Queer Like The SlurApr 13

We don't talk anywhere near enough about how the tech industry is fucking with the general public's understanding of consent.

Fairly often I will opt out of something that would have been obviously reasonable a few years ago, and people will look at me like I drove a truck through the room.

Things like:
- I won't be appearing on camera today
- I don't wish to speak on a recording to be published on the University website
- I won't be giving my personal details to an overseas third party just to use a notepad tool in one meeting

I see this seeping through into attitudes about consent in other everyday life contexts. People are so used to being walked all over by their tech that they're increasingly shocked by boundaries.

BRING HOME ABREGO GARCIA5d ago
Show threadfrog

@coolandnormal My standard for consent is to pretend the thing I'm consenting to is being physically done by a person.

It'd be super weird if I bought a used car from some one and they asked me if they could follow me around.

It'd also be super weird for a stranger to ask to follow me around writing down the things I put into my cart at the grocery store.

If I called a taxi, it'd be super weird if the driver asked me if he could look through my phone contacts and copy them down.

Apr 14 at 4:18amWeb
Show threadHelical = Apr 14
@coolandnormal @frog you have somehow made a case of viewing corporations as people but it’s not stupid

congratulations here is ur no bell prige :3
Show threadMer-fOKxTOwlApr 14
@helical @coolandnormal @frog pretend its a person in a corporate uniform. ;)
Show threadEli the BeardedApr 14

@frog @coolandnormal

I helped my mother-in-law install a new printer yesterday. It's an HP Envy 7200 series. (We failed to persuade her a Brother laser would be better.)

The intrusiveness of HP installs is really creepy. The setup cannot be done over USB, it must be via Bluetooth and the printer must have a network connection to function.

HP's new ink selling thing is a subscription service that wants to phone home with details about what you print, so they know when to send ink. Ick.

Show threadeconads5d ago

@elithebearded
There's someone on here who does a thread every so often about how printers put a unique pattern of very pale dots in every printout, so everything you print since like 2010(?) can be traced back to you with some effort. Their solution was a typewriter, no joke.

@frog @coolandnormal

Show threadEli the Bearded5d ago

@econads @frog @coolandnormal

I was familiar with the yellow dot thing decades ago by virtue of my mom working for Xerox and explaining that color copiers did that to help foil counterfeiters. I do not believe black and white devices have ever done it, but proving a negative is hard.

Both typewriters and laser printers can have defects that assist in identification of devices. A scratch on the drum or a letter with a nick. (My last HP had a ROM defect for built-in fonts that was similar.)

Show threadsphygmus5d ago

@econads my understanding is that typewritten docs aren't free of being tracked to their source either, since the letter keys have different wear patterns and ways of hitting the page. (And, much less common for people to own them so the pool of potential sources is smaller.)

in my minor research, printing at a library is likely the best - dot tracking leads to the library printer; and if printing from digital files, they can be named innocuous names that wouldn't stand out from others' usage.

Show threadeconads5d ago
@sphygmus Mimeograph possibly? Maybe my recall is bad.
Show threadgunstick6d ago
@frog @coolandnormal
For. convenience I use a throw away identity. I just need to change it often enough sonthat it can't be linked to my real-me.
Except for buying the car, one can actually shop and use a taxi in a way that the cart or phone contents is not looked at.
Show threadJuan Per¢ent🍉🏞️🌊5d ago
@frog @coolandnormal ☝️THIS.
The inverse can also be true:
Is it weird that when I'm puzzled by an address in a map app, I do not ask a passerby who might know exactly where Joe's bakery is? Maybe she'll share a story while pointing the way.
If we stick always put a phone between us, we'll never know each other.The app will though, enclose and profit from our convenient distance.
Show threadhappyborg5d ago

@frog

That's the same way I argue against all these dark patterns: what if you did this in a personal relationship - what would happen?

Simple example: you send me a message that I can't reply to, and if I don't do what you ask you repeatedly send the same instruction in increasingly forceful and belligerent tone.

That's how my fucking Doctor's practice now operates and it is abuse FFS.

@coolandnormal

Show threadBobDevney5d ago

@frog @coolandnormal

This is one of the best things I've ever read on the internet.

Seriously. You've formulated a fresh way of looking at ubiquitous internet surveillance — in a manner that cuts right through all the abstractions. Recasts the truly outrageous nature of what the techbros do to us daily, into basic human terms.

How can we make your insight famous? It deserves to lead off the next million discussions of this enormous problem.

#Computer #Surveillance #CrimeFiction

Show threadQueer Like The Slur5d ago

@BobDevney I wonder if this could be distilled into something short and memorable for a laptop sticker or zoom avatar.

For @frog 's concept, something like: "before you tap yes, would you let a person do that to you?"

For mine: "sorry it takes me so much longer use the tech, I have the misfortune of understanding what it's doing"

Show threadQueer Like The Slur4d ago
@BobDevney @frog what about a laptop sticker with a phrase like "ask yourself if you'd let a random stranger do it to you" in the middle of a cluster of consent pop-ups [allow app to access your photos? Yes/No] [allow program to send emails on your behalf Yes/No] [share your address book with Third Party? Yes/ask me later]