I cannot imagine mandatory tracking devices, anonymous or not, ever being mandatory in the United States. That would never fly.

This is the same United States where just about everyone already carries a tracking device by choice, where lots of people have installed 24/7 network-connected microphones in their homes, and where everyone believes you need ID to fly. This is the same United States where a common political argument is that of course ID should be required to vote because ID is required for everything else, and citizens should just carry ID. This is the same US where a special police force arrests and detains citizens and forces them to prove that they're actually citizens. It's been a long while since we actually objected to the "papers, please" world.

After all, these beacons are not mandatory - they're only needed if you want to use the roads as a pedestrian or cyclist. If you don't, you can drive your car like any real (read: non-poor) American, or use a taxi or bus. Pedestrians already aren't permitted on highways, what's so different about restricting pedestrians on surface streets?

And if you don't carry the beacon, that's not illegal, it's just your fault if you get hit by a car. It's not the government forcing you to carry it, it's algorithms and corporations, which makes it okay, right? If these beacons are produced by the free market, why should government regulation step in and stifle innovation?

I'm going to assume this is a good-faith argument and not a "bury them in BS" reply:

> This is the same United States where just about everyone already carries a tracking device by choice.

Sure, that's a very reasonable counter-point, however not everyone does.

> where lots of people have installed 24/7 network-connected microphones in their homes

Plenty of folks find asking a wiretap for pancake recipes fine, and there are plenty that balk at the thought. This Christmas my sister bought everyone Amazon's cute little NSA Listening Post™ - was fun how quickly the look of disgust crossed their face when I explained that every conversation would be recorded and store in Amazon's data centers... and probably a few three-letter agencies.

> and where everyone believes you need ID to fly. This is the same United States where a common political argument is that of course ID should be required to vote because ID is required for everything else, and citizens should just carry ID. This is the same US where a special police force arrests and detains citizens and forces them to prove that they're actually citizens. It's been a long while since we actually objected to the "papers, please" world.

There is an insanely large leap between having an ID for a few specific purposes and being mandated to carry a homing beacon.

> they're only needed if you want to use the roads as a pedestrian or cyclist.

The post I replied to did not state "to use the roads" - it stated general use of mandatory beacons. You're moving the goalposts.

> And if you don't carry the beacon, that's not illegal, it's just your fault if you get hit by a car. It's not the government forcing you to carry it, it's algorithms and corporations, which makes it okay, right? If these beacons are produced by the free market, why should government regulation step in and stifle innovation?

If the AppleMobile hits me because I don't carry an iPhone, you can best believe they will be sued into oblivion. Remember, this is litigious America!

The Evangelical community would surely denounce a mandatory tracking device as the work of the Antichrist, and I would love to watch politicians shit on that high-turnout demographic.

> The post I replied to did not state "to use the roads" - it stated general use of mandatory beacons. You're moving the goalposts.

Sorry - my reading was that it was in reply to "Worst case scenario, beacons become mandatory. Cheap and anonymous beacons you have to carry when you're near a road," and so I thought you meant "beacons that are mandatory if you're near a road and don't want to be hit." If you mean "beacons that are mandatory just to be a human in America at all," then sure, I think that's going to be a much harder sell, but I'd also argue that the post you were responding to doesn't require such beacons.

I suppose this all hinges on what "near roads" means.

To me, that includes pedestrians walking on a city sidewalk who might jaywalk as the TFA that started this whole conversation is talking about. Now the only way you can ensure folks have that device is to mandate for everyone. Of course in the US it isn't nearly as common, but I know plenty of city-dwellers without cars. IANAL but I'm having a hard time believing a mandatory beacon would pass Constitutional muster, let alone public support.

Again, it doesn't have to be mandatory from the government. It's just that the car companies guarantee they won't hit you if you have a beacon (i.e., they take on all liability), and they make no such guarantee if you don't (i.e., you or your bereaved family have to go fight them in court, have fun). They will have complicated spreadsheets internally calculating the "acceptable" level of casualties, where they can keep the public convinced that it's their fault for not carrying beacons, and not invest in improving their detection algorithms beyond that. (Engineers working for these companies will earnestly try to build the best algorithms they can, but senior management won't staff or fund these departments any more than necessary.)

I'm curious if you were around and leading a normal adult life before 9/11?

I think you'll find "land of the free, home of the brave" is more or less a cheap slogan once the chips are down and people are afraid.

Exceedingly few people in the US actually care about individual freedom or privacy. 9/11 drove that point severely home to me - those born in the 90's and later will never know the America I once knew, and I'm sure those born before Pearl Harbor and the like would say similar.

The erosion of personal freedom and the expectation of privacy just in my lifetime has been absolutely astounding. Watching basically everyone trade their freedom for temporary security.

Hyperbolic? A bit. But I think if you spend some moments of reflection you'll realize almost none of your fellow citizens actually care. They will play lip service at best until an event happens that scares them, and at that point you're the crazy privacy freak with obviously something to hide.

> every conversation would be recorded and store in Amazon's data centers

I agree with everything else you wrote (I think?), but I thought that the Echo only transmitted things it recognized directly following the activation phrase?

I might have exaggerated / misspoken in saying that, but at the same time it hinges on you trusting that the manufacturer is A) telling the truth and B) that device has not been compromised. It is fair to say that it is always listening. Also possible, is that a device positioned in the kitchen helping being used to lookup a recipe could overhear a sensitive conversation in an adjacent room.

I would bet that the Echo and devices like it are amongst the most monitored consumer devices in existence. Plenty of people either already have enough network monitoring to catch it misbehaving, or will install that monitoring just for the sake of catching it. In a weird sense it's like open source software in that regard. I haven't read all the code myself, I really on group knowledge to reassure me. Same for Echo. As a practical matter the Echo and other similar devices are difficult to turn into full-time listen-and-record devices unnoticed.

> As a practical matter the Echo and other similar devices are difficult to turn into full-time listen-and-record devices unnoticed.

Why would it be harder to pwn than anything else?

I think the GP meant that it's harder for _the vendor_ to do it, because there are assuredly many privacy-attuned nerds who would run wireshark a bunch on it and notice when the $ListeningPost becomes an always-on bug.

I don't think they meant to imply that it would be hard to to cause such behavior via malicious action by 3rd parties.

>I'm going to assume this is a good-faith argument and not a "bury them in BS" reply

That reads so snarkily. You announce that what the other guy wrote sounds like a lot of BS, or you strongly suspect it is (why mention that otherwise) but you will very generously act as though it's not. It's good to assume good faith, not so good to announce it like that.

> After all, these beacons not mandatory - they're only needed if you want to use the roads as a pedestrian or cyclist. If you don't, you can drive your car like any real (read: non-poor) American, or use a taxi or bus.

You just wrote two things:

1) Pedestrians and bike riders should wear beacons or aren't "real Americans".

2) Poor Americans aren't "real Americans".

Are those what you meant to write?

Yes, that's what I meant to write. Note that those are not my personal opinions (as a pedestrian, cyclist, and non-car-owner, I'd like to think I'm as real an American as anyone else), but I do think they are common opinions in America.

Everybody misinterpreted what I've intended. SHORT RANGE BEACONS. Enough to be "seen" by car AI through obstacles. Here's the imaginary conversation between car and beacon:

- "Is someone behind that parked van?"

- "Yes"

- "Who?"

- "Mind your own business, just slow down in case I decide to jump to the road, ok?"

If the beacons don't identify their carrier, you could very easily troll AI cars by leaving unmanned beacons lying around.

Good point... Well, that seems easy to police: Have one car patrolling for beacons not attached to what appears to be a person or bike. The only consequence of such troll beacons are cars slowing down on that point, that's all.

While I agree, car manufacturers are already monitoring and storing this data. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2018/01/1...) If the find they can sell it, they will.

Would a beacon have to be a personally associated tracking device? I can imagine carrying a device that just broadcasts a generic "cyclist here, moving this speed and direction" signal, without identifying or being registered to me (bought with cash)

Maybe not mandatory but otherwise you’re liable so your insurance company requires it.

Insurance companies mandating pedestrians carry a beacon? That's even less likely.

They don't need to mandate it, at least not at first. They can just incentivize it the right way and people will willingly jump on board.

"Install this app on your phone to make traffic lights recognize you when you approach them, for a timely shift to green light"

"Install this app to collect pedestrian-points, exchange points for prices and discounts!"

"Get a better insurance tier for installing this app which tracks your fitness. Do your daily 10.000 steps for a free <whatever>!"

Once enough people jump on board, and it's generally accepted as being "normal because everybody uses it", then you can mandate it and the few people left who resist can easily be branded as "paranoid tinfoil-hat people" to marginalize their opposition.

If you're relying on a smartphone to host a beacon, isn't that already a solved problem?

Smartphones are radio transceivers, I would imagine any anonymous beacon technology wouldn't be noticeably louder than what smartphones are already emitting.

Several states already have laws preventing that requirement. In those states, location-tracking must be opt-in, and must offer an economic benefit to the policyholder.

Silly rabbit. We jack up the price without a location tracking and offer a 10k incentive to do location tracking.

No location tracking = new policy price

Location tracking = new policy price - 10K.

New policy price = old policy price + 10k

Any insurer which raises rates to pay for this would quickly lose most of its business unless they're (a) the only insurer in the state or (b) convince the rest of the insurers in-state to collude on pricing. The first isn't the case of any state with respect to auto insurance, and the second is a state and federal felony punishable by many years in jail for any executive stupid enough to participate.

And that's assuming they can get away with the rate increases in the first place. States like CA have insurance commissioners empowered to review and reject rate increases.

You do know that progressive has been doing it for a few years, right? With that little device that you can plug into your car to lower the rates?