if only we had something called "the law" that would have something to say about embedding spyware into consumer products that puts photos of people on the toilet onto facebook.

of course these kinds of things dont work for the regular guy

Pretty sure they'd be destroyed if they did that shit in EU

You would think so but alas the law isn't actually enforced in many places. It takes a long time for anything to get done as most of the regulators are woefully underfunded. Having the law written is one thing but without the funding to enforce it the law is worthless to most people.

So argue for more laws, more enforcement, and more funding for government agencies and watch the same people complaining about this "travesty" turn against you

After a decade of collecting data, probably

The person on the toilet?

I love the old "Laws like that are why the EU is less innovative than the US" response to critiques like that, given that the past decade or so of innovation feels like it's mostly been finding ways to leverage the previous decade's technology against the user.

>"if only we had something called "the law"

I'm not trying to be flippant, but what is to stop some company from simply utilizing a Terms of Service that allows them to do whatever they want with the data? I often see people chiming in that consumers "agreed" to all of this, even though the vast majority of people never read through the ToS or privacy policy at all.

ToS are often disregarded in courts.

Just write the laws so that they override a contract, pretty simple.

ToS can't override statutory rights.

ToS are often made to be hard to understand.

Can't believe you've been downvoted. HN isn't homogonous, but too often has apologists for immoral and illegal behaviour, provided it's done by a technology company.

Any post involving anything slightly unethical brings them out, n-gate has about the right take on this site.

Are you insane? This is the most anti-tech site I'm on.

1. Big tech

2. There's too much technology in modern products (cars, tv, etc)

3. Privacy is threatened by tech companies

4. Piracy is acceptable if anything costs more than $20

5. Against subscriptions for software

I mean, seriously? Obviously there are a variety of opinions but ...seriously?

I don't think that's right. I feel people here are not generally anti-tech, but ask for tech that benefits users instead of exploiting them.

People on HN have a pretty bizzare definition of "exploiting users," IMO.

Could you elaborate?

Not op, but in a capitalistic economy where transactions tend to be using legal tender, companies providing things for "free" where the (hidden) cost is submission to Big Brother... well, that's exploitative at the least, dystopic in reality. Your unawareness of this being a BIG issue to those who cannot even choose to pay money for a product which is only "sold" for the price of your privacy... is pretty obviously a result of exploitative marketting and a control of tge dialogue which supercedes any source without a narketting/PR department. Especially while we're now "sold" ephemeral licenses instead of permanent products, and most of these products are bits which cost <$0.001 to reproduce, yet cost more today than a hard-copy did in the past, and the lion's share of profit goes to investors, management, CEOs, and other people who not only cannot produce product, but actively handicap and reduce functionality of products to squeeze ever more profit from the now-choiceless consumers. Does that clarify what has been achingly obvious to many of us who see this writing on the wall?

In my experience, this is actually the typical opinion of people on HN, and I agree and see nothing weird with it.

A lot of people here were very dismissive of the Twitter files, showing how closely big govt and big tech work together. I even lamented [0] about it and got tons of pushback ("business as usual"). I had thought at the time this site was very clear-eyed about dangers like these but I'm much less confident in that now and it's apparent even us techies are easily blinded by partisan politics and self-interest.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33917602

I think there’s a pretty wide variety of opinions represented here. You’ll find actual debate on almost any issue. For example, not everyone sees government and big tech working together as necessarily being a bad thing, depending what they’re actually doing and why.

Another reason they're dismissive is because they knew it before the files were released. It's not that we aren't upset about it. It's that we were upset about it years ago and eventually (after being told we're over-reacting) stopped being upset about it.

Oh hey HN people they're doing what you said they would, but we forgot you warned us. We're ready for you to be upset now. Clearly you're not so you're dismissive.

How are 3-5 'anti-tech'?

3. Tech shouldn't imply or require privacy compromises.

4. Piracy tools often drive innovation and technological progress. (Not to mention would we have subscription music services or even Netflix's non-DVD-by-mail business without the market pressure from piracy? Would they cost more?)

5. How does a position or preference on a business model imply pro- or anti-tech?

And even #2 doesn't necessarily imply an anti-tech stance. I don't think it's anti-tech to resist putting computers in toasters, for example. The overuse of tech can be a step backwards and hurt overall technological progress, imho.

Not sure what #1 means.

> 2. There's too much technology in modern products (cars, tv, etc)

Bad technology. Nobody would object to smarter cars with usable controls that didn't spy on you and have security holes. People, even here, would love smart TVs if they started as fast as the dumb ones, didn't have ads, didn't spy on you, and were generally actually in the user's control. People aren't against tech, they're against awful tech that's a straight downgrade from what came before.

Actually, this goes for the rest of your points, not just 2.

Exactly this - most people here aren't in any way anti-tech, they've just read enough bleak sci-fi novels to know an approaching dystopian hellscape when they see one.

>Bad technology.

I've seen many people complaining about modern safety features such as back up cameras and collision detection, I wouldn't call that bad technology.

So your complaint is that those (here) with an intimate understanding of tech and its capabilities are sharing their qualified and often nuanced opinion about tech implementatiioms without exclusively following the market's "everything is flawless and there are no anti-features" rhetoric? A love of tech should mean people care to point out the problems seen from an educated vantage - what do you expect? Are backup cameras flawless? Is collision detection flawless? Do humans lose anything by permanent delegation of their skills? What exactly are you saying is a problem here?

No they are not perfect, but they do have a proven track record. I expect a better reason than "I am a really good driver and don't need those things so they should not be mandatory" which I've seen here several times.

> back up cameras

I have literally never heard a complaint about reversing cameras in my life

Me neither, but I have heard plenty of complaints about backup cameras being required in all new cars.

The idea is that the cameras require a large display on the dashboard. If you could sell a car without them, we might have a cheaper class of small street-legal vehicles with simpler controls.

Sadly, with electric vehicles being thousands of kg heavier than ICE vehicles, kei-style cars would probably get a lot of people killed if they were introduced to the US today.

I think the objections to things like this is the tech for tech sake.

Like with backup cameras that we just don't want to pay for. I've been driving for 20+ years and never once bumped my car. So the safety aspect isn't really relevant. But when I get told "We added this backup camera for free, so you're saving 500$". Honestly I'd rather have you shave 500$ off the price of the car.

I've actually had that conversation about bluetooth in my current car. 8 years old and I've never used the bluetooth. It was tech for tech sake. It adds no value.

Back up cameras are not there to stop you from bumping into things but stopping you from running over a kid

Subjective.

My comment was in reply to someone who said they expected HN to be tech apologists. People down voted me because they took it as a standalone comment complaining about HN.

Quite annyoing

ya and those that work in tech know its flaws and dark sides and can most accurately predict where things could go.

> Are you insane? This is the most anti-tech site I'm on.

It's not anti-tech, it's just savvy enough to be skeptical and not to be enthusiastic about tech for tech's sake.

A lot of people just uncritically buy into sales pitches, or are not confident enough to challenge them.

You seem to be conflating profit at all costs with pro-tech. Questioning how technology is used is a good thing that more engineers should be doing. And #4 is completely made up nonsense. I’ve never seen that sentiment here en masse.

It's also a tech site, so you're likely to see a lot more views about tech either way than on other sites.

It's the tech version of the US phenomenon of people believing they're 'temporarily broke'.

If these issues are regulated now, what happens when it's their turn to be the millionaire startup CEO?

But of course, now the person who gave consent is liable ...

I'd go one further. Consent is an intellectually lazy framework. For many things that operate under consent, it should be pretty clear whether or not it's OK to do something.

I agree. If you have to ask for consent, it probably means you've already made a bad engineering/business decision.

Engineers should ask before adding a feature, "Is this going to require user consent?"

They could have added AI to the Roomba to remove people from the video before it ever even hits the network — or drop that video completely. Or switch to a technology other than visible light, etc.

Nah.. if we ask that "is this going to require consent." the best we'll get is. "Thats a product concern that I'm sure they've addressed"

Happened to me last week actually :)

The only way I see around this is if they upgrade the beta-tester status and give him full control of the images and he's the only one making the labelling and uploading of the results.

This is like a ring camera, or an iphone recording, alexa, etc.

uh except that its purpose is to vacuum the floor.

Sure, I’m talking about the consent though. People are constantly recorded without explicit consent.

Recordings without audio in public spaces is generally allowed. In some states (single consent), audio is ok too.

But I don’t doubt the consent form told the user to get the consent of everyone in the house. But hey, mister sour grapes from the article now ‘doesn’t think he consented’ but doesn’t want to show the consent form.

If this ever goes to court I don’t doubt this will turn out to be one giant nothingburger.