My threat model is against mass surveillance. This is one of the hardest threat models to defend against and to justify, because (at least here in the US), mass surveillance has become normalized. I’ve heard people directly tell me that “privacy is weird.” I’m not here to shoot down the Nothing to hide argument literally labelled on Wikipedia as “a logical fallacy,” instead, I want to take my own approach to show just how unnatural mass surveillance is.
Picture this: Your best friend tells you that he heard rumors that someone put cameras in your house and was actively spying on you. That is super creepy, but you brush it off and say that nobody would do that, because who would care that much about you? However, when you get home, you look around and find multiple dozen hidden cameras everywhere. Think about how you’re feeling right now, knowing that you’re being watched. Even though you know that you’re being watched, but have no idea who has been watching you, what they have seen, or how long they’ve been watching you, it’s disillusioning and creepy to find out that what your friend said was true.
Then, you do some digging online and find out that everyone in your neighborhood is also being watched. Oh, it’s fine then, right? Suddenly it’s much better that you’re not alone. No! More surveillance is not a good thing. People fall into the false belief that as long as it’s not targeted surveillance or a personal attack that it’s suddenly fine, that you will just blend in with the noise. Your data is valuable, and spying in any capacity is NOT normal. Remember: The situation never changed, you are still being watched, you just found out that not only you, but everyone around you is also being spied on.
You still have no idea who is watching you, and it’s even worse to find out that it might not just be one person, that anyone can buy this data for cheap. Data like this can be used to stalk you, drain your bank account, read intimate personal texts, rig elections, manipulate you into buying things you never intended to buy, and so much more. This is the state of mass surveillance and it needs to stop. It’s not a conspiracy, the dystopia is today.
Mass surveillance is not normal. Privacy also isn’t normal: it’s a right, instead.
Lol there is a ring camera on every door and an Alexa in every home. Mass surveillance is so normal they got “normies” to pay for it monthly.
There is a house that put a Ring camera on their fence… facing nothing but the public sidewalk and the properties of other people. Thankfully, they live on a common path for schoolers to walk home, who happily harass them by ringing it 100 times a day.
Spray paint until it stops getting replaced
I toyed with many ideas, spray paint being one of them, but outdoor cameras such as that are designed to be water resistant and the spray paint would simply bead up and do no damage. It’s not my place to force privacy on others, I will just hope that one day they will realize how much of an issue that camera is.
I’m sure some sandpaper would solve that issue
Disappointing that the top comment is this dismissive take (whether or not it’s factually true).
If the best response we can muster is cynicism, we’ll get what we deserve.
Sorry buddy, but we definitely deserve it. This is not Sparta.
Snowden is and always will be a hero.
Sorry we let you down dude.
And, chelsea manning. I’d love to see more whistleblowers in the world. That’s the kind of mass sousveillance we need!
He let us down too. Sidling up with Putin doesn’t put him in the hero position.
uh wasnt his passport revoked mid flight and the plane landed in russia against his will?
hes been basically trapped there
Hadn’t heard that.
If so, my mistake.
Yes and no. Everywhere “Western” has an extradition treaty with the USA so there’s no point fleeing to any of those. Russia isn’t a great choice but if he values his freedom it’s probably the least worst option.
Understood as I wrote the previous.
I just hoped, with all the data resources at his disposal, he’d find a better solution.
Hopes and prayers don’t go quite as far as we’d like, apparently.
It has significant mental health and social effects, too. We need to start seeing these behaviors by governments and corporations the same way that we see similar actions by abusive people. Stalking and monitoring someone isn’t wrong only because a regular individual is the one doing it, it’s wrong because it’s fundamentally wrong. Such behaviors are designed to intimidate and control someone. It is absolutely unjustifiable on every level.
Just last week, my partner and I were on a long hike. No one was around us so to loosen our muscles we started dancing like goofballs on the trail only to look up and find a drone hovering in the shadows recording us. I was embarrassed, but my partner is a very private person and was really upset. Surveillance is seriously getting out of hand. If things continue in this direction then I wouldn’t be surprised if people find a way to use powerful Lazer pointers to burn out cameras.
time to work on your slingshot skills
Where do you live that has surveillance drones on hiking trails?
US northern midwest. That was the first time we had a drone just silently recording us so I am not sure what to make of it.
Didn’t know there were drones just wandering around the us. Could it have belonged to a nature photographer? Creepy af for sure
Bootlickers got nothing to hide so that’s all that matters
I think people who say this are having a very human panic response to something that none of us should ever have to deal with and that none of us can personally control.
Many of these people are conservative and they seem to be lucking the proper constitution for “personal responsibility”
There are many things a person can do about it and some are quite effective.
With snark aside, you ain’t wrong and a lot of education to be done.
Every cloen incident we get more privacy, Foss, linux, Lemmy enjoyers…
Slow but steady.
Yeah, agree. The venn diagram of right wing people and people eager to prove their correct behavior in front of the authorities is a very depressing circle. As you say here, slow and steady. The small steps count.
Edit: Wanted to add a caveat here to clarify that I am only making fun of conservative jerks, not people who for various financial or accessibility or life reasons can’t do the things that are most usually recommended re: privacy.
I find this argument compelling:
“We have a physiological need for privacy. Mammals in particular respond poorly to surveillance. We consider it a threat because animals in the wild are tracked by predators, and it makes us feel like prey.”
Taken from this TEDx talk: https://youtu.be/jVeqAemtC6w Quoted bit starts at 5:45
Define normal…
If you go by the definition of being the most common thing, the current surveillance capitalist dystopia is literally the new normal.
What you mean is that you feel it shouldn’t be normal. And you’re right. But sadly, it is now undeniably the norm.
I personally love mass surveillance. What other use could tax dollars have anyway
God forbid every American woman gets a few months paid time maternity leave to heal and bond with her child.
But if the child is well bonded, how will he grow up to be an insecure, dependable consumer?
It’s normal but people don’t like it. Just ask the people you know if they are ok with all the mass surveillance, they don’t like it. But it’s just too difficult for them to do anything about it. They don’t like this “small beginner steps” approach to privacy. They want complete privacy without effort or nothing at all and they don’t want to pay for it. It’s laughable and sad but that’s my experience talking about privacy with people. But the point here i guess is that mass surveillance has been forced on us all. They create a new wonderful technology with lots of use case but then they also add in some mass surveillance on it as well as a bonus.
In humans, there’s good things and there’s bad things. But most of it is actually in-between.
If you take out everything bad, that satisfies you for the moment. And then you go on, looking for further progress. You take out the almost-bad, the somewhat-bad. In the end, it leaves only the good. But that is not enough for a human to live on.
Constant surveillance leads to burnout and extremely high stress-levels.
Typical 1984 behaviour and wrong thinking
You might also be interested in the Panopticon.
Fun fact: In poland, there is the Panoptykon Foundation, which analyzes introduced laws in terms of privacy and human rights. Many laws have already been withdrawn thanks to them.
It’s just a shame that the government doesn’t do it on its own, but we need a special foundation to do it…
i talked to people that had a difficulty grasping the concept of “if you delete a post, it might still be stored on the server”
the obscure and closed tech we have makes it hard for laymen to get a true grasp on whats truly happening.
Your heart is in the right place, but relying on what Wikipedia calls a fallacy and on implicit “natural rights” both undermine your argument severely. Your fourth paragraph is far and away the most valuable one.
Welcome to the Future where everyone can see you at all times and you will not able to do much with it. (unless you live in an underground cave like Batman)
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I’m not sure if you have looked around much but mass surveillance is pretty normal these days.
Terrible isn’t it. I just want to be left alone.
