The Cracked Podcast or How i Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the NSA

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

Right, so I've been listening to the cracked podcasts for a while now, but there's this one that really gave me pause,
Episode 4: Loss of Privacy
http://podbay.fm/show/689900475/e/1378710167?autostart=1

In it, they discuss the degree to which people have given up their privacy compared to people twenty years ago. Not only in terms of the NSA wiretaps, but also on Facebook, Twitter, the Xbox one fiasco we had recently. they discuss this trend of us gradually giving up more and more privacy in exchange for services in the context of generations: folks who grew up during the Cold War are generally terrified of this trend, people born post Cold War don't seem to understand why this is a problem, as they've never been told why they should be afraid of this, or suffered any consequences from this, and in fact have access to a lot of cool stuff from their perspective because of it. But this makes me think, what if the big scary things we dread happening(In this case The NSA, or more generally The Machine) will always be less omnipotently powerful than we imagine it to be, because it still relies on flawed human beings to make decisions and get things done. Fear makes the things we dread seems far more of a threat than they really are, kinda like how Resident evil bosses look scary, yet they have giant red exposed organs that are really easy to shoot. this isn't to say that everything is peachy because Facebook completely makes up for the the invasion of privacy, but in the video, they mention how there's such a thing as too much intelligence: the NSA has a virtually unlimited capacity to gather our information, but a limited capacity to make sense of it. Intelligence agencies have always had this problem of making sense of information, so the challenge for them is not to keep tabs on us, but to quickly figure out whose information to disregard so they can get to the stuff they want.

So i guess the question this is all leading back to is this: Does this new age of information present a mixed bag of consequences, including for those who would try to oppress others? Does the reality of these trends lie somewhere between Jetsonian utopia and Fallout dystopia?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You could make all the same arguments about the government in North Korea, couldn't you?

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

I'm not really arguing for or against the government really, just examining the disconnect between how we see progress and what it actually looks like. Putting aside the government stuff, think about the Xbox One. We freaked out at the idea of a remotely controlled box with an always on camera and microphone, as well we should have. But think i think about how the kind of things we picture in utopian societies, how many of us though that being able to turn on our devices with a word would be a thing we'd have in The Future, and of course now that we can have that, we realize that that would mean having our devices listening to us all the time, because of course they would. Listening to what we're saying so as to recognize voice commands is something the device would logically have to do in order to work, otherwise how would they know we're telling it to turn on? Magic? So we balked at the idea, even though that's yet another Jetsons idea that'll never happen (see flying cars), because we weren't comfortable with Microsoft being in our homes to that extent. So i'm not trying to argue for the gov't's policies, but i'm curious what would happen if one day we were, and this trend continues, and we someday evolve into a  society that's "post-privacy", if that makes any sense, and whether that's necessarily a bad thing

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I'm not really arguing for or against the government really, just examining the disconnect between how we see progress and what it actually looks like. Putting aside the government stuff, think about the Xbox One. We freaked out at the idea of a remotely controlled box with an always on camera and microphone, as well we should have. But think i think about how the kind of things we picture in utopian societies, how many of us though that being able to turn on our devices with a word would be a thing we'd have in The Future, and of course now that we can have that, we realize that that would mean having our devices listening to us all the time, because of course they would. Listening to what we're saying so as to recognize voice commands is something the device would logically have to do in order to work, otherwise how would they know we're telling it to turn on? Magic? So we balked at the idea, even though that's yet another Jetsons idea that'll never happen (see flying cars), because we weren't comfortable with Microsoft being in our homes to that extent. So i'm not trying to argue for the gov't's policies, but i'm curious what would happen if one day we were, and this trend continues, and we someday evolve into a  society that's "post-privacy", if that makes any sense, and whether that's necessarily a bad thing

Of course it's necessarily a bad thing.  Privacy is crucial to humans.  It's just EASIER to knuckle under and justify it.

And "the future" can mean lots of different shit.  For me, "the future" isn't gizmos so much as it is a time when the playing field is more or less level.  It isn't, but it's a hell of a lot more level than it was in the past.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Also, "Privacy because fuck you, that's why".

"Extremism in the defense of extremism is no vice."
- JR "Bob" Dobbs.

[Cain]

You're working from an assumption of someone who may want to do "bad things" or at the very least things they want to hide from the state, so screwups by state intelligence agencies would possibly be of benefit, due to "information overload" etc

What you're failing to take into account is that mass surveillance + human error makes screwups which negatively affect civilians more likely.  Like someone three degrees of separation from a known terrorist who shares a name with a known terrorist (or a very similar spelling) and who, because he accesses, say, a Youtube sermon by a questionable preacher, suddenly gets his ass renditioned to Uzbekistan for the boiling tar treatment (this hasn't happened.  That we know of, anyway.  But it could).

More realistically, we know that the NSA has been collecting data on porn habits of preachers who oppose American Middle Eastern policy, and turning people in Gitmo into double agents.  It's not beyond standard intelligence agency practice to try and blackmail someone using some embarrassing personal information, and just because you're not that Abu Musab Al-Zaqawi wont stop them telling all your staunch conservative Islamist friends that you're into midget porn.

The NSA, GCHQ etc are also acutely aware that this is a problem for them - that's why they're paying big money for smart programs which can use contextual and semantic analysis to flag conversations, emails etc that they should be looking at.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Cain makes an excellent point, and one that I agree with whole-heartedly.

It's just that I don't feel the need to justify my right to privacy.  It's mine, fuck off, and because of the actions of the NSA and all the other acronyms, I am now hostile to my government, whereas before I was merely annoyed.

LMNO's Law takes no fucking prisoners.

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

I'm not really arguing for or against the government really, just examining the disconnect between how we see progress and what it actually looks like. Putting aside the government stuff, think about the Xbox One. We freaked out at the idea of a remotely controlled box with an always on camera and microphone, as well we should have. But think i think about how the kind of things we picture in utopian societies, how many of us though that being able to turn on our devices with a word would be a thing we'd have in The Future, and of course now that we can have that, we realize that that would mean having our devices listening to us all the time, because of course they would. Listening to what we're saying so as to recognize voice commands is something the device would logically have to do in order to work, otherwise how would they know we're telling it to turn on? Magic? So we balked at the idea, even though that's yet another Jetsons idea that'll never happen (see flying cars), because we weren't comfortable with Microsoft being in our homes to that extent. So i'm not trying to argue for the gov't's policies, but i'm curious what would happen if one day we were, and this trend continues, and we someday evolve into a  society that's "post-privacy", if that makes any sense, and whether that's necessarily a bad thing

Of course it's necessarily a bad thing.  Privacy is crucial to humans.  It's just EASIER to knuckle under and justify it.

And "the future" can mean lots of different shit.  For me, "the future" isn't gizmos so much as it is a time when the playing field is more or less level.  It isn't, but it's a hell of a lot more level than it was in the past.

True, privacy is crucial, but so is connection. Over the course of our evolution, being connected to a tribe was how we survived and flourished, how we built up increasingly advanced civilizations to the point where i can feel connected to people all over the world, not just those who happened to be born in the same general area. So, assuming that the drive to feel connected is greater than one's need for privacy(our need to post the amount of pics and statuses that we do would seem to suggest that it is) we may see that each generation becomes more and more okay with not having privacy, that someday the only people who saw it as vital to society will be seen as old fogeys with backwards ideas, like an old grandpa who's still shocked at an interracial kiss.

I'm not saying that Roger should have to justify anything to anybody, but what if the idea of privacy becomes less and less relevant to later generations?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

True, privacy is crucial, but so is connection. Over the course of our evolution, being connected to a tribe was how we survived and flourished, how we built up increasingly advanced civilizations to the point where i can feel connected to people all over the world, not just those who happened to be born in the same general area. So, assuming that the drive to feel connected is greater than one's need for privacy(our need to post the amount of pics and statuses that we do would seem to suggest that it is) we may see that each generation becomes more and more okay with not having privacy, that someday the only people who saw it as vital to society will be seen as old fogeys with backwards ideas, like an old grandpa who's still shocked at an interracial kiss.

The idea of privacy is that you can have or not have that connection as you see fit.  You want to post your daily routine on facebook?  That's your choice.  You want to post mine, we are going to have problems.

I'm not saying that Roger should have to justify anything to anybody, but what if the idea of privacy becomes less and less relevant to later generations?

Then we really fucked them over good, didn't we?

[Reginald Ret]

I'm not really arguing for or against the government really, just examining the disconnect between how we see progress and what it actually looks like. Putting aside the government stuff, think about the Xbox One. We freaked out at the idea of a remotely controlled box with an always on camera and microphone, as well we should have. But think i think about how the kind of things we picture in utopian societies, how many of us though that being able to turn on our devices with a word would be a thing we'd have in The Future, and of course now that we can have that, we realize that that would mean having our devices listening to us all the time, because of course they would. Listening to what we're saying so as to recognize voice commands is something the device would logically have to do in order to work, otherwise how would they know we're telling it to turn on? Magic? So we balked at the idea, even though that's yet another Jetsons idea that'll never happen (see flying cars), because we weren't comfortable with Microsoft being in our homes to that extent. So i'm not trying to argue for the gov't's policies, but i'm curious what would happen if one day we were, and this trend continues, and we someday evolve into a  society that's "post-privacy", if that makes any sense, and whether that's necessarily a bad thing

Of course it's necessarily a bad thing.  Privacy is crucial to humans.  It's just EASIER to knuckle under and justify it.

And "the future" can mean lots of different shit.  For me, "the future" isn't gizmos so much as it is a time when the playing field is more or less level.  It isn't, but it's a hell of a lot more level than it was in the past.

True, privacy is crucial, but so is connection. Over the course of our evolution, being connected to a tribe was how we survived and flourished, how we built up increasingly advanced civilizations to the point where i can feel connected to people all over the world, not just those who happened to be born in the same general area. So, assuming that the drive to feel connected is greater than one's need for privacy(our need to post the amount of pics and statuses that we do would seem to suggest that it is) we may see that each generation becomes more and more okay with not having privacy, that someday the only people who saw it as vital to society will be seen as old fogeys with backwards ideas, like an old grandpa who's still shocked at an interracial kiss.

I'm not saying that Roger should have to justify anything to anybody, but what if the idea of privacy becomes less and less relevant to later generations?

That statement is true in the sense that the location of people doesn't matter anymore. It is false in the sense that no human can have a number of social connections surpassing triple digits. If you do, you are not interacting with people, you are interacting with abstractions. (This is where prejudice becomes useful btw) This does not mean you are having emotionally fulfilling social connections.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I suspect privacy is a relatively modern invention, and probably became necessary with the rise of centralized government and the invention of anonymity.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I suspect privacy is a relatively modern invention, and probably became necessary with the rise of centralized government and the invention of anonymity.

Privacy is what drove feudalism, really.  Though it wasn't for everyone.  Just the sexy people.

And by "sexy people", I mean, "the rich and powerful" defined as "the ones who could afford the time to build (or have built, rather) a proper chimney.

[Pæs]

What Cain said. The flawed humans involved in the process are the problem.

If I'm one of the tiny dots somewhere in the background of someone's analysis of metadata like this:

and my being there as a comparatively harmless citizen is helpful as a control to pick out the people who are not harmless citizens, I would be totally comfortable with that high level abstraction including my personal information along with everyone else's if it would save lives... IF I COULD TRUST THE OPERATORS/INTERPRETERS which history has shown that I cannot.

Either a flawed human designs an algorithm which accidentally because of a rounding error encourages stormtroopers to fuck with innocents or a flawed human reads the graph upside down and adds you to a LIST which gets sent to another flawed human who, due to limited oversight, is misusing the technology entrusted to him to trip on his own power and sends THOSE FUCKING STORMTROOPERS TO FUCK WITH INNOCENTS or a flawed human signs a warrant for MISCELLANEOUS SURVEILLANCE (we have these!) on your neighbour and everyone associated with him because he purchased totally normal household items in the wrong sequence on the wrong day and a naive Bayesian classifier associated those purchases in that order with SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY so fuck you we're hiding bugs under your couch because we know your neighbour visits sometimes.

[Pæs]

And suddenly every piece of information about you is a potential resource, even if there's not yet any clear way to utilise it, they're going to collect it JUST IN CASE.

Just in case ten years from now your electricity bill from last month combined with your visiting a gardening store can be used to prove that you've set up a grow room.

Just in case your television viewing preference can be associated with concerning psychological markers and your connecting with an old friend on Facebook and having irregular conversations with them about not much at all can associate you with the crimes that they've been associated with because some idiot asserts that it is so and it would take too much time to peer review and what if you're a terrorist and they've wasted all this time proving it?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Someone at Cracked is getting paid, maybe?