[kwlug-disc] have I ever told you guys that Facebook is evil?

Fri Jun 17 22:28:46 EDT 2022

If you want to think on the idea of smart cars that communicate with a
central server, try reading the (fictional) novel Attack Surface by Cory
Doctorow.  It certainly opened my eyes to the possible evil of the whole
concept.

As to trusting Elon Musk?  I used to think he was the saviour of mankind,
but nowadays I'm not so sure.  I don't think I want to trust my security
and privacy to a known Trump supporter, for starters..  I guess there's
good and bad in all people.

If you're wondering, no, I haven't yet found a Utopian ideal for merging
privacy and security with modern comforts..  I'm working on it, but it's
slow going.  I wish I could give you good news there..

On Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 10:21 PM Doug Moen <doug at moens.org> wrote:

> Thanks for posting the Joscha Bach link. I need to watch that video
> several times to absorb all the great ideas.
>
> In the case of Tesla engineers, I think the greater good that they are
> working for is fighting climate change by switching the world economy from
> gasoline cars to electric cars. (Tesla also does batteries and solar
> panels, which are all part of the same mission to switch away from fossil
> fuels).
>
> To promote this greater good (which is needed to avoid civilizational
> collapse), a tradeoff must be made, a lesser evil (surveillance) must be
> accepted. This is what I think they are thinking, in order to rationalize
> Tesla's behaviour. These kinds of tradeoffs must be considered if your
> ethical system is based on consequentialism, rather than on deontology
> (rules based morality). [*Consequentialism* is an ethical theory that
> judges whether or not something is right by what its consequences are. For
> instance, most people would agree that lying is wrong. But if telling a lie
> would help save a person's life, *consequentialism* says it's the right
> thing to do.] In this case, following a rule (no surveillance), at the
> price of causing civilizational collapse, is not the most ethical thing to
> do.
>
> Now why would Tesla think that surveillance is necessary in order to
> achieve their moral objectives? Once again, I'm trying to reverse engineer
> the Tesla mindset here. Surveillance is needed to collect data to optimize
> their products. Most obviously, it is needed for training their self
> driving car software. The self driving feature (which was supposed to be
> finished years ago) was supposed to be one of the killer features that
> would make Tesla electric cars more desirable than gasoline cars. Remember
> than in the early years of Tesla, the idea of an "electric car" was
> originally associated in peoples minds with short range electric golf cart
> like vehicles, and only highly motivated eco-hippies would make the extreme
> sacrifice of driving such a terrible vehicle. This is the culture that
> Tesla was trying to overcome. They needed to make electric cars sexy,
> desireable, and better in every way than gasoline cars, in order to
> overcome the original cultural mindset. They were also short of money
> (almost went bankrupt a few times), and needed every advantage they could
> get to achieve their goal with the resources they had. So building
> surveillance into the cars would be morally justified by the goals.
>
> I think that Musk himself has an "aesthetic" (in Joscha's terminology)
> that diverges from the mainstream. This aesthetic is derived from the
> transhumanist science fiction of Iain Banks. I've read all the books. I
> know Musk has read all the books because he borrows names and terminology
> unique to those books in naming many of his projects. Those books depict a
> utopian future where all cars are self driving (Tesla), the human race is
> multiplanetary (Space X), and all humans have neural implants that augment
> their cognition and connect them to the internet, and these implants are
> called "neural lace" (Neuralink). Also, in Banks' utopian society, there is
> almost no privacy, with an exception made for private thoughts inside your
> own head. I think Musk himself places little value on privacy. He clearly
> has no shame, and that's consistent with not valuing privacy.
>
> But I don't think that all Tesla engineers are fully immersed in Musk's
> transhumanist fantasy. Instead, those engineers (the ones uneasy about
> surveillance) have a mainstream esthetic, and are justifying their work for
> Tesla by using consequentialist ethics and considering moral tradeoffs, as
> I outlined above.
>
> Doug.
>
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022, at 11:29 AM, Mikalai Birukou via kwlug-disc wrote:
>
>
> Thanks Chris. We are long time Mazda owners. When our current car starts
> breaking down, we would like to consider an electric car. But without this
> kind of always-on telematics. I wonder if it will be available?
>
> I would like there to be Canadian government legislation about this,
> framed as a consumer rights issue.
>  1. The right to be fully informed about telematics before purchase.
>  2. The right to disable or opt out of telematics, without crippling the
> thing being purchased:
>      * for privacy (no surveillance)
>      * for security (I don't want my car to become part of someones
> botnet, and I don't want to give hackers the ability to remotely take over
> my car).
>
>
> On the first DefCon with car hacking I bumped into Tesla engineers and
> asked appropriate questions, like, can this be turned off, disabled.
>
> The disturbing element of the answer is that they did display
> hesitation/unease about no option to turn off remote connectivity. Which
> reminds a very interesting comment by Josha  in his second interview with
> Lex, at this point https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIpUf-Vy2JA&t=8944s
>
> Out of love for greater good they have in mind an aesthetic of the world,
> which some of us know to be evil. I really wish every single one of
> engineers in cars and in web tracking to be dragged through real life in
> today's russia. Drag ones naked nerves through it to know that without
> privacy there is no security, none.
>
>
> In Europe, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation of 2018) gives
> consumers these rights. It applies equally to car telematics and cookie
> tracking on web sites. So if political activism is required, we can point
> to the GDPR and say "me too".
>
> The new data privacy bill C-27, announced yesterday, doesn't do the job.
>
> https://openmedia.org/press/item/new-privacy-legislation-repeats-past-mistakes
>
> But there is still an opportunity to introduce amendments. I am going to
> contact my MP and see what can be done. I recommend everyone else on this
> list who is concerned by this issue to get active.
>
> Doug.
>
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2022, at 12:07 AM, Chris Irwin via kwlug-disc wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2022, at 17:47, Doug Moen wrote:
>
> Like for example, we just bought a new washing machine and dryer. The top
> selling brand transmits everything you do to the manufacturer over the
> internet. For now, this is opt in, but internet surveillance already cannot
> be turned off for a growing number of consumer machines and appliances. We
> bought a less popular brand with no surveillance, because that's something
> that's still available.
>
>
> You may find this interesting/disconcerting:
>
> https://www.mazda.ca/en/mazda-connected-vehicle/overview/
>
> Neat, Mazda has an app. It does a bunch of neat things like letting you
> start, pre heat/cool your car, unlock doors, get reminders for service and
> recalls. Neat. Oh, it can tell you where you parked your car, too.
>
> Wait, how does this work? Lets check the privacy policy, because it's not
> documented anywhere else...
>
> https://www.mazda.ca/en/privacy-policy/cv-privacy/
>
> *Vehicle Data: *When you purchase or lease a Connected Vehicle, the
> telematics system is active by default and transmits vehicle data,
> including driving behavior data (including the acceleration and speed of
> your Connected Vehicle, travel direction, and use of steering and braking
> functions) and vehicle health data (which includes Vehicle Identification
> Number (VIN); odometer, fuel level, and oil life readings; Diagnostic
> Trouble Codes (DTCs); and data from the Connected Vehicle’s OBD system,
> including engine coolant temperature, fuel injection volume, engine
> Rotation Per Minute (RPM), and the status of doors, hood, trunk, and hazard
> lights). If your Connected Vehicle has a Connected Services plan, we also
> collect geo-location coordinates of your Connected Vehicle’s latitude and
> longitude.
>
>
> Oh, and don't forget you've also installed an app on your phone!
>
> *MyMazda Data:* If you use the MyMazda app, we collect the location of
> your device, device type, device operating system, Internet Protocol (IP)
> address, unique identifier, type of browser, Internet service provider,
> phone number, and information about your use of MyMazda, including screen
> time, scrolling, specific actions and taps, reactions to alerts, the
> progress, completion and/or abandonment of in-application purchases, and
> crash reports.
>
>
> And I'm not picking on Mazda in particular. I'm only aware of it because I
> own a Mazda and it came up in a discussion forum. Almost every car in the
> last few years has this kind of connectivity now. People expect it. You can
> probably blame Tesla.
>
> --
> *Chris Irwin*
>
> email:   chris at chrisirwin.ca
>   web: https://chrisirwin.ca
>
> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc mailing list
> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> https://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc mailing listkwlug-disc at kwlug.orghttps://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>
> --
> Mikalai Birukou
> CEO | 3NSoft Inc.
> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc mailing list
> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> https://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> kwlug-disc mailing list
> kwlug-disc at kwlug.org
> https://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kwlug.org/pipermail/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org/attachments/20220617/9913bb33/attachment.htm>