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Self-Driving Cars Are Surveillance Cameras on Wheels (www.schneier.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“We’re supposed to be able to go about our business in our day-to-day lives without being surveilled unless we are suspected of a crime, and each little bit of this technology strips away that ability.”

Sounds nice in theory, but that’s not true at all. From my understanding, there is no expectation of privacy in public.
It feels really strange, but we are all under satellite observation almost 24/7. There are observational drones that can loiter and collect ground data. This has been around for decades. Radio lab did a great episode about this.
It’s definitely creepy. There is no escaping it at this point :/.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There's escaping through legislation, it may take a bit of work.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

And then the FBI, CIA, military will likely just ignore the law anyway.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It’s a double edged sword. On one hand, it’s a great tool to stomp out crime. It can save lives.
They used it in Iraq to find people who were placing road side bombs.
You could use it to find victims of kidnapping. Tracking murderers.
They’ve tracked criminal drug traffickers with it in Mexico. It’s extensively being used in the Russia-Ukraine conflict today.
It is stalking, but possibly unintentional.
The worrying thing is that this Information can likely be bought. Im pretty sure you can just buy satellite imagery.
It’s definitely weird af and most people wouldn’t be ok with it. Could a ban or block be even possible?
I know there are various laws that restrict or prohibit where you can point cameras. I used to install security cameras and it was a big no no to point them at someone else’s property, but I’m not sure if it was a law or not?
I guess I’ve just accepted it as normal. It sounds defeatist, but public cameras have never impacted my life.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been thinking this exact thing forever and it always felt weird to me that no one else (in my personal life anyway) considered it. The preponderance of cameras around us virtually every moment of every day kind of gives me the creeps.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Businesses and governments have security cameras. Your bank and credit processor will log every transaction you make, Your phone monitors your location, your cell company monitors it too. You have a good half-dozen firms monitoring you basically 24/7 for a variety of reasons. And it's obviously not any better once you're on the internet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

So I'm just supposed to be okay with those walls closing in around me?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

With the growing ubiquity of self-driving vehicles I don't see this trend reversing either. This will either have to be changed via laws, or with open source firmware/software. The latter could be a liability but that's a separate discussion.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

If you have a cell phone in a self-driving car you have a surveillance device inside a surveillance camera on wheels