YHK - yet another hacker news clone

I've experimented with things like this, e.g., the Narrative Clip. I think the concept is quite novel and interesting, but the privacy implications are just far too gross for anything outside of an experiment. Of all companies, I find it appalling that it's Apple implementing this one.

I don't even know how this is supposed to work e.g., in states with call recording legislation, let alone any new legislation. It feels utterly appalling that every Apple watch could theoretically be recording all surroundings now.

The legal implications of these devices are just baffling. I see Meta glasses being sold where I live. The law states that you cannot photograph of film people without their consent, even in the street where there are other people around ...

Now it will also be voice recording one has to be aware off ?

Is that the AI future we want or need?

> I don’t like the idea that anything I say in a public setting...could end up in a transcript summary on someone’s personal device.

My friend, if there's a reporter standing behind you, it could end up on the nightly news. And it's been that way forever. Certainly, a plethora of terrifyingly broad data collection greatly exacerbates the problem, but it's not a new problem.

> bla bla bla...Amazon Echo...listening in on us without our knowledge or consent. I've lost track of how many times I've experienced or heard others...discussing a particular topic...and then as soon as they get on Facebook...they see posts and ads featuring the very topic they were discussing.

There are lots of real problems with surveillance tech, but the stuff about smart speakers specifically is still a dumb conspiracy theory. People are CONSTANTLY testing the hardware in these things and watching network activity. They really are not listening to you, and blindly repeating this claim greatly harms your credibility.

> bla bla bla...George Orwell envisioned in his dystopian novel 1984

Okay, new rule, these articles need to pick at least one other dystopian novel. There are so many. What's wrong with Fahrenheigh 451, where the government had everyone look out their doors in a mass manhunt? That's a good one! Use it to talk about Ring cameras or something.

Cell phones are so useful that I'm not surprised that people are willing to bug themselves and their homes with them, but wearables offer so much less while being just as invasive. I suspect that people will take the bait anyway. I don't see very many "glassholes" running around though, and there was a lot of pushback against "friend" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend_(product)

> I don’t like the idea that anything I say in a public setting or in a conversation with others could end up in a transcript summary on someone’s personal device.

Pretty minor if it's just that individual. But for certain this means there is a transcript on Apple's servers that can be subpoenaed by law enforcement, or sooner or later, searchable without a warrant.

I watch "The First 48" religiously and its amazing how they go directly to Flock data in every new episode.

At this point, and I assure you I am not being contrarian -- you can check my post history, I would say just enjoy the ride man.

"Audio Intelligence features are private by design, combining hardware, software, and services to protect user privacy in a way that only Apple can. These features do not create or store audio recordings, and raw audio used for processing is completely inaccessible to the operating systems, apps, the user, or Apple. By design, Audio Intelligence features do not identify and attribute speakers, to protect the privacy of both the user and those around them. Siri Recap produces a brief, high-level summary of conversations — not a transcript — and is designed to exclude sensitive information like financial information or government-assigned identifiers. Live Rewind text snippets and Siri Recap summaries are end-to-end encrypted in the Siri app with iCloud syncing, and are not accessible even by Apple. Read more about how Audio Intelligence protects privacy:" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49632685

Just like running your own mail server doesn't help when nearly everyone you talk to uses GMail, simply not using these devices yourself is likely not to make much difference.

The solution is legal and political, not technical.

The core issue with mass, high detail survellance is 1) the chilling effect and 2) the construction of guilt effect

When every single thing you do is put under a microscope you will be found guilty of nearly anthing. It will be possible to construct a believable number of crimes that you commited from circumstantial evidence and/or the pile of minor offenses citizens commit every day.

The american system would defacto flip into "you are guilty, we just need to find out of what." and this becomes a way to control and witchhunt a population into silence and complaince.

1960: "I have a great idea! lets have every person in the country carry a radio tracking beacon!" "That'll never fly!" 2012: "I can has TWO iphones??"

Surveillance isnt a problem until people use it for personal gain

>enabled could potentially be recorded without their knowledge or consent.

The audio is not recorded.

The whole modern world is dystopian garbage.

Many geeks are the embodiment of the "don't trust the government" / "don't trust corporations" counterculture, but when equity grants entered the equation, we architected much of the modern techno-surveillance state. Flock is an YC company. Probably a quarter of the people who frequent this site work at Meta or Google.

We're always eager to say how much we dislike it, but there's so little self-reflection in our community.

"The primary antagonist for freedom of thought in the beginning of our struggle was the Universal Catholic Church, an institution directed at the control of thought in the European world, based around weekly surveillance of the conduct and thoughts of every human being, based around the censorship of all reading material and in the end based upon the ability to predict and to punish unorthodox thought.

The tools available for thought control in early modern Europe were poor even by 20th century standards, but they worked. And for hundreds of years, the struggle primarily centered around that increasingly important first mass manufactured article in Western culture: the book. Whether you could print them, possess them, traffic in them, read them, teach from them without the permission or control of an entity empowered to punish thought.

By the end of the 17th century censorship of written material in Europe had begun to break down first in the Netherlands then in the UK then afterwards in waves throughout the European world and the book became an article of subversive commerce and began eating away at the control of thought.

By the late 18th century that struggle for the freedom of reading had begun to attack the substance of Christianity itself and the European world trembled on the brink of the first great revolution of the mind. It spoke of “liberté, égalité, fraternité”, but actually it meant freedom to think differently." -- https://archive.org/details/EbenMoglenRepublica2012

You can always assume permanent surveillance. Electromagnetic radiation can be read from a distance so any device is completely visible.