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Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

So the deal modern man was presented with was this: we'll give you instant global communication for pennies, but in return governments and corporations will closely monitor everyone on the planet: where they are, who they call, how long the call is, their texts, messages, and other communications -- basically their thoughts. We'll record this forever to use as we choose. Trust us.

As a global population, we seem to have made this deal, but I'm not aware of ever being consciously offered the choice. Can I change my mind now?

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Yes; but it's equivalent to taking the Red Pill. Beforehand, you live in one of the most powerful and richest countries that ever was, a beacon of hope and freedom to the rest of the world. Afterwards you live in a country in which the government seems increasingly disconnected from human needs, sends robot assassins to bomb civilians half a world away and watches everyone with a myopically panoptic and punitive gaze.

Oh, and your closest allies will be marginalized, smelly and opinionated; and on the lam.

> you live in one of the most powerful and richest countries that ever was, a beacon of hope and freedom to the rest of the world.

Genuine question, do you actually believe this, or are you referring to it as fiction in the same way the Matrix is fictional?

Ah, err, ehm; I would have thought that I no longer do, if ever I did would be quite clear from the context.

I do think that our government took a serious wrong turn after 9/11, and that our collective self-image ("beacon of democracy" and all that jazz) is increasingly at odds with our behavior. More and more the US government seems to be driven by non-human motives. Non-human in that even the people at the very top seem cognitively overwhelmed and more as if they were being acted upon by unseen forces whose existence can be inferred by the traces they leave behind; but whose intent and motivation are obscure.

You were offered this choice virtually through the official representative you or majority had chosen.

You changing your mind is irrelevant to global agenda and the way things will be executed. Most people "change" their mind by stopping to vote for one party (D) and changing to another (R). Example of spying on its citizens is a great example when your change of choice does not make a dent; it is President Bush (R) who signed Patroit Act/NSA spying into law, its is then President Obama (D) who said he will stop this only to continue and expand while elected. And people have short memory so now they will vote again on R. Nothing will change at the end and you can be sure those who come in place with continue or extend the abuse up to the point when system entirely collapse.

Sure you can! Join the 60% of the world's population that _don't use the internet at all_.

Or the 20% of the population of the _US_ that don't use the internet.

You can even still use a cell phone, if you want - just buy a prepaid mobile with cash.

And aside from awkwardness with your friends, you might even find such a life quite livable. You'll experience no material hardship.

> You can even still use a cell phone, if you want - just buy a prepaid mobile with cash.

Actually this is exactly the kind of thing this data would sniff out. It would capture whichever cell towers you interact with (home, work, etc) and paired with data from your friends & their call logs could easily pinpoint who you are. Kind of amazing from an analytical standpoint but pretty scary for privacy.

Citation needed on the 20% of the population of the US that doesn't use the internet. Is there even 20% of the US population outside of 100 miles from the shore?

Also, you can't use a cellphone without them knowing who you are with high certainty. It only takes 3 points of location data to identify a person the vast majority of the time[1]. Using a cell phone that you paid for with cash is insufficient.

[1] http://www.livescience.com/28353-anonymous-phone-data-not-an...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...

So actually 19%, yes.

... wow. I sincerely didn't expect that number to be accurate at all. Okay then!

Rough estimate from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territo... suggests that about 2/3 of americans live in a state bordering the ocean, so about 100 million americans further away from the shore.

What that has to do with anything, god only knows, unless you meant something like '100 miles away from the border', and even then I'm at a loss.

Go visit a flyover state sometime. Most of the country's very different than SV/the northeast corridor/other modern urbanized area, and I wouldn't live there if you paid me.

GP is likely talking about the "Constitution Free Zone", or the area within 100 miles of a border [1].

[1]: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights-constitution-free-zone...

I was going on the assumption that most people in population centers use or have used the internet; and that the number of people that were not in population centers was less than 20%; and I mental-gymnastics'd myself to thinking that those population centers tend to be on the shore, so I said it that way.

Not necessarily right, but that's how I go there.

"most people in population centers use or have used the internet" 80% is "most" by lots of definitions.

You're right; but I figured 95-99% in population centers and much more than 50% everywhere else, which ends up being more like at least 86% of the people in the United States used the internet in the last year.

Also do not use any kind of phone.

Do not appear on any camera/picture.

Do not purchase anything with any kind of card.

Do not drive a car (License plate recognition systems are getting scary.)

Etc...

> You'll experience no material hardship.

You sound like a person who hasn't moved a long distance from their family.

You had better keep the battery outside of that phone until you are away from your home and not traveling along your commonly traveled routes, or your possession of it will be inferred by location.

i think if this kind of thing is inevitable, then it should be the case that this kind of information should be completely public to all, not just to governments. similar to what David Brin argues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society)

I understand that if this information is available solely to government agents, a rouge one can potentially do anything they want with it; but if it is available to all, does that not make me even more vulnerable because now anyone who doesn't like me can get a clear overview of my daily routes, or my address, etc?

I completely agree. I am really tired of that Brin story being constantly cited by people without thinking through the consequences - of which there are many.

One of the biggest is the destruction of creativity. When people know that their actions are under constant surveillance it creates an enormous cognitive load. They have to constantly evaluate everything they do as to how it might appear to a critical observer. The end result is that people will simply stop doing anything that might have a social risk associated with it.

A panopticon society will be a dull, stagnant and repressed society. Think of every little backwards town where everybody knows everybody's business and anyone who steps out of line is ostracized. That is what our entire society will turn into with total surveillance.

i think @daveid's point is common, and i haven't actually read anything by Brin on the matter so i don't know what counterpoint he might make. maybe tracking itself would be tracked? maybe person X is watching you watch person Y? i think in general, however, with that much information, people will simply not care what everyone else is doing. part of what makes "private" information interesting is its rarity.

and i don't think anyone claims it wouldn't be a different culture, or that we should throw away core privacy like being able to sleep in our own beds without someone watching

with that much information, people will simply not care what everyone else is doing. part of what makes "private" information interesting is its rarity.

That's basically Brin's theory and it is a bad one because it assumes, against all evidence to the contrary, that people will just simply stop looking for ways to judge other people as being inferior.

We need an Internet that is secure by default. The Application layer security is a mess, and has a vast number of ways to attack and break that encryption level. We need to encrypt every packet on the web at the Transport layer or even the IP layer.

What about any of the other infinite number of unforseen attack vectors?

It is a misunderstanding that it is the communication infrastructure and technology under attack here. It is not.

It is the abstract idea of Freedom that is under attack, and so a technology based solution is not the answer. More than powerful technology, we need powerful new ideas about Freedom.

New technology implementations that fix existing attack vectors would still be most welcome, but not a cure all.

You can at great personal and social cost. The new Don Quixote will be tilting at communication towers everywhere.

Wiretaps have existed for thousands of years in one way or another. They've existed in America since the Civil War when they tapped the Confederates telegraph lines. You either control the stage or you're a slave.

> Wiretaps have existed for thousands of years in one way or another.

Communication intercepts may have, but wiretaps haven't existed longer than communication by wire.

Yes, just stop using the internet and phones.

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