It's more complex than that. The tracking and surveillance are not visible to the average person. Point your camera at someone in a coffee shop or bar and take their picture. They'll be coming over to ask you why you took their photo. The fact that the coffee shop or bar is brimming with overhead cameras is completely lost on them because it is mostly invisible (or least no longer noticed).
Just wait until someone does a massive leak of actual personal data, photos, and videos, as opposed to abstract technical reports and Powerpoint slides that Snowden leaked. The average person will be screaming like a banshee when they can look up all the personal info and private pics of themselves and their neighbors and friends on some public webserver.
With the coffee shop, it makes sense; the cameras in retail are expected to only be used for review, when some event occurs. No one expects it to be used for data mining and behavioral analysis purposes. And even if it were, the expectation is that this would be for academic purposes; that is, with no real commercial intent.
Worst case scenario is that it'd end up being archived in a box of tapes somewhere.
Datamining abuses this expectation. But it makes sense for the expectation to exist; it was the norm until extremely recently.
Right. Except that this is also not true.
Source: "A crashed advertisement reveals the code of the facial recognition system used by a pizza shop in Oslo..." => https://twitter.com/gamblelee/status/862307447276544000?lang...
Also, the word "reveals" is used to make the headline more sensational, just like any other headline. It doesn't tell you anything about the average person.
But you’re probably right that most people don’t think this is happening but only expect the stream is only flashing on a screen in front of a guard in real time and stored on a tape temporarily.
The whole point of "less surveillance" is to limit the amount of information stored, because information stored IS the vulnerability.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/snoopers-chart...
Normal people aren't obsessing over tech like the common hn reader.
I always thought this webserver is called "facebook", isn't it?
writing this comment from South-East Europe where many people use facebook not just for cat pics but to find work and network with colleagues. It's a huge problem in developing countries where facebook IS the Internet. FB recently announced it would roll out job-posts for low-income workers[¹]. This will mean an even stronger lock-in for the user. While the discussion on ethics evolve mostly user-privacy and CA/FB role in Brexit/election hacking, the problem for less developed regions is facebook taking from them without giving back (fb is known not to pay it's taxes in Europe)
I have a few cows back in my village. I have toyed with the idea of creating a cattle monitoring application that would have to make use of Facebook or WhatsApp. The herder sends me a picture every evening of the cows. I want to piggy back on the affordable connectivity given to Facebook and WhatsApp. Yes I know, this would contribute to the problem but for me losing cattle is a bigger problem. From parent, finding a job is a bigger problem so we all get sucked into Facebook.
I’ve always wondered why face book, a platform which could unify teachers from mit with the poorest students across the globe has never done shit to do so.
They claim to “connect the globe” but the haven’t connected anything.
Where is the teacher hosting a class where any single person from fbs vast user base can connect?
Fucking unreal.
Facebook could have become the global educational foundation with their platform at this point.
But it’s just a circlejerk.
Well, that was the original hope with print, radio and TV.
So we mostly get scandal sheets, soap operas and reality TV.
"What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history", as some wag put it.
I.e. where enough people watched the content, where the proposal was realistically achievable, and would have been financially viable.
Not saying such a thing is impossible but it sure isn't easy.
And if you dig around the writings around the time that radio and (later) TV got started, you'll see plenty of hopeful plans for universal education.
But after the transient is over, the steady state is kind of underwhelming. People are very resistant to instruction that doesn't suit them, and I really can't blame that.
I was responding to your comment saying "that was the original hope with print, radio and TV. So we mostly get scandal sheets, soap operas and reality TV"!
I'm fully aware there's major benefits that have come from those mediums.
> And if you dig around the writings around the time that radio and (later) TV got started, you'll see plenty of hopeful plans for universal education.
Again, you were the one who said it didn't pan out, and you implied the only reason they didn't was because <quote>"What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history", as some wag put it.</quote>.
My comment was pointing out that the reason has to be more than just that -- thus the challenge to come up with a proposal that could actually work.
pretty much exactly my experience with Canadian and American family. People didn't give one iota of a fuck when the Snowden revelations came out because they just assumed that it was the case already.
I think the average techie underestimates how important platform lockin + user interface design + ubiquity are. Once something like Facebook Messenger has reached a critical market share trying to get people to stop using it, no matter how privacy violating FB may be, is about as effective as trying to get people in the year 1985 to disconnect their house's analog telephone line.