.
If the rest of the world had shunned the Russians and the Ukrainians and the British and the Americans at equivalent levels until their identities were no longer of any perceived value, the conflict would not have perpetuated. The fact that Russians clung to the identities of the Russian-speaking humans in the Donbas, the fact that Ukraine nationalist identity took higher priority over respect for human life, the fact that Americans gloat over their own cultural identity of warriors, as do the Brits - is why we have the conflict.
>I've seen much more evidence that deterrence produces peace more readily than disarmament.
Bullshit. Deterrence did not stop a single human life being murdered in any of the current conflicts. "Deterrence" is just warrior narcissist speak for "I've got my mirror, it's bigger than <theirs>, and that is all that matters".
Ok, let's steel man this thing. Russia is not going to be peaceful regardless of your idealism - this isn't a disputable fact. Now, how does Ukraine "prioritize making peaceful relationships?"
Specifically, what concrete actions should Ukraine take to prevent violent incursion by an outside actor? No word salad: if you are the benevolent dictator of Ukraine today, what do you do? Counting on third parties to "shun" is out, it's not an effective option (and it arguably already happened with sanctions, but still.)
> Deterrence did not stop a single human life being murdered in any of the current conflicts.
What would Ukraine look like absent any donated war materiel from third parties? Why does Russia not own Kiev in that scenario?