[creep]

As annoying as the "smart homes are annoying" posts are becoming, I really enjoyed the format and the depth of this article. And I didn't know one could buy internet-connected vibrators. That's... odd. I also don't know why these folks were surprised their devices were constantly communicating to their home servers.

My stance on the smart home and privacy phenomenon is optimistic. I think apple will eventually have a fully integrated smart home ecosystem similar to their standard ecosystem now, which will make the process easier in general. Perhaps we can one day have a single device to control every other device, or a few devices which perform multiple functions (such as a bundled music player, television, light controller, air monitor etc) and that such a device or devices will be bundled such that the meta data will contain only information that the device is being used but not which function is employed. Surveillance is unstoppable at this point, and this means that everyone has the ability to watch everyone else, and I think this is a good thing. We already have a good sense when those in our social group are lying, or hiding things, or even when they need help. If governments and citizens alike understand what each party is up to, we can have a fully accountable society, and of course eventually we must negotiate the relevant social rules that keeps this accountability relevant and practical. This is something I believe we have to work with. We have to take responsibility and understand what is going on, and to also take the power into our own hands and create balance. We can figure this out, and I don't believe that necessarily involves destroying the structure of how our governments and corporations do business. It's simply more efficient to restructure, not to totally resist but also not to be completely complacent. and that's all I have to say.

[username223]

> My stance on the smart home and privacy phenomenon is optimistic... Surveillance is unstoppable at this point, ...

This seems like a clear contradiction, unless your username is unironic. I'm basically pessimistic: surveillance is stoppable, but we probably won't, because we get free cat pictures, and Google has figured out that lobbying is the best thing it can do with its cash hoard. However, thanks to lazy idiots like Equifax, some people are slowly realizing that the surveillance economy may cost more than they want to pay. There are a few crumbs of hope for a positive outcome.

[carapace]

The way I like to phrase it is that the future has two main "attractors": Star Trek and North Korea. If ubiquitous surveillance is unstoppable (and I reluctantly conclude that it is) then the primary differential is whether and how much the folks in power have privacy from the rest of us.

It's worth pointing out that, done right, in return for your privacy you get an end to war and crime. That's a hellofa trade-off.

As a daydream years ago, I thought up a thing: public surveillance kiosks (like the ones I understand they are trying out in New York) that have cameras and large screens. They work by randomly exchanging (nowadays I can just call them) "vines", video snippets, and displaying them. So each kiosk is displaying vines from the others around the zone (city, world, whatever) and there's a very simple UI: tap to rewind, click a button to escalate. Anyone who sees anything weird on a kiosk can easily review it and call attention to it (like 911 but lower intensity.)

This would achieve a monitoring function without any special privileges and with limited privacy impact. It would have to be part of some larger system, but it hopefully gives the general "drift"?

[fg8qfg8fg8]

"everyone has the ability to watch everyone else"

is it entirely symmetrical ?

[germinalphrase]

It's also explicitly untrue. Very few people have regular access to my house; even fewer have access to the "private" domestic areas of my house. Losing this perception of privacyand safety can/does/will have real psychological impacts. It's also the cornerstone of psychological attacks - zersetzung - to lose control over your private life.