Thread

People really don't realize how utterly dependent modern surveillance is on the idea that everybody is carrying a phone — which is always tracked. Their car has a cellular modem in it — which is always tracked. 99% of investigation is one guy and a search box. If you're not low-hanging fruit, you aren't gonna merit the Eye of Sauron of manual, well-resourced, focused team attention—and if you did, you probably planned ahead for it, right? Because it's not a mystery what would get you on Santa's Naughty List. Anyway, the point is that even in a big city, the phoneless guy in a "covid" mask is going to be invisible to anything less than that exhaustive manual investigation — at least for a few more years. That may go away once they start networking all the cameras and having AI start trying to match up clothing sets moving from camera to camera, butthat capability is hard to hide, so it'll be in the news. And it won't work that well in places with less camera density and, perhaps, for people who wear the most-common outfits (the visual equivalent of a "shared fingerprint"). Remember: Phones are useful, but dangerous. And the people who will still wear covid masks to the beach are helping to normalize facial obscurity—regardless of their intention. Don't be mean to them. Encourage them to wear them everywhere. For passport photos. In police booking photos. At the customs desk. Family portraits! The sky is the limit—let them push the boundaries so that you don't have to. View quoted note →

Replies (20)

Was reading abt Mossad recently - didn’t realise how powerful they are, and then I realised US has 18 intelligent agencies. They can track you down by your phone, laptop, car or any wearable with wifi access, cloud access - and if they can’t reach you, they will track your relatives, friends and find any communications to you. They can hack into your house security cameras with warrant, remote access your laptop, any public security cameras at any point etc. and if your data is tied to companies, they can get court order and force the company to surrender it. Social media with photographs has been around for 20+ years - the amount of people profiling. I sometimes wonder if military created internet to connect everyone for the purpose of tracking them. Gov'ts will say they track you to prevent domestic and international threat. But terrorism didn’t get worse after 9/11. It only became more obvious to the public. And many formations of global fear is from the agencies based on who backs them. Maybe we are reaching a point where public believe they can only be safe if they let the govt track them 24/7. I would not be surprised if Satoshi, like you, was from an intelligence agency, a hacker, and genuinely wanted what’s best for the people. I asked you once if we can ever escape this and you said no. I think abt that a lot. If you know what you know now and how your life would turn out, would you have still exposed NSA’s dirty little secret ?
"Phones are useful, but dangerous." I think it goes a bit beyond that - the effects it can have on your mind and the resulting actions of the person. I've seen myself struggling with phone usage while neglecting other responsibilities, willpower and those things can only go so far. reducing phone usage and getting into real world connections (or maybe over NOSTR) might greatly change that direction.
I don’t understand what this tactic is supposed to solve? We need to stop being afraid, and start getting 1000% more angry. Their power is a house of cards, this will show the moment a critical mass of people will simply refuse to comply. With ridiculous laws, with the current taxation levels, with the immense bloat of government. Stop fearing these parasites. Destroy them with unity.
🛡️
Is this an all time high of likes for Nostr?
Edward Snowden's avatar Edward Snowden
People really don't realize how utterly dependent modern surveillance is on the idea that everybody is carrying a phone — which is always tracked. Their car has a cellular modem in it — which is always tracked. 99% of investigation is one guy and a search box. If you're not low-hanging fruit, you aren't gonna merit the Eye of Sauron of manual, well-resourced, focused team attention—and if you did, you probably planned ahead for it, right? Because it's not a mystery what would get you on Santa's Naughty List. Anyway, the point is that even in a big city, the phoneless guy in a "covid" mask is going to be invisible to anything less than that exhaustive manual investigation — at least for a few more years. That may go away once they start networking all the cameras and having AI start trying to match up clothing sets moving from camera to camera, butthat capability is hard to hide, so it'll be in the news. And it won't work that well in places with less camera density and, perhaps, for people who wear the most-common outfits (the visual equivalent of a "shared fingerprint"). Remember: Phones are useful, but dangerous. And the people who will still wear covid masks to the beach are helping to normalize facial obscurity—regardless of their intention. Don't be mean to them. Encourage them to wear them everywhere. For passport photos. In police booking photos. At the customs desk. Family portraits! The sky is the limit—let them push the boundaries so that you don't have to. View quoted note →
View quoted note →
Let's be honest. Tracking humans is much more sophisticated than you suggest. The eye of sauron as you call it can use every mobile phone camera on the planet. Suggesting that recognition linkage has not been already matured is ridiculous. If I say a word next to someone that has a phone with a microphone it doesn't matter if I have my phone or not. I can be identified through my voice and speech patterns on someone else's device and tagged to my own metadata pool very easily... Why you worried about being tracked?
🛡️
Edward Snowden's avatar Edward Snowden
People really don't realize how utterly dependent modern surveillance is on the idea that everybody is carrying a phone — which is always tracked. Their car has a cellular modem in it — which is always tracked. 99% of investigation is one guy and a search box. If you're not low-hanging fruit, you aren't gonna merit the Eye of Sauron of manual, well-resourced, focused team attention—and if you did, you probably planned ahead for it, right? Because it's not a mystery what would get you on Santa's Naughty List. Anyway, the point is that even in a big city, the phoneless guy in a "covid" mask is going to be invisible to anything less than that exhaustive manual investigation — at least for a few more years. That may go away once they start networking all the cameras and having AI start trying to match up clothing sets moving from camera to camera, butthat capability is hard to hide, so it'll be in the news. And it won't work that well in places with less camera density and, perhaps, for people who wear the most-common outfits (the visual equivalent of a "shared fingerprint"). Remember: Phones are useful, but dangerous. And the people who will still wear covid masks to the beach are helping to normalize facial obscurity—regardless of their intention. Don't be mean to them. Encourage them to wear them everywhere. For passport photos. In police booking photos. At the customs desk. Family portraits! The sky is the limit—let them push the boundaries so that you don't have to. View quoted note →
View quoted note →