Re:Nintendo's use of surveillance and private investigators ...
by throw999666 on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @11:32PM
(#25589625)
When you figure out that the companies are using the resources of the state intelligence and security apparatus to do their bidding, you see the zero integrity nature of the "professional liars" in the IC, who often find it hard to refuse because of the blackmail material and leverage their employers have on them.
Given the nature of their work, I find it hard to see a situation where it doesn't become the corrupt degenerate swamp it is, unless it transforms to become radically open, transparent and accountable.
Given the vested interests benefiting from the current version, this seems unlikely to occur on its own. The cancer of secret corruption that has eaten that industry from the inside is the Achilles Heel of "Western liberal democracies".
"show me the incentives I will show you the outcome" or something like that.
Capability trickles down over time thanks to technological progress constantly making things cheaper and more accessible. No surprise that BigCo is constantly nipping at the heels of the kind of stuff that 20yr ago was so resource intensive it was reserved for state sponsored actors.
Both types of organizations have responsibility spread so thinly that they will behave as badly as they can justify in pursuit of their goals. Obviously Nintendo isn't gonna slip polonium in this guy's tea for hacking and France isn't gonna drone an ex-pat on a beach in Miami, the risk/reward doesn't favor that kind of behavior. But something like sending PIs to tail him is clearly fair game by Nintendo's analysis or they wouldn't have done it.