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Selling Surveillance as Convenience

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  • Increasingly, surveillance is being normalized and integrated in our lives. Under the guise of convenience, applications and features are sold to us as being the new better way to do things. While some might be useful, this convenience is a Trojan horse. The cost of it is the continuous degradation of our privacy rights, with all that that entails.

    As appalling as it is, the truth is the vast majority of software companies do not consider privacy rights and data minimization practices strongly enough, if at all. Most fail to implement the principles of Privacy by Design that should guide development from the start.

    Whether this comes from ignorance, incompetence, greed, or malicious intent can be debated. It matters little, because the result is the same: Technologies collecting (and monetizing) a shameful amount of data from everyone.

    This horrifying trend ends up facilitating and normalizing surveillance in our daily lives. It is the opposite direction of where we should be going.

    The more we accept this normalized surveillance, the harder it becomes to fight back. It is critical that we firmly and loudly object to this banalized invasion of our privacy.

    There are countless examples of this growing issue, but for now let's focus on three of them: Airport face scans, parking apps, and AI assistants.

  • Increasingly, surveillance is being normalized and integrated in our lives. Under the guise of convenience, applications and features are sold to us as being the new better way to do things. While some might be useful, this convenience is a Trojan horse. The cost of it is the continuous degradation of our privacy rights, with all that that entails.

    As appalling as it is, the truth is the vast majority of software companies do not consider privacy rights and data minimization practices strongly enough, if at all. Most fail to implement the principles of Privacy by Design that should guide development from the start.

    Whether this comes from ignorance, incompetence, greed, or malicious intent can be debated. It matters little, because the result is the same: Technologies collecting (and monetizing) a shameful amount of data from everyone.

    This horrifying trend ends up facilitating and normalizing surveillance in our daily lives. It is the opposite direction of where we should be going.

    The more we accept this normalized surveillance, the harder it becomes to fight back. It is critical that we firmly and loudly object to this banalized invasion of our privacy.

    There are countless examples of this growing issue, but for now let's focus on three of them: Airport face scans, parking apps, and AI assistants.

    Bluetooth everything that requires location permissions.

    Why u need my precise location to turn on a lightbulb?

  • Bluetooth everything that requires location permissions.

    Why u need my precise location to turn on a lightbulb?

    I'm not sure how many people know this but there is good reason why (at least on android) giving Bluetooth permissions also requires location permissions.

    The basic concept is that given enough Bluetooth data an app can pinpoint your location accurately anyways. So the android devs decided that they would just require any app that wanted Bluetooth data would also need to require access to location. That way users would be indirectly informed of the dangers.

    Why not just a pop-up to inform of the danger? Probably because most users will click past that warning and not read it.

  • Increasingly, surveillance is being normalized and integrated in our lives. Under the guise of convenience, applications and features are sold to us as being the new better way to do things. While some might be useful, this convenience is a Trojan horse. The cost of it is the continuous degradation of our privacy rights, with all that that entails.

    As appalling as it is, the truth is the vast majority of software companies do not consider privacy rights and data minimization practices strongly enough, if at all. Most fail to implement the principles of Privacy by Design that should guide development from the start.

    Whether this comes from ignorance, incompetence, greed, or malicious intent can be debated. It matters little, because the result is the same: Technologies collecting (and monetizing) a shameful amount of data from everyone.

    This horrifying trend ends up facilitating and normalizing surveillance in our daily lives. It is the opposite direction of where we should be going.

    The more we accept this normalized surveillance, the harder it becomes to fight back. It is critical that we firmly and loudly object to this banalized invasion of our privacy.

    There are countless examples of this growing issue, but for now let's focus on three of them: Airport face scans, parking apps, and AI assistants.

    Important.

    But news it is not, this has been the case ever since smartphones became a thing and probably before that too.

    Surveillance & convenience have been packaged together right from the start. It's the best way to get people to agree. Whoever designs these things created a false correlation between the two: you cannot have convenience without also having your data mined. Every schmuck who claims "I don't care, I have nothing to hide" has swallowed this. Because if there was no advantage to being mined, they'd say "Why should I agree to that, I'm not stupid" instead.

  • I'm not sure how many people know this but there is good reason why (at least on android) giving Bluetooth permissions also requires location permissions.

    The basic concept is that given enough Bluetooth data an app can pinpoint your location accurately anyways. So the android devs decided that they would just require any app that wanted Bluetooth data would also need to require access to location. That way users would be indirectly informed of the dangers.

    Why not just a pop-up to inform of the danger? Probably because most users will click past that warning and not read it.

    that really depends on the location. not everyone lives in big cities. is there a way today to give access to bluetooth without giving access to GPS?

  • that really depends on the location. not everyone lives in big cities. is there a way today to give access to bluetooth without giving access to GPS?

    Every Bluetooth device has a unique identifier. Any phone that has seen that Bluetooth device in the past could have told google/apple/whoever "hey BTW this device is at those coordinates".

    Google already uses this with WiFi to help "bootstrap" GPS localization. It is much faster to get a GPS fix if you already know roughly where you are (a few seconds vs a couple minutes), so they use nearby WiFi/Bluetooth devices to determine that. Remember 10-15 years ago when getting a GPS fix took forever? GPS didn't change, this did.
    Apple went further and does this with Airtags now. Every Bluetooth device that ever went near an iPhone is in Apple's database with GPS coordinates.

    So unless you live alone in a mountain cabin that has never been visited by someone with a smartphone before and you didn't disable the "enhanced localization" feature on your phone, yes your Bluetooth is at risk of giving up your location.

  • Every Bluetooth device has a unique identifier. Any phone that has seen that Bluetooth device in the past could have told google/apple/whoever "hey BTW this device is at those coordinates".

    Google already uses this with WiFi to help "bootstrap" GPS localization. It is much faster to get a GPS fix if you already know roughly where you are (a few seconds vs a couple minutes), so they use nearby WiFi/Bluetooth devices to determine that. Remember 10-15 years ago when getting a GPS fix took forever? GPS didn't change, this did.
    Apple went further and does this with Airtags now. Every Bluetooth device that ever went near an iPhone is in Apple's database with GPS coordinates.

    So unless you live alone in a mountain cabin that has never been visited by someone with a smartphone before and you didn't disable the "enhanced localization" feature on your phone, yes your Bluetooth is at risk of giving up your location.

    bluetooth is short range isn't it? so while this is a problem, it is not the exact same thing. network based location is not a replacement for GPS.

    Google already uses this with WiFi to help "bootstrap" GPS localization. It is much faster to get a GPS fix if you already know roughly where you are (a few seconds vs a couple minutes), so they use nearby WiFi/Bluetooth devices to determine that.

    I think you mean A-GPS, which is not related to wifi and bluetooth, other thqn being able to use wifi to access a server for downloading current constellation data. phones that have google mobile services installed, have an additional fused location source (besides a network based and a gps based location source) that tries to fuse the 2 sources while the gps signal is not precise enough. but as I know fused location computation happens locally

  • Increasingly, surveillance is being normalized and integrated in our lives. Under the guise of convenience, applications and features are sold to us as being the new better way to do things. While some might be useful, this convenience is a Trojan horse. The cost of it is the continuous degradation of our privacy rights, with all that that entails.

    As appalling as it is, the truth is the vast majority of software companies do not consider privacy rights and data minimization practices strongly enough, if at all. Most fail to implement the principles of Privacy by Design that should guide development from the start.

    Whether this comes from ignorance, incompetence, greed, or malicious intent can be debated. It matters little, because the result is the same: Technologies collecting (and monetizing) a shameful amount of data from everyone.

    This horrifying trend ends up facilitating and normalizing surveillance in our daily lives. It is the opposite direction of where we should be going.

    The more we accept this normalized surveillance, the harder it becomes to fight back. It is critical that we firmly and loudly object to this banalized invasion of our privacy.

    There are countless examples of this growing issue, but for now let's focus on three of them: Airport face scans, parking apps, and AI assistants.

    I have very little faith that this ship will be turned around. It's not even the explicit invasions of privacy from facial recognition that are the most damning. Its the hordes of people willingly providing their data through social media. Our culture has embraced the erosion of privacy and autonomy with such enthusiasm it almost feels engineered. In fact, it very well might be. When we let money dictate the stories we tell and who tells them, it shouldn't come as a surprise that culture becomes yet another tool to entrench the inequality we live in.

  • I have very little faith that this ship will be turned around. It's not even the explicit invasions of privacy from facial recognition that are the most damning. Its the hordes of people willingly providing their data through social media. Our culture has embraced the erosion of privacy and autonomy with such enthusiasm it almost feels engineered. In fact, it very well might be. When we let money dictate the stories we tell and who tells them, it shouldn't come as a surprise that culture becomes yet another tool to entrench the inequality we live in.

    The problem is the next generation is being brought up to accept this as normal.

    One day, there won't be anyone alive who remembers a time without surveillance.

  • I'm not sure how many people know this but there is good reason why (at least on android) giving Bluetooth permissions also requires location permissions.

    The basic concept is that given enough Bluetooth data an app can pinpoint your location accurately anyways. So the android devs decided that they would just require any app that wanted Bluetooth data would also need to require access to location. That way users would be indirectly informed of the dangers.

    Why not just a pop-up to inform of the danger? Probably because most users will click past that warning and not read it.

    That's just classic google/android retardation at play.

    Literally making the bad guys' jobs easier by taking away control from the user.

  • bluetooth is short range isn't it? so while this is a problem, it is not the exact same thing. network based location is not a replacement for GPS.

    Google already uses this with WiFi to help "bootstrap" GPS localization. It is much faster to get a GPS fix if you already know roughly where you are (a few seconds vs a couple minutes), so they use nearby WiFi/Bluetooth devices to determine that.

    I think you mean A-GPS, which is not related to wifi and bluetooth, other thqn being able to use wifi to access a server for downloading current constellation data. phones that have google mobile services installed, have an additional fused location source (besides a network based and a gps based location source) that tries to fuse the 2 sources while the gps signal is not precise enough. but as I know fused location computation happens locally

    This is separate from A-GPS. Google seems to be using WiFi rather than Bluetooth, but the broader point remains the same. No one is stopping any vendor from crowdsourcing the location of every BT device... which is what Apple has done, for Airtags which don't have the battery capacity to run a GPS chip.

    Sure without GPS it wouldn't be very effective to rely on only nearby devices to guess the current location. But an attacker only has to get lucky once to get your home address. So the only safe approach is to hide nearby devices/networks from unauthorized apps.

  • I have very little faith that this ship will be turned around. It's not even the explicit invasions of privacy from facial recognition that are the most damning. Its the hordes of people willingly providing their data through social media. Our culture has embraced the erosion of privacy and autonomy with such enthusiasm it almost feels engineered. In fact, it very well might be. When we let money dictate the stories we tell and who tells them, it shouldn't come as a surprise that culture becomes yet another tool to entrench the inequality we live in.

    Yeah, I could they trust a for profit corporation to help them connect with others by sharing about their lifes.

    What stupid fools, the only thing that should be given to corporation is the pointy end of a 105mm round and you should share the details of you personal life with nobody you don't have a blood relation with.

  • Increasingly, surveillance is being normalized and integrated in our lives. Under the guise of convenience, applications and features are sold to us as being the new better way to do things. While some might be useful, this convenience is a Trojan horse. The cost of it is the continuous degradation of our privacy rights, with all that that entails.

    As appalling as it is, the truth is the vast majority of software companies do not consider privacy rights and data minimization practices strongly enough, if at all. Most fail to implement the principles of Privacy by Design that should guide development from the start.

    Whether this comes from ignorance, incompetence, greed, or malicious intent can be debated. It matters little, because the result is the same: Technologies collecting (and monetizing) a shameful amount of data from everyone.

    This horrifying trend ends up facilitating and normalizing surveillance in our daily lives. It is the opposite direction of where we should be going.

    The more we accept this normalized surveillance, the harder it becomes to fight back. It is critical that we firmly and loudly object to this banalized invasion of our privacy.

    There are countless examples of this growing issue, but for now let's focus on three of them: Airport face scans, parking apps, and AI assistants.

    Trying to get my peers to care about their own privacy is exhausting. I wish their choices don't effect me, but like this article states.. They do in the long run.

    I will remain stubborn and only compromise rather than give in.

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    Obligatory Knowledge Fight Reference: [https://knowledgefight.libsyn.com/1044-june-2-2025](In this installment, Dan and Jordan discuss a strange day on Alex's show where he spends a fair amount of time trying to dissuade his listeners from getting too suspicious about Palantir.)
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    This is a weirdly aggressive take without considering variables. Almost petulant seeming. 6” readers are relatively cheap no matter the brand, but cost goes up with size. $250 to $300 is what a 7.8” or 8” reader costs, but there’s not a single one I know of at 6” at that price. There’s 10” and 13” models. Are you saying they should cost the same as a Kindle? Not to mention, regarding Kindle, Amazon spent years building the brand but selling either at cost or possibly even taking a loss on the devices as they make money on the book sales. Companies who can’t do that tend to charge more. Lastly, it’s not “feature creep” to improve the devices over time, many changes are quality of life. Larger displays for those that want them. Frontlit displays, and later the addition of warm lighting. Displays essentially doubled their resolution allowing for crisper fonts and custom fonts to render well. Higher contrast displays with darker blacks for text. More recently color displays as an option. This is all progress, but it’s not free. Also, inflation is a thing and generally happens at a rate of 2% to 3% annually or thereabouts during “normal” times, and we’ve hardly been living in normal times over the last decade and a half.
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    %100 inherited and old lonely boomers. You'd be surprised how often the courts will not allow POA or Conservatorship to be appointed to the family after they get scammed. I have first hand experience with this and also have a friend as well.
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    Bullshit Capitalism at its core that you allow free trading. And. It. Has. Been. Successful. Capitalism is what killed the USSR by sheer force. The problem arises when it's not controlled at all. Apply those rules well and you get a powerhouse generating huge progress for everyone and the taxes and all will be able to pay for the social security network on top of that ensuring nobody gets left behind You can go to communism Island if you want and suffer under economic mismanagent, bit I'd rather have capitalism, thank you
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    Sorry for the late reply, I had to sit and think on this one for a little bit. I think there are would be a few things going on when it comes to designing a course to teach critical thinking, nuances, and originality; and they each have their own requirements. For critical thinking: The main goal is to provide students with a toolbelt for solving various problems. Then instilling the habit of always asking "does this match the expected outcome? What was I expecting?". So usually courses will be setup so students learn about a tool, practice using the tool, then have a culminating assignment on using all the tools. Ideally, the problems students face at the end require multiple tools to solve. Nuance mainly naturally comes with exposure to the material from a professional - The way a mechanical engineer may describe building a desk will probably differ greatly compared to a fantasy author. You can also explain definitions and industry standards; but thats really dry. So I try to teach nuances via definitions by mixing in the weird nuances as much as possible with jokes. Then for originality; I've realized I dont actually look for an original idea; but something creative. In a classroom setting, you're usually learning new things about a subject so a student's knowledge of that space is usually very limited. Thus, an idea that they've never heard about may be original to them, but common for an industry expert. For teaching originality creativity, I usually provide time to be creative & think, and provide open ended questions as prompts to explore ideas. My courses that require originality usually have it as a part of the culminating assignment at the end where they can apply their knowledge. I'll also add in time where students can come to me with preliminary ideas and I can provide feedback on whether or not it passes the creative threshold. Not all ideas are original, but I sometimes give a bit of slack if its creative enough. The amount of course overhauling to get around AI really depends on the material being taught. For example, in programming - you teach critical thinking by always testing your code, even with parameters that don't make sense. For example: Try to add 123 + "skibbidy", and see what the program does.
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    you don’t need to worry about trying to enforce it ( By the simple expedient of there being essentially nothing you can enforce.