MomsAVoxell

Couldn’t disagree with you more. Do you want to live in a free and open society or not?

Where does your march to the bottom end? We are no longer allowed to take photo’s of our government without permission, perhaps?

If the person is in public, and they are incidental to the subject of the photo, permission is not required.

If you are taking a picture of a stranger, of course you have to ask their permission.

These two things are not the same.

We are literally in Hacker News where the entire spectrum is on display, all for a little up-doot.

Sure, hackers have always been an arrogant lot. But it is only this century, since the finance bro’s joined the party, that its been so, so immensely profitable ..

You are projecting and don’t seem to know the law. I do, having taken thousands of great photo’s all over Germany.

Do you want to live in a free and open society or not?

The fact is, the general public having the ability to take photo’s of the scene in front of them - idyllic or horrific - is essential to the continued operation of our society.

Familiar with the Rodney King case, by any chance?

> a large percentage of sites will not print out correctly as a PDF these days.

Reader mode.

I attain this without involving an untrustworthy third party, with one simple trick: Print to PDF.

Every single web page I’ve found interesting, since the advent of the Web, I have printed to PDF and stored locally for my own personal reference.

Something like 80,000+ files - my own copy of my own Internet - indexable, searchable.

Available offline. Something to read when I am far out to sea.

There is no need to involve third parties in your Internet history - no matter how trustworthy they seem to want to appear.

Print to PDF, and you’ve got everything you need, safe and sound.

Maybe, before you engage in thought-blocking totalitarian-authoritarian’ism, read what I have actually said.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49743649

I have a great deal of respect for German culture - this is why I live in a DACH state in the first place.

CCC is a private event and I absolutely concur that their policies are acceptable in that circumstance.

> German Law and culture is different when it comes to taking pictures than what you seem used to

No, in fact, I am quite familiar with the law - to the extent that I am prepared to defend my position.

One thing I don’t respect, is the German proclivity to repress the public sphere. You will never beat that out of me - I have seen the positive results of public photography deliver justice in plenty of cultures where it was desperately needed.

It is perfectly fine for me to take whatever pictures I want in the public sphere - as long as I respect others’ rights and wishes to not be the subject of that photography.

I think you will find that our opinions are in alignment actually. I never take pictures of strangers - in all cases where I have been asked to review such public pictures, the individuals have been incidental to the subject in focus.

CCC is a private event, though. They have every right to the policies they enforce, and I am perfectly fine with adhering to these policies when I attend - after all, I also do not want my photo in some spook database.

But, on the bus? In the park? On a sidewalk in a public street? It is unreasonable to censor these environments.

The law very stringently allows for public photography - it does not allow for weaponization or commercialization of that photography against an individual.

Do you believe in the preservation of history and culture for the benefit of the future?

I don’t take pictures of random strangers for entertainment - I take pictures of the beautiful, open, public spaces I visit, which happen to have people in them.

The notion that a society should not be free and open in this regard is, frankly, repressive.

It’s a double-edged sword, and I concur that public photography should not be weaponized against the individual.

However, if I see a crime being committed, you can be sure I will be taking photo’s and dealing with the personal consequences later.

I am on the “public photography is not a crime and I don’t need anyone’s permission to record my personal experience” side of the debate, because I think that a society which does not allow free and open recording of events in the public sphere endangers itself, immensely.

I know it is incomprehensible to a lot of Germans, but without public photography being an open and uncontrolled activity, we wouldn’t have had the civil rights movement in the USA.

We wouldn’t know what was happening in Gaza every minute of the day.

There is a duty to protect this right in a free and open society - not just the American version of it - not just to record incivility and injustice, but also to promote the changes of culture in a society over time.

Would modern Germans have as much self awareness and responsibility for their state, if there were no candid photos of Sophie Scholl for future generations to refer to? A society which eschews such occurrences, endangers itself - indeed, censors itself. Germans are, after all, pretty much used to censoring themselves - but I think this has its limits and should not be tolerated.

So, I claim and exercise this activity because I think, as a responsible member of a society, it is important to hold the camera up - at times.

For sure, if someone asks me, I will comply with their wishes - I have no desire to confront a stranger with embarrassment or harassment by their own personal image - but I also think its necessary to resist the roboticism on this issue, particularly in Germany.

> Why not ask for permission instead of objection?

Because in most cases it was never my intention to photograph a stranger - they imposed this into the conversation by contacting me - most of the time I’m taking pictures of a lovely park, or a nice flower arrangement, or the broken beer glasses in the street after Carnival - and it is only after being interrupted that I offer the option. I certainly do not take photographs of random strangers unless it somehow captures the idyl of the scene, usually.

And in many cases actually, the conversation starts off irritable but ends quite friendly, especially if the photo is a good one and the person changes their mind and wants a copy.

It is possible to pivot from annoyance to friendliness. Especially if one understands the laws and the reasoning behind them. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.

It doesn’t actually make you right-wing, I’m just kidding around - as someone who has broken more than my fair share of ethically sourced bamboo shoe spoons, now replaced with a metal one, I am fully taking the piss.

But, it’s more that I caught myself formulating this opinion after being in a DACH culture for some time. I think this is DACH’ness, seeping into my mindset ..

I’ve heard it around in various forms, but this is my version. Thanks.

I don’t really understand what you’re saying, could you expand on it? MWVCE is a private event, the organizers can set the policy at the door - are you saying that folks were not willing to comply with the policies?

What triggered the comparison, specifically?

There is a fine line, I agree - but I prefer to ask for forgiveness than permission when taking photo’s in public.

A society which censors the public sphere, endangers the public.

It’s a double-edged sword, and photography - like many technologies - can be weaponized against the individual; but it can also be used to gain justice against the crimes of the state.

The disrespect, entitlement and self-centered posturing goes both ways though, though.

“No, sorry, I wasn’t taking a picture of you, I was taking a picture of that cute dog - you just happened to be in the background, and I wouldn’t have anything to do with you if you weren’t so paranoid and self-centered…”

Public photography is a right which needs to be protected - by the public.

Just ask Rodney King. Or, you know, the children of Gaza. If you don’t know what either of those have to do with this discussion, you probably haven’t seen the photos…

Yes but why flag it?

CCC is a private event and does not fall within the purview of the right to public photography.

Anyway, I don’t go to CCC to take pictures of people - although this is an unfortunate policy because it means that the culture of CCC is not recorded for posterity …

I think it would be a better policy for CCC to require photographers to wear a special easily recognized t-shirt or funny hat, so that they could take pictures of crowds but give non-participants time to dissent.

In a life of comfort, the mind makes its own travails.

>if you point the camera at a person you need their consent

In public spaces (streets, squares, etc.), you may generally photograph people without consent for purely private/non-commercial purposes, as long as it is not intrusive, secretive in a way that invades privacy, or shows them in a state of helplessness, intimacy, or compromise (the latter can also trigger criminal provisions under § 201a StGB).

Casual or incidental street photography is usually fine; highly targeted or harassing photography of individuals can still violate general personality rights.

However - the key rule (Recht am eigenen Bild under §§ 22–23 Kunsturhebergesetz / KUG) mainly restricts publishing or publicly displaying recognizable images of people, not merely taking them in public.

This is a distinction many Germans do not quite comprehend - but it is also the case that it’s not very well understood in the USA, too.

Disclaimer: I am a recordist, I am responsible for a few well-received (even by the original artists themselves) bootleg recordings of famous gigs, I have a strong bias towards recording public environments and a heavy aversion to any censorship, whatsoever. Given that, however, if someone asks me not to take their picture, I first give them the option of receiving a copy for their own purposes, and if they decline, I respectfully delete.

Yes indeed, there is an undercurrent of this culture still lurking in the shadows.

I think it’s a consequence of the architecture, personally.

Germans aren’t actually used to having a lot of privacy - I often cringe when I hear my neighbor flush their toilet, and I live in an ‘innenhof’ surrounded by the noisy lives of a vast array of cultures, yelling at each other and having sex and calling their kids back in from the yards for dinner. We all live on top of each other, and for some people this is reason enough to snoop.

>garbage-separating habits

This is a make or break issue for a lot of Germans, it’s true. I personally believe its because the maintenance costs of the apartment/communal living waste admin are borne by all tenants, so this gives folks the idea that they have a ‘right’ to police each other over it.

I’ve learned my own quirks over the years, living in DACH states. I recently found myself seriously judging people by the nature and form - and indeed, strategic availability - of the house shoe spoon. If there isn’t one, you’re about to enter the house of a heathen. If there is one, but it’s small, a sadist. If it’s a long one, strategically placed right by the spot you’re expected to deposit your shoes - a mensch. If it’s wooden, a hippy mensch. If it’s metal, a right-wing mensch.

I’m sorry, Oida, I can’t help it. The shoe spoon is a social indicator! (Edit: I’m joking, a metal shoe spoon doesn’t make you a fascist - its more of a mental game I play while taking off my shoes at a new friends’ house, and I do have to say I am correcting myself on this habit of pigeon holing on the basis of the nature of ones shoe spoon, although I find it amusing as a mental game I do recognize its a prejudice I’m forming in my old age…)

Another Australian checking in, living in a DACH country with life experience in most of them .. Germans are averse to social culpability in ways that Australians (and Americans) are not .. whereas in the US you’ll get a neighborhood watch person on your case for not cutting the grass in the right direction, in Germany you’ll get a grumpy unwashed totalitarian who literally thinks you’re gestapo because you took photos in the public park. Actually, come to think of it, you’ll get a grumpy German complaining about the grass cutting too, never mind that analogy.

Basically, westerners need to realize that the war shock is still reverberating through DACH cultures - remember, German’s were perfectly okay with having their neighborhoods ‘cleansed’ of those their state considered inferior - and then had to suffer decades of persecution for it - whereas Americans see themselves as victors in the freedom game, which is quite pathetic because the freedoms enjoyed in German streets on the regular would have half the American nation birth kittens in conniptions.

I’ll never forget how relieved I felt when I first cracked open a beer on the street in Germany. I don’t do it often, it’s not a thing I really see myself doing a lot. But just the idea of being able to take a couple beers to the park on a picnic with my new German girlfriend, and take a few naughty pictures of her (at her request and with full consent), washed away all the pretense I had, having (at the time) recently relocated from California, where I literally witnessed kids getting their heads bashed in by police for complaining about getting a ticket for having an unopened six pack in the back seat…. I don’t fear German cops, I find them completely amusing. I do everything I can to avoid American cops.

But you know .. Australians too, have their quirks in this regards. I’ve never met a more uncouth nation, frankly. The vitriol and invective I encountered, visiting my homeland again, just for speaking a bit of German on the train with my kids, was overwhelming… from little old ladies who should know better than to challenge a well-traveled cosmopolitan sandgroper on the subject of language. Oh, how their faces vacuumed into themselves once I explained that I was, in fact, Australian, and that I consider anyone who only speaks a single language vastly inferior to those who speak many - just as the original caretakers of the stolen land did!

All in, I prefer living in a DACH nation than either Australia or USA, unwashed totalitarian personalities notwithstanding. It’s just a more relaxed culture, all things considered. The war shock reverberates, but in the corners of it all you will find a lot more free thought than most of the western world.

And that’s another great reason to go to CCC and see for yourself: the freedoms of thought on display.

I’ve been a hacker since the Cap’n Crunch days, I’ve been involved with many hackerspaces around the world, used to sit at the pay phones in Union Station waiting for distant calls, some forgotten first Friday of the month .. and all I can say, anecdotally, is that this death by a thousand cuts is par for the course.

Hacker culture has been co-opted by a broad spectrum of folks - and a big part of the value of CCC is navigating that spectrum.

I’ve met plenty of folks that are annoying as fuck in this scene - but I’ve also met plenty of folks who are just great.

As for the camera thing - Germans have an aversion to being held accountable for their actions in public. It is a deep-seated fear of consequences born from a culture that literally thought it was acceptable, not so long ago, to spy on ones neighbors. They cram themselves into boxes upon boxes and live on top of 2000 other people they want nothing to do with. Just remind them, public photography is not a crime, and that there is no right to privacy in the public sphere, and why don’t they just smile and enjoy the fact that they are frozen in time on some strangers device, just like a strangers memory they have no right to erase. This is the needed context.

Either the American people do, fast, or they become parties to the crime, fast.

Why is this flagged?

Yes, really.

Don’t use political violence, intimidation, and domestic terror.

Use your democracy while you still can.

Indeed, it may be too late for you to do anything effective about it.

What the war criminals that have run your country for decades have done to other nations, they are now going to do to yours.

Protest, inform yourself, demand that your peers are informed, and do not for one instance just let apathy rule. Get out there on the streets every single time, write your representatives, use whatever tepid remains of your ‘democracy’ you have left. Divest yourself of any investments in the military industrial complex - and be damned sure you don’t support it, in any way whatsoever.

Demand justice for your own war criminals at a higher pitch and tempo than the call to eradicate cultures deemed inferior by those very war criminals.

What they do to other nations they will do to yours. Never forget this.

Then do something about it - inform yourself about the other days.

The USA has been dropping bombs on innocent people on average for the past 25 years every 15 minutes.

The only force capable of reining in the US’ out of control military industrial complex, is the American people themselves. Until they do, the atrocities continue unabated.

I’ve seen a not insignificant number of German hackers move to the US to build startups though, just sayin’. Also, Austrians.

Come to think of it, I should find out their kettles IP addresses…

Yeah, that is the sad state of things, if you think about it.

Even your kettle wants to enforce digital tyranny on you.

That is a very dire kind of utopia. I mean, who else likes the idea of warming up the kettle at the appropriate point in the day, without .. having to touch it.

I can’t think of any reason for a kettle to have WiFi, besides have its human tenant touch it as little as possible.

I wanna press <<REWIND but I don’t have the right cookie.