[HN Gopher] Spy tech that followed kids home for remote learning
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Spy tech that followed kids home for remote learning
Author : arkadiyt
Score : 160 points
Date : 2021-09-19 18:37 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.the74million.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.the74million.org)
| indymike wrote:
| Right before COVID hit, I called my local school system out for
| installing spyware on my son and daughter's chromebooks. These
| were not provided by the school, they were bought by me. The
| spyware included a keylogger, something that forwarded every URL
| requested, a screenshotter, and a popunder autoclicker (yes, ad
| fraud).
|
| After a few emails back and forth, I sent one in demanding to see
| a search warrant and to know what horrible behavior the school
| believed gave them the right to search my computer. About 10
| minutes later the spyware was removed from my son's school Chrome
| account and I got a call from the school system CIO who was
| making extra-sure I wasn't going to take further legal action.
| lykahb wrote:
| I'd be interested to see a study for a link between the suicide
| rate and the degree of surveillance in one's life, separated from
| the influence of the social networks that already has been
| studied.
|
| It seems to be quite obvious that the lack of personal space
| would cause or exacerbate the mental issues. However, the modern
| society tends to ignore the problems that cannot be easily
| tracked or assigned a metric.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I wonder how much harm the constant surveillance does.
|
| We are training kids that someone is always watching. That they
| have to censor their thoughts and hold in their feelings rather
| than talk about them with others for fear of it being determined
| to be 'wrong'. How many of these kids will be suspended,
| expelled, medicated, etc for things that were harmless? I think
| this surveillance will cause these kids to be less independent
| and delay their maturation because it's safer to do what you're
| told, not explore questions you have, and suppress your opinions.
|
| The number of conversations I had in school that would have
| gotten me I'm trouble today would be a lot. I would guess they
| would have expelled me for some of it, even though it was totally
| harmless.
|
| Where is the cost benefit analysis? Or is this just another
| 'common sense' solution because 'think of the children'?
| swayvil wrote:
| It's "To Save The Kids" (to quote the article).
|
| Stepping on our rights, invading our privacy, forcing us to do
| various things that we would rather not do - to protect us - for
| our health - for the public welfare.
|
| They need to change their tune. This one is getting really really
| old. Like at least 80 years old. Maybe older.
| mavsman wrote:
| Interesting that HN is up in arms about this but I'd imagine most
| still use Google which spies on our kids in order to sell them
| stuff and manipulate their behavior.
|
| Why do we just accept that porn is being peddled to 10 year olds?
|
| I don't know if Gaggle is the right approach but they're at least
| attempting to help our kids while most of Silicon Valley is just
| trying to monetize them.
| mavsman wrote:
| Also, anyone see that episode of Black Mirror with the contact
| lenses kids would wear? Similarities
| aslfdfhsd498 wrote:
| What scares me is that this is a generation of kids that have
| been broken and domesticated. For whom tyranny is normal and
| natural. What happens when they are grown up and put in charge?
| vaidhy wrote:
| Is this hyperbole or a serious statement? Kids broken and
| domesticated? tyranny normal and natural?
|
| What tyranny? What domesticated kids? You are living in a weird
| world where everything would be a slippery slope, if you truly
| believe this. You might need some help here.
| iamstupidsimple wrote:
| I suspect that lockdowns look a lot like prison to an
| irrational, developing child who's subject to surveillance
| and not allowed to see their friends for a year.
|
| Even outside of lockdowns, helicopter parenting seemed like a
| big problem.
| the-dude wrote:
| Haven't schools been described as prisons for like decades?
| iamstupidsimple wrote:
| That's true also, won't deny that.
| brewdad wrote:
| My kid's high school is located in a part of town that is
| largely warehouses and hotels for business travelers. We
| joke that it's all just another warehouse with a
| different inventory.
| jbm wrote:
| I don't think any parent I know actually prevented their
| kids from meeting their friends other than at the very very
| beginning of the pandemic (and before vaccinations).
| Internet hysterics aside, I think most parents appreciate
| their kids have mental health needs.
|
| (Unless you think schoolmates are friends, in which case I
| have news for you...)
| drdeadringer wrote:
| Wait until you here the phrase "nanny state" regarding the
| UK.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Your comment is an excellent example of the "medicalization
| of dissent".
|
| In your mind, this person you're disagreeing with isn't
| simply mistaken. They "need help".
|
| This type of rhetoric is against HN guidelines. It's also
| exacerbating the issue and the feelings this individual might
| have about "tyranny".
| failrate wrote:
| My kid and I both hate the invigilation trends in education,
| but he is far from broken/domesticated. Instead, it is inducing
| him to rebel against it. He is actively looking for ways to
| defeat this garbage tech.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Drama much? I'm dead against surveillance, but that doesn't
| mean freedom inures in being maximally wild and uncontrollable.
| This is also not a new phenomenon, as far back as the Victorian
| era adults would complain that 'children should be seen and not
| heard.'
|
| Hyperbole is rarely conducive to productive discussion.
| mhh__ wrote:
| A generation of kids growing up in what, the earliest known
| days of antiquity? It's the same shit just from a different
| hole as far as I'm concerned.
|
| That being said, I am grateful that I escaped school before the
| administration properly got a hold of computers. I went to a
| good school, so I doubt it would be hugely Orwellian, but the
| point stands - kids need separation.
| chuckee wrote:
| > In emails and chat messages, students discussed violent
| impulses, eating disorders, abuse at home, bouts of depression
| and, as one student put it, "ending my life."
|
| Of course the email and chat apps had prominent "Your messages
| may be monitored, including by your teachers" notifications,
| right? Kids weren't misled into thinking their private
| conversations were private, right?
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| The point is they have no choice. There is no 'I don't want to
| be monitored' button. Just a message that says 'you are our
| bitch and there is nothing you can do about it'. The same as
| every other TOS for services that have become essential in our
| society and economy.
| gberger wrote:
| Don't they have the choice of communicating some other device
| or method? They are not forced to use the school computer.
| Many of them have phones, or a family computer.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Wouldn't be surprised if in a few decades we have AI
| monitoring your communication ready to flag you for
| psychiatric evaluation.
| smilespray wrote:
| In your world, is surveillance of kids OK just as long as you
| stick a disclaimer up front?
| chuckee wrote:
| Absolutely not. In my world, a disclaimer is the line between
| merely "not OK", and "criminal hacking punishable by prison
| time".
|
| That's how users of RAT* software are treated - what makes
| this different? A legal notice they hid as best they could?
| Currently, that might make it legal, but morally it makes no
| difference.
|
| But I didn't suggest a prominent notice because that makes it
| better (though it does - if I were spied on, I'd want to
| know). I suggested it because that would make the victims of
| surveillance fight it. You can't rebell against what you
| don't know about.
|
| *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_desktop_software#RAT
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| My school district issues Chromebooks (mandatory).
|
| Buried in the school usage guide/hand-out is a paragraph that
| states that the school reserves the right to enable the
| microphone and camera at any time, with no warning or notice
| required by the school faculty.
|
| It's ridiculous and I'm not sure I can do anything about it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Don't allow it in the house while not in use specifically for
| school. Keep it in a faraday cage at the least. All sorts of
| ways of combating this type of bullshit, and it's also a
| teachable moment for your kids. The problem is this is similar
| behavior to those wearing tinfoil hats. What used to be signs
| of crazy are now normal day things.
| josephcsible wrote:
| I don't think a Faraday cage solves the problem. Monday at
| school, the device gets a remote command to record that
| evening. Then while it's in the Faraday cage Monday evening,
| it records to its hard drive. Tuesday back at school, it
| uploads everything it recorded.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So keep it in the car. Don't leave it turned on. There's a
| lot of things one can do to keep a computer from recording
| when they don't want it to. You're just trying really hard
| to come up with excuses of not trying and to just sit back
| and let it happen. It's pretty disgusting.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Keeping it in the car would work, but not turning it on
| wouldn't unless the battery is removable. Modern
| computers can be set up in UEFI to power on at a certain
| time.
|
| > You're just trying really hard to come up with excuses
| of not trying and to just sit back and let it happen.
| It's pretty disgusting.
|
| That's definitely not my goal.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Fine. Leave it on, but point the camera/mic at another
| screen/sound playing horror films or the Barney theme
| song on infinite repeat. Maybe an image of text calling
| the principal and school board out by name. There's all
| sorts of ways to make this painful for the people
| watching it. Just needs a little creativity instead of
| shrugging the shoulders and complaining on the internet.
| Take steps to protect your kids. They are your kids, not
| the school's.
|
| Also, vote the dumbasses on the school board out next
| term. Vote in people running against this.
| no_butterscotch wrote:
| > Buried in the school usage guide/hand-out is a paragraph that
| states that the school reserves the right to enable the
| microphone and camera at any time, with no warning or notice
| required by the school faculty.
|
| A few years ago there were cases of cameras being enabled by
| faculty who observed teenagers in their bedrooms, doing
| something or another, I can't remember if there were salacious
| details (nudity, sex?) involved - but it was a scandal at the
| time. Now it's normal?
| Spockrol wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School.
| ..
|
| You're thinking of WebcamGate from 2010. It resulted in a
| civil case, and the FBI and US Attorney Office investigated,
| but they declined to proceed with any criminal charges. The
| school district had 66,000 images from students webcams.
| literallyaduck wrote:
| Get a lawyer and sue.
| chuckee wrote:
| > I'm not sure I can do anything about it.
|
| Make sure every single parent and child knows about this
| paragraph. And the name of every individual that put it there.
| At every school meeting, ask them why that paragraph is buried,
| instead of prominently displayed on the laptop itself. Ask them
| to install cameras in _their_ homes, controlled by you.
| thomascgalvin wrote:
| At the very least you could make sure the device is powered
| down when not in use.
|
| A piece of tape over the camera would solve about half of the
| problem, and is just a good idea in general.
|
| If you want to be a bit more paranoid, set up a separate
| network for the school-issued devices, and turn those networks
| off except during school hours.
|
| Or, if you're looking for a social solution, print out thay
| paragraph, take it to the next meeting of the school board, and
| demand to know why they want to record your child while they're
| getting out of the shower. These devices _will_ be in children
| 's bedrooms the majority of the time, and if they can record at
| any time, with no warning, they _will_ record images that would
| be considered by many to be very illegal.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| Oh, I don't mean the physical things. I instilled the
| appropriate level of paranoia already (do you want creepy-
| teacher "..." spying at you).
|
| It's more about fighting the ridiculous policy, which
| shouldn't be a thing.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > Or, if you're looking for a social solution, print out thay
| paragraph, take it to the next meeting of the school board,
| and demand to know why they want to record your child while
| they're getting out of the shower. These devices will be in
| children's bedrooms the majority of the time, and if they can
| record at any time, with no warning, they will record images
| that would be considered by many to be very illegal.
|
| yep, this is the solution...
|
| "why do you need the option to record my kids?"
|
| They probably don't have a good answer, and the parents will
| want to know.
| josephcsible wrote:
| For your own kids, how about this? Open up the Chromebook and
| disconnect the camera and mic. Get USB ones that can be plugged
| in when needed for Zoom lessons and then unplugged immediately
| afterwards. Reconnect the built-in ones right before you return
| it.
| walshemj wrote:
| Even at night in a Childs bedroom that's a creating CSM right
| there which is a strict liability offence remember.
| literallyaduck wrote:
| They did:
|
| https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/privacy/goog...
| giantg2 wrote:
| It could be illegal in some states. For example, if it records
| people in a private setting who did not consent, like
| relatives.
|
| I absolutely hate the mandatory use of laptops and such below
| high school level. I think our local district is starting it in
| 5th or 6th grade. Granted the school also whitelists what
| snacks are allowed, down to what brand of chips, and completely
| disallows things like meat and cheese...
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Is that not just for accessibility though? Surely the more
| affluent kids just use their own, more powerful computers for
| homework. I'm guessing the Chromebooks are just for the lower-
| class kids. I could be wrong though.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Isn't that even worse? "Pay not to have your privacy
| invaded!"
| brewdad wrote:
| My son has a nice, recent model laptop. He borrowed a
| Chromebook from the school last year because he refused to
| install their test monitoring spyware on his personal
| machine.
| fmakunbound wrote:
| > "If it saved one kid, if it supported one caregiver, if it
| supported one family, I'll take it," he said. "That's the bottom
| line."
|
| The road to a totalitarian state is probably paved with this kind
| of save the kids shit.
| stupidcar wrote:
| It's funny how every society has its own way of mistreating
| children, yet never considers it a problem at the time. We look
| at the ways children were harmed and exploited throughout history
| and shake our heads at how our morally underdeveloped forebears
| could be so cruel and misguided. Then we turn around and declare
| that our children have no right whatsoever to privacy, and that
| everything they read and write should be surveilled 24/7 by teams
| of strangers, for their "own good".
|
| I firmly believe that a hundred years, people will look back on
| practices like this and shake their heads at the appalling
| attitudes their primitive ancestors had towards children. But I
| imagine that's little comfort to the kids subject to this kind of
| abuse.
| pomian wrote:
| Not in a hundred years. Now. Today. Yesterday. We people, are
| appalled. Yet we still see the creep of ever surveillance. No
| privacy = no freedom.
| petermcneeley wrote:
| This has nothing to do with the rights of children. This is
| about the school system as an ever present overbearing parent
| in place of the Childs real parents. Children do not have the
| right to privacy they are not adults.
| cybernautique wrote:
| I disagree, emphatically. Privacy _is_ a human right; nobody
| has the right, privilege, or ability to intrude and
| exfiltrate data from my mind. Computers are nothing less and
| nothing more than an amplification system for the mind. It
| ought to share the same privileged status as our deepest,
| innermost thoughts.
|
| Children have a right to privacy.
| jbpnoy6fifty wrote:
| My biggest concern regards the balance between privacy and
| monitoring is that children nowadays (and even adults) are
| highly enabled to commit social bullying. Nothing is really
| disciplining them properly, causing recurring "bowling for
| Columbine" events we see almost bi-monthly.
|
| It doesn't help that foreign states are probably working to
| purposely inhibit or even disable American society as a
| community function. (See news about Russian state companies
| and Facebook manipulation from more recent news)
|
| Privacy is important, but public safety has a higher
| priority.
|
| The biggest risk is abuse of the data, not the basic
| mission of these monitoring services
| cybernautique wrote:
| Yes, the biggest risk is abuse of the data- but the basic
| mission of monitoring is also an unacceptable risk. To
| me, this is similar to the notion: "Yeah, we're building
| a nitrous fertilizer bomb in the shed, but the _real
| risk_ is if our neighbor tosses a smoldering cigarette
| butt into the yard. The grass could catch fire!"
|
| I also respectfully disagree. I'm a sincere egoist, so I
| say that: no, public safety is not a "higher priority"
| than _my_ rights, nor is it of a higher priority than any
| individuals' rights.
|
| I think the solution to bullying, and generally the
| unwelcome encroachment of others into our spaces, is some
| ability to rebuke the interlocutors' access to our space
| entirely, permanently, and even prematurely. You'll
| notice that the goal of surveillance is antithetical to
| this, entirely; I take it to mean that the possibility of
| bullying is endemic to surveillance. You can not have
| surevillance without the opportunity for gross abuses.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I do care for public safety and the
| collective well-being. But that is because I choose to
| care, because I choose to sacrifice of my means and
| materials in the times and places that I find necessary.
| The goal should not be, that we allow people their
| freedoms except where it is inconvenient to the
| collective purpose. The goal should be, to empower
| upright and moral citizens to understand their innate
| ability to make the world better.
|
| Yes, this is an imperfect solution to the collective
| well-being. There will often be times where such
| individuals do not understand or accept their privilege
| to enrich the world of themselves; and, at the end of the
| cultural moment when the cards are dealt and the pot is
| dealt, we might find that such an approach is utterly
| immeritous toward the goal of preserving our common
| heritage. If this should happen, then that will be a
| great tragedy indeed; yet it won't be so great by half as
| the tragedy of even a single human being denied the full
| fruit and art of living with their full power.
|
| EDIT: Also, I'd like to draw a line between privacy and
| anonymity. Privacy means I ought to have a space where
| nobody can exfiltrate resources from. This does not
| enable bullying, because bullying requires some degree of
| interconnection, whereas privacy must be specifically
| preserved where intercomnectivity is the state of
| business. Anonymity, I grant you, does allow bullying (to
| the degree that anonymity allows you to interconnect
| while refusing to allow other parties to identify you.) I
| will entertain conversations about the dangers of
| anonymity, because I think there is a happy middle
| between "don't track me" and "interact with me as a known
| quantity."
|
| Surveillance is antithetical to both privacy and
| anonymity. To the degree it is antithetical to privacy, I
| will fight it tooth and nail, and forever condemn the
| sniveling ne'er-do-wells that think themselves privileged
| in _my_ spaces.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _children nowadays (and even adults) are highly enabled
| to commit social bullying_
|
| Do we have any evidence that Gaggle-like services reduce
| bullying?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I strongly agree with your entire comment. That said, I think
| this:
|
| > _that everything they read and write should be surveilled 24
| /7 by teams of strangers, for their "own good"_
|
| Are actually _two_ separate problems with our society.
|
| Problem 1: denying privacy to children, various forms of
| helicopter parenting. This you've covered, and I agree this is
| our era's way of mistreating children.
|
| Problem 2: "by team of strangers". _as a Service_. This is a
| much broader topic to cover it all here, but constrained to the
| context of data processing and children - social-wide, we 're
| too eager to entrust sensitive matters to random strangers,
| giving them too much leeway, as if they weren't incentivized to
| abuse it in every way they can get away with.
|
| People are having ridiculously inconsistent "trust functions"
| here. You wouldn't give this level of access to a small shop
| from your neighborhood that offered you a service, but you give
| it to a random tech startup from far away, just because the guy
| looks kind of creepy and the startup has a shiny web page. Even
| though a realistic threat model would suggest the former can be
| trusted _way_ more than the latter (less incentives and less
| capability to screw you over, and they live near you). It 's
| like most people can't internalize the lesson, even though
| they're being repeatedly screwed over by almost every business
| they interact with.
|
| What pisses me off more, is when it's the _other_ party that
| inserts some third parties into the process. When you have a
| kid attending a school, there 's a degree of trust and
| responsibility shared between you and the school. But then the
| school outsources data management or remote learning to some
| random vendors, vendors who absolutely cannot be trusted. And
| as a parent, you can't do much about it.
|
| One day in the future people will look back at our times and
| think about all of us and most of the market the way we today
| think about literal snake oil salesmen and people duped by
| them.
| asddubs wrote:
| I think it's kind of a reverse anthromorphization, where you
| don't really think about the specific thing that's happening
| (some random person getting access to your kids private
| communication), but think of it as just some abstract thing
| lamontcg wrote:
| > What pisses me off more, is when it's the other party that
| inserts some third parties into the process. When you have a
| kid attending a school, there's a degree of trust and
| responsibility shared between you and the school. But then
| the school outsources data management or remote learning to
| some random vendors, vendors who absolutely cannot be
| trusted. And as a parent, you can't do much about it.
|
| I don't understand why the parents are letting the school
| into their kids heads while they're at home to begin with.
| School administrators shouldn't be parenting (and we should
| ask ourselves why this seems reasonable for them to
| explicitly assume parenting roles over all the kids), and
| they should probably be more concerned about what kinds of
| porn their teachers are watching. They should never, ever be
| concerned with the question of which kids are watching which
| porn unless it somehow literally cannot be avoided because
| the kid drags it explicitly into the classroom.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > the former can be trusted way more than the latter (less
| incentives and less capability to screw you over, and they
| live near you).
|
| How is this remotely true? The stranger, after you stop
| paying them for the service, might spread lies about you,
| treat your child badly, show your child things you wouldn't
| want (guns, drugs, movies, etc). The faceless corporation
| directly profits off the information it gains, but you can be
| sure the access control and security measures taken by them
| mean it'll never be used to oust something embarrassing about
| you to your community. Only a dozen or so engineers at Google
| have direct database access and all of that access is logged
| and audited.
| samstave wrote:
| And how invariably, some groups find away to spy on children in
| a sexualized manner
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _its own way of mistreating children_
|
| I am unsurprised that the Minneapolis public school system
| deploys Gaggle while New York private schools implement no-
| screen policies.
| ve55 wrote:
| I firmly believe that one of our greatest current failures as a
| society is the extent with which we completely accept these types
| of dystopic conditions - every single action we take and word we
| type is surveilled, permanently stored with zero recourse,
| analyzed or blocked by untransparent third-party data leviathans
| that share few of our own interests, and often sold, shared, and
| completely neglected while data breaches happen en masse. Not
| only do we have virtually no ability to opt out of this, but
| these practices now begin the moment someone is born.
|
| When I was younger I spent a lot of my time advocating for
| privacy, informing people of how bad the state of surveillance
| was, how bad it would be in the future, and what we could do to
| improve things. Eventually this turned out to be very bad for my
| mental health, because I not only realized most people didn't
| give a shit, but also that no matter what I did, I had no power
| to improve things by what felt like a even single epsilon.
|
| With the advances we're making in hardware and machine learning,
| I think we are setting ourselves up for future disasters that we
| have barely begun to imagine - our entire society's
| communications and thoughts are owned by everyone except
| ourselves, and our ability to analyze, predict, and censor the
| populace with this extreme centralization of power and data is
| currently being scaled up even more by every
| tech/ad/communications corporation (and government) in the world.
|
| I still try to do what I can, but it feels like I'm able to do
| less and less with each passing year; I am constantly forced to
| use products and services that do terrible things with the data
| they collect on me, yet it is increasingly becoming something
| outside of my control. Perhaps this makes it obvious why normal
| people rarely try to use privacy-preserving software and
| practices: they recognize how difficult and hopeless the endeavor
| is, and they'd rather not dedicate their lives to such an
| impossible feat such as communicating privately with their
| friends and family. The only things I can really hope for here is
| that we get an actual data protection law or basic consumer bill
| of rights in countries like the US, but I don't see this
| happening any time soon.
|
| I also predict that the general populace will recognize the vast
| importance of this issue in the future (whether that is +5 or +30
| years, I have no clue), but likely only after some very terrible
| events occur (it would seem the current state of advertisements,
| data breaches, mass surveillance, and censorship is nowhere near
| what it will take). This comment turned out to be more negative
| and hopeless than I had wanted, so I'll add that I also donated
| to the EFF - they seem to be pretty principled and helpful in
| this area, and they also sent me a cool T-shirt. I'm fortunate
| that I'm able to use software like Signal/IRC/Matrix with my
| close friends, but I wish that everyone else could be given the
| right of private self-expression and communiucation as well.
| api wrote:
| I'm starting to think it can only be fixed with legislation.
|
| At it stands every single incentive for businesses points
| toward maximizing surveillance. Product design, marketing,
| advertising, direct monetization of data, validating business
| models to investors, everything is helped by more data. The
| push for data is relentless and the appetite is endless.
|
| Consumers largely don't understand or don't care. They talk
| shit about it but they don't change their buying decisions.
| techbio wrote:
| So far, no legislation fix. Other alternatives?
| api wrote:
| I'm pessimistic about tech fixes, not because it can't be
| done but because there is zero incentive. Like I said all
| the money and all the incentive is toward invading privacy.
|
| Nobody is going to seriously try unless people are willing
| to pay for it in significant numbers. I don't see that.
| Most people just don't care or don't understand.
|
| There is also quite a bit of surface area to defend if you
| are trying to make privacy guarding OSes or browsers. Look
| at how hard it is to eliminate browser fingerprinting.
| There are so many ways to infer unique information.
| roughly wrote:
| I think this is made worse by our society's fundamental
| inability to embrace ourselves in all our humanity. My iPhone
| has a Kids' mode, it does not have an adult mode, and it still
| insists that I really meant to type "ducking" and that any app
| that could potentially show me a boob has no place in decent
| society. As long as we're unable or unwilling to acknowledge
| that each of us are fully rounded humans, with all the
| brilliance and flaws that come with that, and not just failed
| robots or fallen pariahs from the One True Way of Being, this
| kind of thing will be not just unfortunate but oppressive and
| dangerous.
| genewitch wrote:
| android has never changed the word to ducking, but when using
| voice to text it will happily add asterisks to my messages. I
| turn it off, but every gboard update just turns it back on.
| I've tried other keyboards but gboard is the least difficult
| to use in nearly every situation where i need to send a
| message (one handed, two handed, voice to text, swype or
| whatever when i can't see what the screen says, etc). My
| least favorite is whatever samsung ships, nearly every time i
| hit some button that changes the size, layout, or whatever.
|
| More to your point, though, the walled garden isn't purely in
| apple's realm, kindle fire has the same sort of restrictive
| app store, with no option to adultify it.
|
| And having society acknowledge that everyone is hurtling to
| an end and that, therefore, thoughts and ideas and feelings
| might just be more important than whatever the current
| dichotomy of opinion is - well, having society acknowledge
| that would be nice, i suppose.
|
| Apple doesn't want to be in the news because 5000 children
| saw a bare ass, and that's their shareholders' perspective. I
| think.
| Syonyk wrote:
| > _...but these practices now begin the moment someone is
| born._
|
| Sadly, no. They begin long before someone is born. A decade
| ago, Target was discussing how they could identify that someone
| was pregnant, and start targeting ads to them. Plus, the art of
| making it not look like they were doing this.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits....
|
| I'm a bit late to the "... yeah, the tech industry has turned
| evil!" bandwagon, but am actively moving away from most of it
| lately. I've gotten rid of my Apple stuff (or am moving away
| from the rest), won't run Win11, colo a server to host stuff,
| have been moving to Matrix, etc. It's a bit of a pain,
| certainly, but I've also been perfectly willing to go with a
| "If I can't come up with a sane way to do it, it's not worth
| doing" attitude towards that which I can't do.
| scrose wrote:
| Let's also not forget all the genetic testing companies (with
| questionable security practices) that parents take before
| their child is born. Private companies are hoarding access to
| your child's genes, likelihood of disabilities, and future
| health issues before they're even born.
| JackFr wrote:
| > every single action we take and word we type is surveilled,
| permanently stored with zero recourse, analyzed or blocked by
| untransparent third-party data leviathans that share few of our
| own interests, and often sold, shared, and completely neglected
| while data breaches happen en masse.
|
| No. You have a choice. Don't use Facebook. Don't tweet. Don't
| post comments on Hacker News. Shop in local stores. Pay cash.
|
| https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies
|
| This situation may prevail, but not through me.
| ve55 wrote:
| I have _some_ choices, but many of them require astronomical
| trade-offs in quality of life. For example, I do like the
| anonymity of cash, but using it for all of my bills, rent,
| online goods (not everything can be found in the city I 'm
| in), and being paid exclusively in it from work is certainly
| not very easy (it is worse than this too - it is literally
| more expensive and we are seeing attempted reporting
| requirements for all cash transactions $600+, in addition to
| the ones we already have for $10k+). Even if I spent several
| hours a day going through tedious routines in attempt to
| preserve my own privacy to the utmost extent, I would still
| find I'm not only at a massive disadvantage in life
| (especially socially), but also that there's still countless
| sources of data on me that I simply cannot avoid (Sure you
| can avoid Facebook. But will everyone around you and that
| knows you avoid it? If not, you will still be tracked!).
|
| To be clear, I don't advocate for a perspective of complete
| helplessness, there are a lot of things I do to reduce
| surveillance and tracking of myself. But I cannot have
| privacy be the sole criterion for living my life, because it
| would, simply put, result in a terrible life.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Has any spy tech ever left? I remember vaguely some public
| discussion about CCTV somewhere in the mid 90s and now I live
| safely in the knowledge that I can be tracked 24/7 whenever I
| enter the city.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| This is pretty outrageous. This constant need to fully control
| and monitor everything your kids are doing is getting out of hand
| and will by itself lead to severe problems and mental issues for
| the future generations.
|
| I mean, who didnt share or look at some porn when they were 10
| years old? Would it be worth it for a whole army of teachers and
| consultants to descend on you and file an "incident report" and a
| "follow up" and "de brief" for this? What a colossal waste of
| resources and money. The $300k for the software could be better
| spent elsewhere.
|
| And yes, one suicide was apparently prevented, but then here we
| are again at the same argument, its like the one in the current
| apple/child porn case.
|
| Should we all get monitored just because of one positive but
| disproportionately small outcome?
| auslegung wrote:
| If all citizens were locked away in a padded cell, the
| government would prevent all homicide, overdoses, rape, etc.
| Just because something prevents a suicide doesn't make it a
| good thing. I know you're saying the same thing, I'm just
| putting it more starkly.
|
| There are other ways of preventing suicide, homicide,
| overdoses, rape, etc, which don't violate privacy, security,
| etc.
| whiddershins wrote:
| I did not share or look at porn at 10 years old, and I don't
| think that it was common to do so pre-puberty, pre-internet.
|
| I'm not sure there is gain in normalizing this.
| Clubber wrote:
| >I don't think that it was common to do so pre-puberty, pre-
| internet.
|
| Pre-puberty, probably not, no interest for obvious reasons.
| Pre-internet, absolutely. Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, etc
| were prevalent. BBS's existed too.
| autoliteInline wrote:
| Gotta ask how old are you?
|
| I do remember a Playboy when it came out in 1971. The Willy
| Rey issue (girl on the stock certificate). Nice looking.
|
| Not only were Playboys pretty rare, but they were a
| different kettle of fish than any modern adult
| images/video.
|
| Are times better or worse? I couldn't tell you. Lots of
| differences. Many women never have children. Divorce is
| common. People aren't raised on farms with all the
| attendant physical realities of life. Slavery was common in
| most societies. People got married at young ages. Sex has
| been secretive or not depending on the era.
|
| Probably the worst thing about porn is a scarring of the
| mind, sex as non-participatory act, exotica as normal,
| staring at screens, addictive behavior, the internet as a
| net negative.
| josephcsible wrote:
| We definitely should not be normalizing this, but we also
| should not be building a panopticon just to try to stop it.
| croutonwagon wrote:
| I grew up pre internet.
|
| We, as neighborshood kids, had a stash in the woods of pornos
| we stole from family.
| jwond wrote:
| To be fair, I think a lot of modern internet porn is
| probably way more depraved than porn that existed pre-
| internet, and there is a virtually infinite supply of it
| available for free. One consequence of this is that there
| are a lot of people, especially young people, who are
| addicted to porn.
|
| Personally, I think it's best to avoid porn completely.
| collegeburner wrote:
| It's the digitization of the mindset where parents wouldn't let
| their kids go a mile to the park alone, or go play with a
| friend on the next block, etc. By the way, there's an app
| called life360 that's increasingly popular with parents of high
| school kids. It tracks the user everywhere, monitors driving
| speed, that sort of thing, so the parents can observe their
| children at all times. Some have even demanded that their
| children continue using it in college. It's a goddamn digital
| panopticon and it needs to stop.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Some have even demanded that their children continue using
| it in college.
|
| This seems like it needs to be fixed with legislation. Make
| it illegal to track others' location without their explicit
| consent (hopefully this is already the case, now that I think
| about it), and also make it illegal for anything whatsoever
| to be conditional on giving that consent (e.g., make it
| illegal to tell your kids "I'm only helping to pay for your
| college tuition, or letting you drive my car, if you install
| Life360").
| maccolgan wrote:
| How can kids consent anyway?
| giantg2 wrote:
| That's a great, and deep, question.
| listenallyall wrote:
| Sure this app is kind of creepy but making it illegal for a
| parent to demand it? Hey great, instead of my wonderful
| parents paying for my college I'm going to report them to
| the cops, and send them to jail! That will show them! Of
| course now there's nobody to cover my college tuition but
| whatever.
|
| You are a mini-tyrant in training. Thinking the world's
| problems can all be fixed by making something illegal.
| Encouraging the government to interfere in intra-family
| relations. Never actually thinking about how any of these
| policies would play out. Insanity.
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