互联网与文化thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
“选择退出”的幻想
The Fantasy of Opting Out
2019 — 2021，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇文章讨论数字监控时代“选择退出”为何往往只是幻想：个人在形式上可以拒绝，现实中却难以脱离被记录、被识别的系统，而监控权力又分散在复杂法律实体和黑箱技术中。文章由此把隐私问题从个人选择转向自由与权力结构，并涉及混淆、数据聚合等应对思路。
为什么经久不衰：因为它揭示“退出”叙事如何把结构性监控伪装成个人选择，在AI黑箱与数据聚合时代尤其值得重读。
HN 评论精选
监控权力被法律实体和AI黑箱遮蔽，使“退出”变成让个人承担责任的假选择；应把隐私作为自由与社会问题。
这是该主题下较好的文章之一，没有用科技圈内部行话。我认为他们还描述了可称为“权力混淆”的东西：形式上你可以选择退出，实际上你不能，而对你拥有权力的人消融在一堆法律实体中。于是你被异化，只能作为个体独自面对监控，并因为这是你“选择”的而承担失去自由的全部责任；你甚至很难点名监控者是谁（500个“可信合作伙伴”之一？）。现在关于AI黑箱的平行讨论也可能服务于类似目的：“这不是我们的决定，是某个AI做的。”越早把它框定为自由问题并视为社会整体利益问题越好。
stereolambda查看英文原文
This is one of the better articles on the subject, not written in inside-tech-bubble terms. I think they also describe something we may call "obfuscation of power": formally you can opt out, in practice you cannot, and people who have power over you are lost in a soup of legal entities. So first, you are alienated to face surveillance alone as an individual, taking all blame for losing your freedom because you "chose" it. Second, it's hard to even name the surveillers (one of the 500 "trusted partners"?). There's now a parallel discussion on AI black boxes which can further serve similar purposes. ("It was not our decision, some AI did it".) The sooner it will be commonly framed as a question of freedom (i.e. absence of arbitrary power of other people above you [1]), and as a question in the interest of society as a whole, the better. [1] I'd take the opportunity to plug Quentin Skinner's "How should we think about freedom", "A genealogy of liberty" or a similar talk, where he challenges the tradition of understanding freedom as absence of direct interference. I think this stuff would be beneficial for politics nowadays.
木已成舟的悲观：公众默许便利，民主机制未能阻止监控合法化与边境生物识别。
我对此非常悲观。在我看来木已成舟：我们都处于持续监控之下，几乎无能为力。很多人甚至不觉得这是问题，即使觉得是问题的人也不想失去持续自动监控带来的好处。作为民主国家公民，我们完全未能保护自己的权利免受私人和公共侵入，也未能投票赶走那些推动立法使普遍自动监控合法化的政客。在英国，把《窥探者宪章》写入法律的特雷莎·梅反而成了首相。欧盟虽有立法，但国家机构仍可监视公民和非公民；我每次乘欧洲之星都被提供面部识别自动闸机“快速通道”，我一直拒绝，但我同样通常拒绝的伴侣被边检人员强制走了那条通道。希腊、匈牙利和拉脱维亚的边境还部署了伪科学的深度学习测谎仪。
YeGoblynQueenne查看英文原文
I'm very pessimistic about all this. It seems to me that the horse has already bolted: we are all under constant surveilance and there is not much we can do about it at all. Many of us don't even think it's a problem and even many who do think it is don't want to lose the benefits that are attached to the constant automated surveilance. As citizens of democratic countries we have uttely failed to protect our rights against private and public intrusions. We have failed to vote against politicians who introduce legislation to legalise pervasive automated surveilance. In the UK, Theresa May, who brought the Snooper Charter into law became Prime Minister instead of being kicked out of her political career in disgrace.* A majority of citizens of Western democracies continue to use social media and online services like Amazon and Netflix etc. The EU has introduced some legislation of course, but even in the EU state institutions are free to spy on citizens and non-citizens alike. Everytime I take the Eurostar for the continent I'm offered a "fast track" through a set of automated gates that use facial recognition. I keep declining, but my partner who also normally declines was coerced to go through by a border guard. Pseudo-scientific deep-learning lie-detectors are deployed at the borders of my own country, Greece, as well as Hungary and Latvia. But all this started long ago. When surveilance cameras were first put up on every shop and every street corner in every major EU city, only hippies and weirdoes opposed them. And now we're all watched by them and there's no changing that. Who is going to stand up against the new threat to our rights? A few dispersed academics that nobody listens to? Anonymous? ___________ * She was, but only later, because of Brexit.
Dan Geer认为可观察且可识别已摧毁传统隐私，操作型对策是“有效自我歪曲/混淆”以挫败数据融合。
“混淆可能是我们最好的数字武器。”Dan Geer在演讲中说：现在有太多技术可以远距离观察和识别个人。你的数字尾气是独特的，因此能识别你；汇集所有人的数字尾气也能刻画你与正常人的差异。过去隐私与“无法观察”或“可观察但无法识别”成正比。不再如此——今天可观察且可识别同时杀死了这两种隐私。替代方案是什么？乐观主义者或官僚倾向于由政府管理的数据程序规则；悲观主义者或黑客/创客则倾向于操作层面，把隐私定义为“有效伪装自己的能力”。歪曲就是利用虚假信息挫败监视者的数据融合，有些可以很低技术，比如用假名现金支付治疗师。
pdkl95查看英文原文
> Obfuscation may be our best digital weapon. From Dan Geer's talk "Cybersecurity as Realpolitik" (which everyone should hear[1]/read[2]): >> There are so many technologies now that power observation and identification of the individual at a distance. They may not yet be in your pocket or on your dashboard or embedded in all your smoke detectors, but that is only a matter of time. Your digital exhaust is unique hence it identifies. Pooling everyone's digital exhaust also characterizes how you differ from normal. Privacy used to be proportional to that which it is impossible to observe or that which can be observed but not identified. No more -- what is today observable and identifiable kills both privacy as impossible-to-observe and privacy as impossible-to-identify, so what might be an alternative? If you are an optimist or an apparatchik, then your answer will tend toward rules of data procedure administered by a government you trust or control. If you are a pessimist or a hacker/maker, then your answer will tend towards the operational, and your definition of a state of privacy will be my definition: the effective capacity to misrepresent yourself. >> Misrepresentation is using disinformation to frustrate data fusion on the part of whomever it is that is watching you. Some of it can be low-tech, such as misrepresentation by paying your therapist in cash under an assumed name. Misrepresentation means arming yourself not at Walmart but in living rooms. Misrepresentation means swapping affinity cards at random with like-minded folks. Misrepresentation means keeping an inventory of misconfigured webservers to proxy through. Misrepresentation means putting a motor-generator between you and the Smart Grid. Misrepresentation means using Tor for no reason at all. Misrepresentation means hiding in plain sight when there is nowhere else to hide. Misrepresentation means having not one digital identity that you cherish, burnish, and protect, but having as many as you can. Your fused identity is not a question unless you work to make it be. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT-TGvYOBpI [2] http://geer.tinho.net/geer.blackhat.6viii14.txt
监控成本下降使退出等于退出社会，应转而讨论如何在全景监控下共同生活与界定规则。
普遍监控的成本在下降，归根结底这是主导效应。低成本和已被证明的效用相交，我们正看到社会大规模剧变，以至于“退出监控”真的开始等同于“退出社会”。想象你从道德上反对在路上行走：为了维持个人约束，你得避开社会多大比例？与其问如何退出，不如问如何生活其中：在存在多个廉价维护的全景监狱的新存在下，我们如何相处并感到安全？David Brin的《透明社会》有点过时，但提供了不错的起点。因为精灵已出瓶，“身在社区”将与“被社区看见”同义，我们作为社会有一定自由决定这意味着什么。
shadowgovt查看英文原文
Cost of ubiquitous surveillance is going down, and at the end of the day, that's the dominant effect. Given the intersection of low cost and demonstrated utility, we're seeing a sea-change in society of significant scale, such that "opting out of surveillance" really does being to equate to "opting out of society." Imagine if you had a moral objection to, say, walking on roads. What percentage of society would you have to avoid to maintain your personal constraint? Rather than asking how we opt out, it's probably best to ask how we live in. How do we all get along and feel safe and secure given the new existence of multiple cheap-to-maintain panopticons? David Brin's "The Transparent Society" is a bit dated, but I think it provides a decent starting framework to consider the question. Because the genie's out of the bottle, and "being in the community" is going to be synonymous by "being seen by the community." We have some liberty to determine as societies what that means. (Consider, as a bad example but perhaps a useful framing of thought: nobody in Star Trek worries about the fact that the computer on a ship knows what they're doing, continuously, at all times, and can report that to anyone who asks. Why? And how does that fictional reality differ from what people actually want?)
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