Tech companies shouldn't be bullied into doing surveillance

epistasis 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Back during the Iraq war days and government overreach into privacy violations, the tech companies were on the side of the American people. They fought to defend the 4th amendment.

That has all changed today, except for Anthropic. You think Apple is going to stand up to an unlawful DoJ demand these days? Hell no. Tim Cook has lit Apple's reputation on fire. I've been a super dedicated Apple user for 25 years, but I'm heading for the exits now. All that trust has been burned.

Stay strong Anthoproc, you are seemingly the only really large SV company with any principles and backbone. I won't forget what happens here, either way it goes.

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vjvjvjvjghv a minute ago | parent | next [-]

[delayed]

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pamcake 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd hold off making that call on Anthropic here until at least after Friday. I'm not sure if persisting that "constructive dialogue is taking place in good faith" and saying nothing else in public signifies backbone considering preceding and consecutive public statements by government officials... It certainly doesn't instil confidence in honesty or transparency.

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SanjayMehta 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

All our Intel Macs are getting repurposed for Ubuntu LTS - whatever version which supports our CAD tools.

	▲	mixmastamyk an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Recommend Mint instead. Flatpak instead of snap.

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myvoiceismypass 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Hate to break the news but they might not be good guys either - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47145963

(Dropping safety pledge)

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reasonableklout 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Do you think it's possible the two are related?

	▲	yunnpp an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It's obvious that they are. The best thing the company could do if they want to stick to principles is not be based in the US.

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ipaddr 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They over did the safety aspect in my opinion.

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samrus an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Bullied into doing surveillance? Brother a large part of the tech companies valuations are built on how well they allow the government to do surveillance if the governement wants. They arent victims being bullied, they all knew this day would come ajd most were happy about it

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saurik 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe tech companies should try a bit harder to not centralize the world's information, unencrypted, on servers they control.

	▲	sejje 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Amen. But then they can't make their billions selling our data.
	▲	uutangohotel an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		oops accidental surveillance machine

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djoldman 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As an aside, why is it not a law that the government can't pay another entity to do something it's not allowed to do itself, without a warrant? I'm thinking about geo data from mobile apps.

	▲	samename 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It’s due to the third party doctrine, a Supreme Court precedent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine
	▲	pwndByDeath an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Give up social media, make the man do it the old fashion way.

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nzeid an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Agree but a terrifyingly large number of tech companies have garbage security so the bullying is often unnecessary.

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isodev an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Tech companies shouldn’t be able to do surveillance.

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mcs5280 13 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Imagine a world where businesses considered the morality of their decisions instead of just maximizing profits

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deadbabe an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If they give in I will cancel all Anthropic subscriptions and never use anything created by them again. Recent versions of Claude were getting shitty anyway, I could go without it.

	▲	metadat an hour ago \| parent [-]
		All other foundation model providers already caved (OpenAI, Google).

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linksnapzz an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Neither should banks, but that ship has sailed.

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browningstreet 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hegseth & Co. has Grok but they actually want Claude. Elon hates Anthropic and.. well.. Hegseth has the power to put the hurt on them.

Anthropic opened themselves to this disaster by making that first contract with the military.

I don’t want them to lose this battle but it’s also one they brought upon themselves by stepping into that arena.

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camillomiller 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Well, it seems they don’t need that much bullying. They are absolutely happy to contribute if it means favors, no tariffs, more profit etc

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ChrisArchitect an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Hegseth gives Anthropic until Friday to back down on AI safeguards

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140734

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47142587

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gaigalas an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Totally agree with the statement: Tech companies shouldn't be bullied into doing surveillance.

I would personally add "bullied, coerced and/or gaslighted into doing surveillance".

I don't understand why the US government is doing this though. Wouldn't it be much easier to do use some of the already passed laws on foreign intelligence to open a surveillance data pipeline? You know, like PRISM.

I mean, this is inconsistent with the previous M.O., and highly unusual.

I also feel very conflicted to suddenly have to "defend Anthropic", a company that has been systematically doing evil things (destabilizing markets, promoting misleading media campaings, etc). I don't want to defend those guys.

Can I just dislike both the US military and Anthropic at the same time, and say there are no good guys here?

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SanjayMehta 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"Tech companies shouldn't be bullied into doing surveillance for the govt."

FTFY

They're going to spy on you regardless.