[ExI] Gov surveillance here to stay

[Anders Sandberg]

On 06/07/2012 09:06, BillK wrote:
> Why do you think your lovely smartphone includes unique ID, GPS,
> camera and microphone?

Because the consumers really want it. The fatal mistake of thinking it 
is because "They" put it there misses the far more unsettling aspect 
that *we* are voting with our wallets to produce a transparent, 
trackable world with smart gadgets.

Some of that is an accidental side effect (consider EFFs interesting 
demonstraiton that our browser customisation makes us identifiable: 
https://panopticlick.eff.org/ ) - many of these side effects suprise the 
Powers That Be too (consider all leaks due to improper redaction of 
PDFs). But I think what most people honestly do want is a world that has 
"magical properties" of transparency and services for them that also 
produce transparency for others - and they are not willing to pay much 
money or effort to reduce this information leakage.

If it was just They who did things, we could in principle stop Them. But 
now it is *us* who are doing it, and we are unlikely to stop ourselves.


> The future is here already. You must assume that every use of your
> phone, or internet access is recorded and scanned for possible threats
> to the state.
> If you are not plotting, then it will be no immediate inconvenience to you.

At least that is the common assumption. Given the growing number of more 
or less embarassing mistakes, there is a realy issue of false positives. 
Plotters are rare: people looking like plotters are far more common.

> Supercomputers and unlimited data storage enables the state to treat
> everyone as a potential criminal, so everything they do or say, every
> place they visit and every person they contact is now regarded as
> potential court evidence.

The really interesting thing is when this ability percolates downwards. 
Right now companies like Acxiom and Facebook are using similar methods. 
In a few years it will be feasible for smaller groups and individuals to 
do big data mining too.

I suspect the best strategy is to get people aware that we are careening 
into the transparent society, that we better get ultra-tolerant, and 
that we better get strong accountability measures into place to keep 
governments and other concentrations of power safe and sane.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University