Suzanne Lainson 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 02:07pm

    Re: Re: Re: The reason for CISPA

    Which is why yesterday when the first article about this came out I suggested that I was nearly to the point in my thinking that we need to completely do away with privacy for everyone and everything, so that we at least have a level playing field.

    Which is probably the most realistic solution. And a number of the sharing companies are hoping to develop a reputation/trust gauge so you know who you can trust to share stuff with.

    What I want are better systems to protect against ID theft. So when technology can prevent or limit theft, that will be good.

    And can you imagine what it will be like when we know just how much money the very wealthy have and what they are doing with it? Total global transparency will be very interesting. Imagine when we all know everything about everyone. No secrets at all.

  • On the post: Washington Post Quietly Backtrcks On Claim That Tech Companies Knowingly Gave NSA Data, As Denials Get Stronger

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 09:01pm

    How to generate a PRISM denial for your company

    Deny PRISM - Your company's one-stop PRISM involvement denial statement generator

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 10:41am

    Re: So...

    The NSA may not be collecting the data, just receiving it after it is collected by the companies themselves. Interesting.

    "Your honor I didn't steal the property in question. It was given to me by a third party who stole it. So, the charge of theft is not applicable."

    Here's how to get around it. The government just buys the data like any other company doing business with the data collection companies. As long as private companies can gather and sell data, the government can buy it too. No theft involved on the government's part. You have to go after the private companies gathering data if you really want to stop it. And too many companies want to collect that data for it to stop. They want the freedom to collect as much data on everyone as technology will allow. And they don't want laws to force them to disclose anything.

    Essentially private companies want the freedom to do whatever they want without government interference. That's the bigger issue.

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 10:11am

    Re: Re: Know who is in your computer

    According to Ghostery 14 companies are attempting to track me on this Techdirt page.

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 09:54am

    Re: A perfect example of 'You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours'

    At this point I'd say it's a little bit of both, with government and private companies pulling stunts like this jointly, as it serves both parties' interests to have as much information about the public as possible, so blaming one side over the other would accomplish nothing and be doing exactly as they'd like you to.

    The anti-government arguments facilitate dismantling all government programs that some people don't like. And the privatization approach allows whatever tax money that is collected to be funneled to certain corporations.

    I continue to believe there is a reason for the anti-government articles without the same people calling out private data collection. It's a way to simultaneously eliminate government interference in private data collection while at the same time paying more government money to private contractors to do it.

    It's how the military-industrial complex has been operated. Call for smaller government, then get into office and funnel lots of money to private contractors.

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 09:45am

    Re: Spying is Good!

    Using this data, they can create an almost perfect digital clone of you. Then they can run the clone in a virtual paradise forever! They are giving you life eternal, and you are spitting on them for it.

    You do realize that in a way Google is already associated with this. It hired Kurzweil.

    Ray Kurzweil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: He believes that with radical life extension will come radical life enhancement. He is confident that within 10 years we will have the option to spend some of our time in 3D virtual environments that appear just as real as real reality, but these will not yet be made possible via direct interaction with our nervous system.

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 09:35am

    Re: Know who is in your computer

    I've been adding blockers to my desktop browser as I learn about them. And there's a lot I won't do via mobile because I don't want to provide more info to companies than necessary.

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 09:31am

    Re:

    all this 'we need to know exactly what you are doing every second of every day, we need to know every person you talk to, whether in person or by other methods, we need to know everywhere you go and when' is going over the top!'

    That's what companies are doing in the name of profit. They are tracking everything we do so they can figure out how to sell us more stuff or to sell our data to companies that want it. The surveillance is built into all of our high tech gadgets because it benefits private companies.

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 09:21am

    Re: The reason for CISPA

    I continue to point out that you could eliminate government completely and we'd still be under surveillance.

    Opinion: The Internet is a surveillance state - CNN.com: "The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period."

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 09:10am

    Re: Re: Whatever data they happen to have at present

    I think this is where it is headed. Private contractors fight the wars. Private companies collect and analyze the data.

    "Private" is not inherently better than "government."

    Pentagon Has No Idea What 108,000 Contractors Are Doing: "According to CRS, there are now 108,000 private workers in Afghanistan, a workforce that dwarfs the 65,700 American troops still stationed there. That means there are 1.6 contractors for every American soldier in Afghanistan. This is an increase from last month, when The Fiscal Times reported that there were 1.4 contractors per American soldier."

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 08:52am

    Re: Whatever data they happen to have at present

    In fact, do you think that anyone in government could bring themselves to ever scale back this spying. Some might want to prevent its expansion, but I doubt anyone wants to or would be able to ever scale it back.

    I think government will quit. It will just all be done by private contractors who will be less accountable than government.

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 08:50am

    Re: Re: Each serving the other

    Those who would be tyrants and dictators (whether they exist at present or in the future) are happy to let you think that, and blame private companies. It makes them look better.

    I would say that government is working for private companies.

    The idea that private companies have no control over government is what private companies want you to think.

  • On the post: Why, Yes, Of Course The NSA Spying Involves More Companies Than Already Listed

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 08:35am

    Re: Bigger than Google is a commercial front for NSA?

    I've brought up Google and other data collection companies because I think it is an artificial line to distinguish private data collection from public data collection. If the data is being collected, stored, analyzed, and monetized by someone, there is surveillance going on.

    What I keep suggesting is that pointing a finger at government alone will just encourage government to privatize all of this and allow the corporations to do this unfettered. That's what I suspect is going on when there's a discussion about government surveillance without an accompanying discussion about private surveillance.

    If the government removes its hands from this, and then allows private companies to handle all of what falls under "national security" or even "security" of any type, there is less monitoring, accountability, and political talk about who does what.

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 11:22am

    But big tech knows better

    Look, government wants this data, and may or may not be using it well.

    But Google, Facebook, and other companies seem to assume that they can collect all of the world's data and use it because they know what's best for us.

    Whether you have government officials who think they know what's best for the world or whether you have private companies that know what's best for the world, you end up with similar thinking.

    I've been coming down hard on big tech because of what those involved in big tech say about their worldview. I'm wary of concentration of power in anyone's hands. I don't believe gigantic tech companies are inherently preferable to giant government operations.

  • On the post: Tech Companies Deny Letting NSA Have Realtime Access To Their Servers, But Choose Their Words Carefully

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 07 Jun, 2013 @ 08:42am

    Each serving the other

    Seems to me that private companies and government are working together and claiming or denying ownership as it suits each of them.

    The government knows private companies are amassing huge amounts of data on everyone, so the government doesn't stop that because it is useful.

    The private companies, on the other hand, want help with security and hand over data to government to allow government to play "cop."

    I am skeptical that this kind of massive citizen monitoring (much of it done for commercial reasons) would go on if it weren't in the interests of private companies.

  • On the post: Senators: Why Is Everyone So Worked Up About Verizon Spying? We've All Known About It Since 2007

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2013 @ 05:59pm

    Re: Re:

    Right now national security hasn't been fully privatized, but it will be. Government will just hand those functions to private companies and that will circumvent whatever political/Constitutional issues being debated now.

    As long as any company can collect and monitor people, it's being done. The government can put enough degrees of separation between itself and the private companies that it will be increasingly difficult to say it is a "government" function.

    Here's how it is done for military operations.

    Pentagon Has No Idea What 108,000 Contractors Are Doing: "According to CRS, there are now 108,000 private workers in Afghanistan, a workforce that dwarfs the 65,700 American troops still stationed there. That means there are 1.6 contractors for every American soldier in Afghanistan. This is an increase from last month, when The Fiscal Times reported that there were 1.4 contractors per American soldier."

  • On the post: Senators: Why Is Everyone So Worked Up About Verizon Spying? We've All Known About It Since 2007

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 06 Jun, 2013 @ 05:50pm

    Re: Re:

    There's a difference between a private company not bound by the Constitution gathering the data and the Federal government which is SUPPOSED to be bound by the Constitution gathering the data.

    And the work around will be that the private companies will collect the data (as they are already doing) and then the government will become clients of these companies and buy or contract for the data just like the other clients/custmers/partners of these companies.

    The data is being collected. And it is being sold. If government buys it, then it isn't any different than if anyone buys it.

  • On the post: How Low Can Drones Go?

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 23 May, 2013 @ 11:57pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Drones

    You're right that delivery by drone may not be as practical as using a truck, though there are plans to use drones to drop beer to fans at a music festival.

    Are Beer Drones the Future of Music Festivals? A Q&A With Darkwing Aerial's Dean Engela | Billboard

    I can see it being used to drop supplies in remote areas, too.

  • On the post: How Low Can Drones Go?

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 23 May, 2013 @ 09:27am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Drones

    Congress and the FAA could solve this problem quickly and easily. Just mandate a 1000-foot minimum altitude over private property, for all types of aircraft, regardless of whether it's urban or rural.

    That would eliminate many of the proposed uses for commercial drones, like deliveries. If drone use is going to be fully commercialized, it isn't going to happen.

  • On the post: How Low Can Drones Go?

    Suzanne Lainson ( profile ), 22 May, 2013 @ 12:44pm

    Re: Re: Re: According to..

    There's lots of potential uses for them beyond spyware, so I hope there isn't a kneejerk reaction against the whole concept.

    If anything, I think companies will push the other way, for rapid adoption, and then we'll have to figure out how to keep them from constantly colliding with each other. But I suppose if the drones all have monitors, they can navigate through lower airspace full of flying objects.

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