6 comments

  • dang 1397 days ago
    This article from Saturday compiles a hodgepodge of things about the protests. None of it is original reporting, and most seems to be internet copycat/follow-up stuff (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), presumably trying to siphon some of that sweet sweet click action away from other sites. Readers looking for real information, of course, are indifferent to that agenda, except that it makes finding real information harder.

    Its source for the inflammatory phrase "contact tracing" is a Twitter search link that mostly points back to this very same article. That's a pretty lame trick. What's the actual source here? What exactly does the phrase mean?

    The clear implication is that covid-related contact tracing techniques or apps or data have been repurposed to track protestors. If that's true, we should certainly discuss it, with a real source as the basis. If it's false, this is the worst case of flamebait/clickbait that I've seen in a long time.

    All: please don't believe what internet titles say, even when they feed into what you were already expecting might happen. It's possible that your expectations are being fulfilled. It's more likely that our attention (not to mention our adrenalin) is being exploited. On HN, at least, let's try to let that first rush of a reflexive response subside, and wait a few seconds for the slower, reflective circuits to engage (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). If you watch your own reactions, you'll notice what a huge difference that makes.

    Edit: ok, here is the source: https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1266758240018276352. It looks like he made an unfortunate analogy between tracing violent protesters and tracing covid-19 cases—unfortunate because it could be blown up into yet another internet story with no there there. Unless he gets to it later in the video (I only watched half), there's no suggestion of any data or technology being shared across these two categories.

    I don't want to overreact out of being pissed off that this site wasted all our time, but can anyone give a good reason not to ban bgr.com on HN? It used to be banned. I'm not seeing a lot of valuable threads at https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que..., nor stories that wouldn't have gotten discussed through some other submission.

    • dredmorbius 1397 days ago
      As someone else tempted to post this item (and finding this earlier share), I appreciate your read and the HN backstory.

      I try to avoid (though frequently fail) falling foul of the "reflective/reflex" trend. I did poke through BGR's "about" pages, and the story struck me as far more smoke than fire, though possibly worth discussion. No longer.

      For a time (generously, Lippmann's "Public Opinion" through "going viral"), a key principle of journalism was that it was based, somewhere, on facts. I disagree somewhat with HN's policy of deprecating source names much of the time, as reputation (or its lack) really should count for something.

      But site bans, especially for egregious abuse or indifference to facts and reality, especially in the relentless pursuit of attention and virality for their own sake, and yes, wasting all our time, I can get behind.

      Back into the ban bin with BGR.com, from me.

    • amrrs 1397 days ago
      I'm sorry for posting it then. I read through the article they had some official quoting. So I thought it's worth for a discussion. Otherwise I wouldn't have. Apologies again!
      • dang 1397 days ago
        Oh thanks—I certainly didn't mean to pick on you personally! or even, in a way, this specific site, since they are subject to systemic pressures to do this kind of thing. However, this case is noticeably more deceptive than usual.
        • amrrs 1397 days ago
          I've hidden the submission. Hopefully it helps. Thanks again for making this a better place!
          • dang 1397 days ago
            'Hide' only hides it for you. It's a safety valve for users who really don't want to see something on HN.
    • thephyber 1397 days ago
      > What's the actual source here?

      Apparently the only nugget of info in this article about "contact tracing":

      > According to Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harringon, officials there have been using what they describe, without going into much detail, as contact-tracing in order to build out a picture of protestor affiliations — a process that officials in the state say has led them to conclude that much of the protest activity there is being fueled by people from outside coming in.

      • dang 1397 days ago
        Yes, and they make a big, serious-looking, citationey link to "Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harringon"—how official!—that merely points to a Twitter search that mostly fills up references to this same article. I called that a pretty lame trick above. Internet bottom-feeding is more like it.

        They couldn't even spell his name right, by the way.

    • arambhashura 1397 days ago
      > All: please don't believe what internet titles say, even > when they feed into what you were already expecting might > happen.

      I'd say "please don't believe Internet content, especially when it feeds into what you were already expecting...".

  • raphlinus 1397 days ago
    I hate the word choice here. It completely conflates the important public health activity, which is for the benefit of the people (though requiring careful attention to privacy concerns) with plain old police detective work. As this framing takes hold, it will do great damage to public health initiatives, which are already struggling with lack of resources and support.
  • falcolas 1397 days ago
    Some time back, when contact tracing was first being discussed, I mentioned that State level actors would love the data being generated by these programs.

    Several people disagreed, either commenting that they already have this capability, or that they have no reason to use it.

    And here we are today. The right to assemble falling victim to a tragedy of the commons, justifying greater erosion of our rights.

    • DennisAleynikov 1397 days ago
      nobody ever listens unless its politically convenient. contact tracing was never going to be left 'only for medical purposes'
      • thephyber 1397 days ago
        > contact tracing was never going to be left 'only for medical purposes

        That's all fine and well to speculate, but where is the evidence that it's true?

    • thephyber 1397 days ago
      Get off your high horse. They did already have an equivalent technology.

      > either commenting that they already have this capability

      DHS was using drones to track protesters in Minnesota. Most large cities already contract with a private company that flies a Cessna in circles over the city taking high resolution pictures. Odds are better than not that there were Stingrays in the area of the protest and that there are private contractors tracking social media updates and passing the data long to the local Fusion Centers.

      Yes, we should be concerned about any new tool, but there is a risk to any technology that it will be used against us. The more important question is: is the "juice worth the squeeze"?

      • serf 1397 days ago
        >Get off your high horse.

        They aren't gloating, they are lamenting that no one seems to care about their opinion.

        I feel exactly the same way with regards to computer privacy and militaristic authority creep.

        This cycle gets really de-motivating:

        1) New technology X is developed,

        2) Some warn while others celebrate

        3) Technology is used a single time for nefarious/unbounded reasons above and beyond the original described use.

        4) Some think the new uses are obvious and warranted, Some reel from the lack of over-sight and spread of X

        5) Novel use of technology beyond original described use becomes common-place and standard.

        6) Normalization of non-standard use diminishes or mutes opinion of those originally concerned all-together.

        We've seen this cycle over and over again. Stingrays, drones, less-than-lethal weaponry, armed and armored military vehicles, sonic weaponry, social media doxxing.

        Where is the line drawn on equipment and tactics used in-state?

        Lethality?

        LTL weapons are shown time and time again to be anything but non-lethal.

        Total loss of privacy?

        ARGUS-derived drones can see pedestrians with exacting details, and we can track the rest with the ELINT equipment on the same bird.

        >Yes, we should be concerned about any new tool, but there is a risk to any technology that it will be used against us.

        Here's the rub : these technologies are being showcased and purposed for use against civilians. There is no longer a waiting period for 'juice worth the squeeze' : we now know the juice from these fruits-of-labor is poison for most civvies, and the measured goal is now 'subduing power' or 'crowd dispersal' There is an industry formed around these types of systems, and they are all racing each other for the newest and greatest devices for 'in-home peace keeping'.

        There is no situation in which a citizen of the US can be for anti-protest specialized weaponry and equipment and expect the same level of power with regards to protests and civil disobedience themselves.

        And some wonder, with every piece of legislation that increases authority over-reach or budget: 'well, if they don't seem to care about the lethality of LTL weaponry -- when are these groups going to pull out the real weaponry?'.

        How far are we away from those surveillance drones up high carrying hellfire air-to-ground systems 'to keep the peace'?

        How far are we from those in authority choosing to use such systems, even as a strong-arm maneuver? How far are we from being OK as a society with some being blown to smithereens because of property destruction and social outrage?

        Some of us may have different views on the distance from where we are now to the future I painted in the previous paragraph, but a few of us, myself included, are pretty worried that may be closer than some of us realize.

        >They did already have an equivalent technology.

        Equivalency comparisons are of no use. More similar technologies that have overlapping functionality allow for a broader range of choices when peacekeepers ask for authority in using such equipment. If there are 5 products that have a similar functionality, that's in essence five different attempts that can be made by law-makers to woo local authorities and judges into cooperation with said technology.

  • thephyber 1397 days ago
    > According to Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner John Harringon, officials there have been using what they describe, without going into much detail, as contact-tracing in order to build out a picture of protestor affiliations — a process that officials in the state say has led them to conclude that much of the protest activity there is being fueled by people from outside coming in.

    This article has zero information on what they are doing. This could just be routine investigative work, it could involve private contractors scouring social media, it could be the FBI + NSA + Fusion Centers collating phone data. Who knows. This author definitely doesn't.

    AG Barr claimed the "outside agitators" are "far leftist" groups like "AntiFa" (and lots of conservative social media is conspiracy theory talking of Soros-funded groups hiring and bussing in crisis actors. Lots of public social media posts speculating that White Nationalist groups are executing an anti-government agenda to spark a race war (a la The Turner Diaries). Simply not enough signal yet in the "fog of war" and this article doesn't reveal anything useful.

  • nikkwong 1397 days ago
    This is an interesting idea. On the one hand I'm outraged by what the protesters are doing and want to see them brought to justice. The idea of using mobile location data to retroactively find who the looters are and persecute them for their crimes is satisfying to some degree. On the other hand, it's a very terrifying pandora's box which could allow the surveillance state to reach new levels of intrusion.

    It's even scarier to think that reconnaissance satellites are now actually really good and can probably trace you even in the dead-of-night. So, even if you left your phone at home to avoid location-tracking, just the act of venturing outside your house creates a tracking-trail as exposed by satellite imagery. Theoretically, law enforcement could use this data as of today to persecute the looters. Again, satisfying in a way, but also scary to think about.

    How libertarian do we really want to be? I think the goal should be to opt for whatever leads to the greatest good for the greatest number of people. There's a spectrum, on one hand you have free libertarianism, and on the other, you have authoritarinism and strict social control. It's interesting to watch how states on different sides of the spectrum operate; namely, the contrast between liberties for citizens in the US and China. Which one is better?

    In the US we operate under the premise that we should ensure our liberties are upheld at all costs; yet, this comes at a severe cost. China's authoritarian approach allows them to withstand epidemics in ways that we couldn't even dream to; and, overall, their centralized approach will allow them to surpass the US in terms of economic output. They also enjoy much lower levels of crime as measured by many different data points. In many ways I think the non-libertarian approach to life there will eventually lead most people to living better lives overall. Not saying that their approach is correct; but it's just interesting to think about.

  • chosenbreed37 1397 days ago
    It didn't take long...
    • barnaclejive 1397 days ago
      didn't take long for a false article you mean? correct