[sudo-discuss] Breaking: Oakland to lead country in, diverting anti-terror funding to ubiquitous warrantless surveillance

[GtwoG PublicOhOne]

Hi Shawn-

Re. "slut-shame":  I was merely expressing envious admiration at the
proclaimed prowess of anyone who says they need GPS and on-the-fly email
to get laid, because they must have an outstandingly busy "social
calendar."  Sorry I misunderestimated an admittedly inept attempt at a
light-hearted and encouraging comment;-)

Re. Panasonic GPS etc.:  It maintains a list of places I've programmed
into it.  Mostly client sites, no exciting social calendar or anything. 
But it doesn't transmit either, or connect to the internet.  So if
someone wants to get at what's in it, they have to obtain it first, and
it's not in the vehicle unless I'm using it (primarily because I don't
want my windows smashed for a device that can be sold for a crack rock
or three). 

LPRs:  I've been contemplating solutions to those, but they're a lower
priority until or unless they get commercialized, at which point I'll go
on the warpath.  The first time I drive past an an electronic billboard
that suddenly flashes "Hey G, we know you're shopping for a
toaster-oven, here's a great deal..." I'll pull over and spraypaint
obscenities across it.

FasTrak:  Wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, and neither should
anyone else who values their freedom of association.  I recognized that
as a surveillance device when it first came out; keyword "bumper beeper"
for the oldschool version. 

BTW, did you know that SF Muni buses not only record video of the
passengers, but also AUDIO?  First time I saw that notification on the
side of a Muni bus was the last time I rode Muni. 

House bugged: Probability asymptotically approaching zero, for reasons
that needn't be discussed in public.  Car bugged:  Nope, ditto. 

I don't worry about LE and the TLAs, for various reasons including that
we have recourse at the voting booth.  (Yes, the faith some of us have
in elections is touching, too...)  I do worry about the unregulated
private sector, particularly the Bigs, and as I said, anyone who
believes it's only about "personalized advertising" is welcome to
contact me to buy a bridge I have for sale cheap. 

Misuse of terminology:  You say to-may-toe, and I say to-mah-toe, you
say fell-lay-tio, and I say fell-lah-toe;-)  The point stands that what
Google and Facebook do is basically the same thing as a roving wiretap:
tracking persons and their communications across multiple devices and
locations.  While we're at it, do you know how small a sample of text is
needed to get author attribution?  Just say Twitter... details in
person.  And voiceprint attribution was 99.96% accurate as of 1962
(published); fast-forward at the speed of Moore's law, draw your own
conclusions, and more details in person. 

Consumer cellphone detectors:  I should have specified, "a cellphone
detector that you or someone else in the community has verified works
properly."  Many are the devices that claim to work, and many are the
spam five-star reviews; the S/N ratio for consumer devices and random
electronics is nasty so I don't bother to keep track of them. 

I was involved with crypto a decade before Cypherpunk, and involved in
Cypherpunk too.  (A couple of sentences redacted here.)  More details in
person, including what the best physical RNG is and according to who. 

Agreed, Goolag's voice rec happens on the server side, which also
enables "flexible" control of keyword lists.  How the device behaves in
normal use is one thing.  How it could behave under various other
circumstances remains to be seen and tested.  For example use GPS output
to determine when person is in an "interesting" place, trigger device at
preset incoming audio volume level, etc.  More easily, activate when
device owned by person A comes within X distance of device owned by
person B.  Etc.

I've never tried meth either, but one doesn't need to, in order to
conclude it's bad for one's wetware. 

Good to hear we agree that Goolag Glass is a one-way mirror, but I do
not trust it to only activate when people wink-nudge it.  Same case as
"smart"phones: selective activation by triggering criteria.  Looking
forward to ways to thwart it. 

Agreed it's reasonable to assume people around me carry "smart"phones. 
I try to be aware of devices in my environment, and I don't hesitate to
request devices-off for certain conversations in certain surroundings. 

There was a time when most cellphone batteries were far more easily
removable, and people routinely removed them before they started private
F2F conversations.  Since "9/11 constant-contact syndrome" has set in
with a vengeance ("someone I love might call me when they're about to
die") it's harder to get people to unhook even briefly.  Weird.

The time will eventually come when "second-hand surveillance" is
recognized as being every bit as obnoxious to non-consenting parties as
second-hand smoke is to nonsmokers.  That or the future looks like Brave
New World, "predict & control" via consumer lifestyle.

Ask people in the (whatever relevant earlier era) what they'd think
about thermonuclear weapons, climate change, drug-resistant bacteria,
etc.  We're still fighting over teaching evolution in public schools. 

Heath Robinson is as near to your keyboard as consumer cellphone
detectors are to mine, but here's a link: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath_Robinson  As I said, if you needed
an ad-hom to use on me, "chasing squirrels while believing he's the
reincarnation of Heath Robinson" would do nicely;-)  Read the link and
unpack the suggested ad-hom, and you'll probably agree it's
well-compressed and works on multiple levels.

One thing though.  Comparisons with Ted Kaczynski really are highly
objectionable, seeing as he's a domestic terrorist & multiple-murderer. 
I read his "manifesto" back when the FBI were pleading with every lefty
in the Bay Area for help catching him.  I found it to be a tangled mess
of nonsense, fit for inclusion in an anthology of post-modernist horse
shit.  Come to think of it, comparisons with post-modernists are highly
objectionable too... 

So let's not go using comparisons to terrorists, or calling each other
post-modernists, OK?  Especially when there are plenty of symbolic furry
animals and creators of deliberate absurdity to use for comparisons
instead, and cheeky comments about social calendars and so on. 

In any case we have more in common cause than we have opposing each
other.  My central point here has always been that unregulated
private-sector surveillance is more dangerous to civil liberties than
the TLAs, by a decent handful of decimal places.  We can agree to
disagree about that, and let history be the judge.

Cheers-

-G


=====



On 13-10-16-Wed 1:53 PM, Shawn Lesniak wrote:
> On 2013-10-16 00:53, GtwoG PublicOhOne wrote:
>> OK, I'll concede that point.  It's all about _guys getting laid_. 
>> Privacy doesn't hold a candle to testosterone, and Boehners don't only
>> rule in Congress.  Especially when someone's pursuing casual encounters
>> so often that they constantly need driving directions to find them, and
>> check-ins from on the road just in case. 
> Way to slut-shame there.
>
>> As for me, I get my driving directions from a Panasonic GPS that doesn't
>> spy on me (Panasonic has never had a scandal of any kind), I read my
>> email when I'm in places where I can reply to it without distractions,
>> and my 1935 rotary dial phone has better audio than an iPhone, with the
>> added bonus that when it's on the hook, the mic is completely cut off so
>> nobody can listen in.
> Does it maintain a list of places you've gone?  For that matter do you
> own a car? LPRs everywhere, not to mention FastTrak.  Your house could
> be similarly bugged, your phone is surely not the only place a bug could
> exist.  SOP for anyone doing anything interesting is to not talk in your
> car or home or in too public of a place.
>
>> Seriously though.
>>
>> Roving wiretaps:  Dude, I know more about SIGINT and lawful intercept
>> than most people this side of a TS clearance with SCI tabs. 
>>
> You insist, yet you deliberately misuse the vocabulary.  How could
> someone so educated in such matters not be able to accurately describe them.
> Plus, lol at not knowing about consumer wifi/cell signal detectors
>
>> Android and Siri commands:  Are you absolutely certain about that?  Have
>> you analyzed all the code down to the level of the boot-loader?  Trust
>> in software can be truly touching sometimes... 
>>
> I've held up my phone and said "OK Google" while the display was asleep
> and it promptly woke up eager to take my command.  Just kidding, the
> display stayed asleep.  There'd be a big drop in battery life if the
> phone just did voice recognition all day, not to mention that the voice
> recognition happens on the server aside from the 'OK Google'.  You
> believe otherwise, provide some evidence at all.  Considering you do not
> own a smart phone, I don't know why think you know anything about them.
>  Even the privacy nightmare Google Glass requires a wink or head nod
> before it'll take voice commands.
>
> Cue the Reflections on Trusting Trust reference and then the
> counter-retort of Dopant-Level Hardware Trojans.
>
>
>> Re. "50 fewer phones out of a population of 380,000 in Oakland."  I'd
>> say that's a better outcome than 50 fewer Shotspotters in the Robbery
>> Capital of America.  BTW, your assumption that everyone in that
>> population of 380,000 has one, isn't empirically correct.
> It's correct within rounding error in regards to cell phones, it's not
> correct in regards to smart phones but the assumption the people next to
> you have smart phones is not as crazy as the other assumptions you feel
> are appropriate.  It's safe and reasonable to assume people around you
> carry smart phones.
>
>> Re. "How about if the moon were suddenly made of cheese?"  Ask anyone
>> who was alive during Watergate what they would have thought if someone
>> had suggested, in the 1970s, that in the 21st century people would
>> eagerly carry around devices with software-controlled microphones,
>> cameras, and tracking transmitters, all with effectively unlimited
>> range.  On the other hand, the "drop-in transmitter" and suchlike that
>> were available to Nixon, didn't get guys laid. 
> Ask people what they'd think of a computer that could fit in their
> pocket.  Ask people in the 1890s what they'd think about metal boxes
> traveling around at 70 MPH down 5 lane roads.  Ask people in the 80s if
> they think people would stop having landlines or payphones.  The NSA was
> capturing all telegrams long before I was a twinkle in my father's eye.
>
> What significance does it hold that a hare-brained scheme to wiretap an
> opponent that was sure to lose anyway was unpopular?
>
>> Re. "What are you doing now about this stuff?"  Promoting the usual
>> tools, talking to people who are in positions to have effects on policy,
>> some other stuff I'll say more about when it's ready & working, some
>> other stuff I don't talk about in public, arguing various points in
>> public places such as this one, and denying being a Luddite. 
>>
>> Re. "sitting in my ivory tower."  Ad-homs work better when they're
>> creative & funny.  How'bout "chasing squirrels around the yard whilst
>> claiming to be the reincarnation of Heath Robinson"?  There now, that
>> hits the mark and has a satisfying ring to it!
> I don't know who Heath Robinson is.
>
> Can you explain how your position is different than a Luddite's position
> would be?  Your arguments sound very similar to other Luddites I have
> read, specifically Ted Kaczynski (optional tech not being optional and
> the focus on unrealistic goals like elimination of smart phones).
>