But that did save lives; I was able to know my family had Covid before the symptoms showed up. Happened with a lot of other people too.

Was that 30 second bluetooth beacon ever switched off again?

Hobbes's Leviathan wants to have a call with you.

That went live about a decade ago. Heck, a lot of the people who built it and maintain it are here on HN, each getting paid so well and contributing only so little that if they can even admit it to themselves, they would never do it publicly.

> I wonder how long it's going to take until we have universal communication monitoring, including in real life. It's not an impossible technical challenge, it's just a question of time. Every spoken word recorded forever and scrutinized. After all forms of distant private communication fall, the spoken word will be the last one remaining. And all these arguments they're making apply to it, too.

There's a lot that scary about AI, but this is one of the scariest. Even if new good jobs pop up to employ all the people who work on things LLMs can do, governments and other powerful organizations now have this ability to analyze surveillance at scale that was unimaginable even by the East German Stasi.

It's conceivable we'll soon have a machine that can listen in on every phone call, read every text message and email, understand them, and flag dissident concepts and content. The manpower limit on oppressive surveillance will be gone. It'll be like having a spy following you around all the time, taking notes. All the guys who's job it is to listen can be redeployed as thugs to beat out the wrong-think.

It so great these smart kids invented all this. Truly for the benefit of mankind. /s

We already have that, except for half of real life.

Recall elections. California loves them.

You vote against them when they're up for re-election. If they're not up for re-election, you vote against anyone who allies themselves with said person.

[dead]

I don't have the citations to back this up anymore than you did, but it was also passed because of the rise in Black Power movements walking around with guns.

I used to be an obnoxious gun control advocate until I learned that California's gun control legislation was brought about in response to the Black Panther's patrolling predominantly black neighborhoods while armed to protect the people of the neighborhood from state sponsored (police) violence.

Reference to start from: https://www.kcra.com/article/liberty-limits-black-panther-pa...

This topic is full of subtlty so recommend reading the sources from that article and so on.

I don’t think anyone thinks gun control was passed to help school kids. People have been begging the govt to pass stricter gun control laws to protect kids for decades with very little success.

Yes, misinformed and counterproductive action.

Blocking communications is basically sweeping the issue under the rug in the hopes that it dissolves on its own. This is closer to avoiding of "taking action"

I mean one could say they are taking action when they lock up and kill random immigrants... or getting into unnecessary wars in the middle east. I would hardly call that a measure of competence. In fact, I would love a government that did absolutely nothing at all ahead of this one.

Very similar argument to those who want to ban encryption.

Why do you need to encrypt your network traffic with ssl, is you have nothing to hide....

"Do you consider your position so weak that it cannot withstand debate?" -- Data, STNG

They're afraid of people communicating. That's not a safety thing.

and in this argument we pre-suppose that loss of privacy equates to an increase in safety, right?

How is private messaging causing people to become unsafe? If you're saying privacy = unsafe environment, then your right to privacy is meaningless.

Are you suggesting that taking down an application is making people safe?

People are making independent communication networks using reticulum, LORA devices and hold tight - unregistered radio transmitters.

You can't seriously argue trying to take down ONE app is acting in the interests of national security?