[sudo-discuss] Dystopia Watch: Surveillance drones coming to a cafe near you.

[Anthony Di Franco]

People have rendered surveillance cameras useless with very bright IR LEDs
in their fields of view.
Could something similar be done for sound recording devices?
On Mar 5, 2013 6:17 AM, "Anon195714" <anon195714 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

>
> Yo's-
>
> Something I forgot to add re. DARPA's desire for universal recording of
> face-to-face conversations.
>
> What's the ideal device for doing all that recording?
>
> How'bout something you wear?  How'bout something that "everyone" wears?,
> or even a significant fraction of "everyone"?
>
> Like maybe Google Glasses.
>
> Always on, camera and mic always "connected" to "the cloud."  Orwell's
> telescreen gone mobile.
>
> Everyone who wears them will become, in effect, _unpaid surveillance
> drones_ watching their family and friends, not from up in the sky, but
> from up close where every word can be heard.
>
> Some will say "oh, there's no stopping technology." People said that
> about the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb.  But public outcry led
> first to treaties and then to progressive degrees of nuclear
> disarmament.  We haven't used that technology since it was first used in
> WW2.
>
> We can stop pernicious tech if we choose.  We can refuse, we can
> withdraw consent, we do not have to press the Buy button.
>
> Technology should liberate and empower people.  "Conveniences with a few
> strings attached" are not liberation, they're puppet-strings.
>
> It's all about control: technology that you can control, vs. technology
> that can control you.
>
> -G.
>
>
> =====
>
>
> On 13-03-05-Tue 1:50 AM, Anon195714 wrote:
> >
> > Yo's-
> >
> > This just in:
> >
> > "DARPA wants to make [voice recognition/transcription] systems so
> > accurate, you’ll be able to easily record, transcribe and recall all the
> > conversations you ever have. ... Imagine living in a world where every
> > errant utterance you make is preserved forever. ... DARPA [awarded
> > U.Texas comp sci researcher Matt Lease]... $300,000... over two years to
> > study the new project, called “Blending Crowdsourcing with Automation
> > for Fast, Cheap, and Accurate Analysis of Spontaneous Speech.”"
> >
> > "The idea is that business meetings or even conversations with your
> > friends and family could be stored in archives and easily searched. The
> > stored recordings could be held in servers, owned either by individuals
> > or their employers. ... The answer, Lease says, is in widespread use of
> > recording technologies like smartphones, cameras and audio recorders...
> > [A] memorandum from the Congressional Research Service described [an
> > earlier DARPA project of this type known as] EARS, as focusing on speech
> > picked up from broadcasts and telephone conversations, “as well as
> > extract clues about the identity of speakers” for “the military,
> > intelligence and law enforcement communities.”"
> >
> > http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/03/darpa-speech/ (Yes, "real geeks
> > don't read Wired," but nonetheless its news pages are useful for keeping
> > a finger on the pulse of Big Brother and his corporate Brethren.)
> >
> > In short:
> >
> > DARPA is researching the means by which every conversation you have,
> > in-person, whether at work or with family or friends, gets picked up by
> > the mic in your smartphone or other portable device, and stored on a
> > server, where DARPA's algorithms and human editors turn all of it into
> > fast-searchable text, that could be used by your employer, the military,
> > law enforcement, and intel agencies. Presumably the credit bureaus,
> > insurance companies, and financial institutions will want "in" on the
> > data as well.
> >
> > Now connect that with this, about cell-site tracking and call detail
> > records:
> >
> > "The government maintained [that] Americans have no expectation of
> > privacy of such cell-site records [call detail records or CDR] because
> > they are in the possession of a third party — the mobile phone
> companies."
> >
> > http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/gps-drug-dealer-retrial/
> >
> > The key point is that the gov's current position is that data stored on
> > a third party's servers have "no expectation of privacy." What begins
> > with CDR will eventually include voicemail messages stored on the mobile
> > phone companies' servers, and then eventually all of your live in-person
> > conversations that are stored "in the cloud."
> >
> > "Anything you say can and will be used against you..." Mark my words.
> >
> > Meanwhile people keep using gmail and Google Voice, and smartphones from
> > which they can't remove the batteries. Because nothing is more important
> > than "convenience," right?
> >
> > As a character in a sci-fi piece I wrote in the mid-1980s said, "Why put
> > a person in prison, when you can put prison in the person instead?"
> >
> > -G.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> > http://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
> >
>
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