Everything you do is being recorded
Discussion 188 comments
No CAPTCHA, no geo-blocking, no archive.today annoyances
No Javascript, text-only
Option 1
tnftp -4o"|grep -Eo 'flatplan-paragraph.*GpNxD' \
|sed 's/.\{26\}/<meta charset=utf-8>/;s/<div.*//'" \
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/ai-wearable-surveillance-countermeasures/687203/ > 1.htm
firefox ./1.htm
tnftp -4o"|tr -d '\134' \
|grep -Eo 'innerHtml...[^\}]+' \
|sed '
1s/^/<meta charset=utf-8>/;
s/innerHtml.../<p>/g;
s/\",\"index\":[0-9]*//g;
s/\"//g;
s/u003c/</g;
s/u003e/>/g;
'" \
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/ai-wearable-surveillance-countermeasures/687203/ > 1.htm
firefox ./1.htm
links https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/ai-wearable-surveillance-countermeasures/687203/
elinks https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/ai-wearable-surveillance-countermeasures/687203/
Add CSP to response headers to disable Javascript, something like
http-response add-header Content-Security-Policy "script-src 'none'; default-src 'none'"
firefox https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/ai-wearable-surveillance-countermeasures/687203/This will sure make all the dogs in 20m radius mad. Hence the solution for the stealth recorder -- bring a dog, then complain about the ultrasound jammer (or at least to be aware of a jammer)
From the paper, it looks like the authors did not consider safety of animals, only human hearing safety.
we need a government that is antagonistic towards corporations that are abusing us.
it’s wild how much influence they have and how little pushback the government ever gives them when they clearly abuse us from every direction.
A company selling me widgets wouldn't store or let another company store extra information about me if it subjected them the widget seller to HIPAA. Or better yet, something more stringent.
We don't need the government to be antagonistic toward corporations; we just need a government that makes the corporations internalize the risk they're making us take.
[1] The fact that ToS are enforceable when every court in the country knows that only a vanishly small percentage of people ever read them, much less understand them, means that they're not doing their job.
This is how healthcare workers used to treat health information protected by HIPAA, but it seems like the big corporations don't really even care about it. Nothing ever comes from violations besides slap on the wrist/cost of doing business penalties. You can't do anything without waiving all your rights, granting permission to be recorded, granting permission to use your photograph for anything they want, allowing your recorded audio to run through AI for transcription (and whatever else they want to do), granting permission to share your data with their partners, associates, and some vague description of "anyone we decide at a later date". That's before you can even sign-up, receive care, have a service rendered, enter into a business establishment.
There's pages of fine print documenting it all in vague terms that ambiguously safe guard the provider from any liability, but half the time, you don't even get to opportunity to (not) read it. It's just a link to go elsewhere and (not) read it. They add as many steps between you even reading what rights you're giving away, so that even the people who had a mind to do so would get fatigued, and they make you do it while there are people queuing up behind you, or you're almost done with your purchase/subscription, etc.
Everything is so consumer hostile (and expensive in America), but no "better" service can swoop in, because the established Big corps get to break all the rules or can afford the token penalties to give them an unstoppable market share no honest disruptor/competition could ever overcome. On even ground, no competent person would choose to be abused by our resident monopolies vs a reasonably similar priced local upstart, and a lot people would even pay (a little) more for a better experience/product/service.
Most of the videos talk about reducing burden on clinicians. Specifically: sharing, accessing, updating patient history. Providing clinicians and patients guidance through the medical process through AI agents (that have access to your PII). the kaiser permanente guy highlighted ai's use in guiding billing codes. Dr. Oz spoke about getting pre-authorizations near instantaneously
I'm not sure how that gets accomplished without reducing liability or loosing restrictions. I wouldnt be surprised to see a continued attack on our healthcare privacy
Please don't. The entire civilized world for all of history and before has been built on the uncomfortable alliance between power/capability and governance/legitimacy. Protection-seeking is the primary support system for tyranny which is happy to induce the chaos they protect you from.
We just need enough negative feedback for any kind of abuse that it stops, because regulations have to be slow to be accurate and thus invite abuse innovation. The main part of that negative feedback is effective competition so people can vote with their feet.
So, ask not for antagonism but for real alternatives.
>The main part of that negative feedback is effective competition
The comment you responded to allows for "corporations that abuse us" to include those that actively try to prevent effective competition. You don't really explain why being antagonistic to those corporations would be a problem.
Yeah, sorry. Yes, corporate activities that reduce competition or corrupt regulators should have their agents and causes ripped out branch to root; they're like diseases which attack the immune system, doubly bad.
But the premise that a corporation or a country that does bad things means you are justified in antagonizing or destroying the entire company or the people is typically enlistment and leverage for protection rackets.
Warring with others is a cycle that doesn't end, and mainly elevates military resource providers. Warring with yourself - attacking your own organs - is self-destructive (which is why enemies stimulate it).
As for here vs there, 20th-century totalitarian systems all stemmed from people wanting to believe promises of a better world, and the promotors being unbound by facts of the present. "Here" is a much more tractable problem, where our medicine (or immune systems) could get better at stemming the diseases we have, like the lack of negative feedback for abusing people (more generally for exporting costs, esp. to the future), or the corruption of discourse that mediates agreements about governance. My goal would be to leave the world more free, peaceful, nature-healthy than I found it. Antagonism doesn't help for that, and side-tracks people into regressive emotions.
I think it would be a valuable service a government could perform for me - assuming there were a way to make sure the data was not accessed without my side of the key. Like, it is only after I have been arrested that the data is accessible to the court in which I will have been presented to face accusations of a crime.
I would also think it pretty neat, were I able to use it as a backup over my life, for my own purposes - if I could do it without involving the spooks. Like, let me use the technological spy infrastructure, and if I happen to commit a crime, well then - come on in, inspect my data by all means.
This, I think, is the only circumstance where it is justifiable - but of course, it is not reality. We have absolutely no agency over the activities of Pine Gap, etc.
And there's the corporations who - for some reason - are given a pass. If governments can steal your data, so can Mr. FatCat and his team of merry department heads.
What the world really needs, is for hackers to get user-facing operating systems which just really do, backup everything. It's okay, you can choose not to use it.
I'd love to have every single phone call I've ever made available, at this point in my life, for review. This kind of super-wide view of things would be quite enlightening, I'm pretty sure.
[1] - just for the record, I think the problems that the NSA are trying to solve are obsolete; that there are far greater solutions to fallacies which support the utility of it as an organ of government; I am in the camp that this is a massive human rights issue, also.
This, I think, is the only circumstance where it is justifiable - but of course, it is not reality. We have absolutely no agency over the activities of Pine Gap, etc.
However, corporations - for some reason - are given a pass.
What the world really needs, is for hackers to get user-facing operating systems which just really do, backup everything. It's okay, you can choose not to use it.
I'd love to have every single phone call I've ever made available, at this point in my life.
PS: Something in this vein that many people are unaware of is that the 6G standard for cell towers is planned to include ISAC (Integrated Sensing and Communication). I haven’t heard a single AFK person talk about this.
Being resigned to something is not the same as wanting that thing.
The outrageous prices of used (low telemetry) cars make them a poor value proposition, for example. Depending on the model, a used car can be a decade old with half of its lifetime miles on it already and the seller will still want $14k or something crazy like that. When you factor in the parts of its history that carfax doesn’t cover and the stream of repairs you’re likely to be saddled with, finding a 0%-2% financing deal on something new at ~$20-24k begins to look a lot more attractive.
There was a comment made here a month or two ago, about someone from a SE Asia country (I forget which; maybe Bangladesh?) talking about how their government installed AI traffic enforcement cameras all over, and they went from one of the deadliest, most chaotic road systems in the world to Singapore-level rule-following in the space of just a couple months.
As a result, the cameras have become quite popular because there's less traffic, travelling is easier and more predictable, and road deaths have plummeted.
I imagine there are a number of similar situations in every country, where the deployment of AI surveillance has a sufficiently measurably positive impact that it becomes popular.
What does the AI actually do? Identify specific cars and their drivers, or something? What actual enforcement actions were taken as a result, and against how many drivers before it stopped?
One might wonder how much of the effect was placebo (i.e., people conforming simply due to the belief of being surveilled).
Yes, exactly. It identifies cars and drivers who are committing traffic violations, and issues citations.
I don't have the specific numbers you ask for, seeing as I can't even remember the country, but it's not difficult to imagine that if sufficiently many such cameras are installed that most moving violations on major roadways are caught and punished, then yes, people will come to (reasonably) believe that the cost of committing the violation is close to the price of the fine, rather than close to zero.
It's one thing to blow by a pedestrian crossing the street, it's another to do so knowing you'll probably be charged $150 (or whatever) for having done it.
It's a trained model, just like Claude.
One should never underestimate the power of combining data sets.
- Consumers largely do not know these things. They are either not disclosed, or buried within a TOS that they cannot read. This is all done on purpose. The reason the TOS is obtuse, long, inaccurate, and updated weekly is so you won't read or understand it.
- In most markets there is no choice. For smartphones you do not have a choice, both Apple and Google do extensive surveillance. If you want to bank, get a job, and all around be successful, you have to swallow the surveillance cost. If you want a new car, again, no choice. If you work a job, again, no choice on the computer or software.
- It is not reasonable to expect consumers to do extensive research on everything they buy. Consumers have lives, children, jobs. They're not going to sit and spend 10+ hours researching every thing they buy, especially when most of that research is fruitless.
- There are tradeoffs with everything. Yes we can use Linux, I sure do. But for other consumers, now they need to spend a lot of time understanding that. Yes we can use Graphene OS, but certain apps won't work.
It's a lot more disgusting and universally hated when you hear about a peeping tom, or a pervert, or a jealous ex hounding someone,
but when faceless corporations and governments do it to EVERYBODY 24/7, everyone's like, ehh.
I mean, right now, just think about me, clicking on your HN profile, googling your name, going through all your public photos.. Don't you find me repulsive just talking about that?
My privacy is important as a matter of consent.
But I should not have to hide my sexuality or identity, nor my politics and if my support of a marginalized group exists then what is the point of hiding it while they are oppressed? What benefit does that bring?
Encouraging people to be private in their views and anymore and anonymous in their "support" is exactly how fascists crush their opposition.
You might find something I wrote interesting. Then whatever public info there is on me helps you to get to know me a bit better. You may stop there and forget about me, or you may try to reach out.
There is nothing wrong about that.
There could be a number of reasons. Am I not trying hard enough?
Me googling your shit might lead to your real name, your family photos etc
Just because it's all public doesn't mean you want the cashier from the supermarket following you around to your family picnic
or just because you like to let the sunlight in doesn't mean you want random pedestrians peering in through your windows..
I can't believe this needs to be spelled out here: "Public" life is compartmentalized.
This has never happened to me. Out of the space of “bad things that can happen to me” I don’t have time to worry about things with such a small probability of occurring.
It's about someone "connecting the dots" between ALL your public activities.
Someone following you OUTSIDE their "space" that you visited and then invading your other spaces.
People don't usually want to mix their social circles. e.g. nobody likes a snoopy overprotective parent following their [teen] kids around wherever the children go with their friends.
Nobody likes their spouse coming uninvited on a night out with the guys/gals.
Or, when you reply to someone on HN or Reddit, and they don't like what you say about 1 specific topic, then they go and downvote ALL your comments about everything else you said!
That's perfectly legal. It's allowed. Nothing's stopping it. And hey, you commented publicly so you were "asking for it", right?
BUT IT'S A FUCKING DICK MOVE
I do understand what you are getting at. I just don’t find people repulsive by being curious of me; even if they find materials I myself did not make public.
As an aside, I sometimes stumble upon websites of people who write and show pictures of themselves and their family. I find them beautiful[0] to visit and hope more people would do that, as was more common 20 years ago.
Corporations aren't people. They do not and cannot present a personal threat to you.
Even your trailing example falls flat on this: for the activity to be distressing you had to recontextualize it back to the individual level.
...is this for real
Holy fucking hell. Someone please, I can't
@dang, please consider updating.
I don't know what's going on behind those 5 buttons, but this was the first, and who knows?
[0] https://www.archivebuttons.com/articles?article=https://www....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Archive.today_guidan...
See section "Blog capture tampered with":
* https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-a...
Also:
> On 20 February 2026, the English Wikipedia banned all links to archive.today, citing the DDoS attack and evidence that archived content was tampered with: Discussion had discovered that instances of Nora's name were replaced with Patokallio's and that "Nora" was likely an appropriated identity—the name belonged to a real person, whose only connection to archive.today had been a prior content takedown request.[18][17][19] The community's decision was made despite concerns over maintaining content verifiability—partly undermined by the discovery of the alterations— while removing and replacing the second-largest archiving service used across the Wikimedia Foundation's projects. The Wikimedia Foundation had stated its readiness to take action regardless of the community verdict.[18][20] Patokallio expressed his satisfaction with the outcome.[3]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archive.today#Attack_on_Gyrova...
> Specifically, AT's maintainers reportedly tweaked snapshots of a third-party blog post that Patokallio referred to in his February 2026 article about the DDoS attack. AT changed the name of a "Nora" person in said post to Jani Patokallio, making it look as if he had written some comments there. Eagle-eyed Wikipedia editors spotted the alterations, which have since then been reverted, but the action made it easy for them reach a final decision.
* https://www.tomshardware.com/software/search-engines/wikiped...
The bit about tampering with archived pages is news to me though. Wish the wiki discussion included receipts. Is "two users report they were redirected to tehrantimes.com" what is being referred to when they say archived pages are being tampered with?
And it looks like in some instances they changed their own alias to the name of the blogger they're in dispute with, in a fit of pique.
You have to scroll down to get hints because the conversation has been redacted, and the evidence is not provided with side-by-side comparisons.
I understand the ethical concerns about linking to the site but the blanket accusations of "tampering" seem a bit disingenuous, since no article content was ever changed afaik.
>This decision was agreed on after a request for comment with more than 200 participants concluded in February 2026, and is due to multiple concerns, including the site using editors' and readers' computers to run a denial-of-service attack and evidence that the website has tampered with some archived pages
So there isn't a choice here if you actually want to see the article (without subscribing to the atlantic).
But also, lower your guard long enough and it might be taken over by any of two or three religious groups that only seem to be growing.
No more “why did I come in this room again?” moments.
What I do know, however, is that most people seem to be willing to give up everything for a little convenience.
You gotta be on somebody's books
The lowdown a picture of your face
Your injured looks The sacred and profane
The pleasure and the pain
Somewhere your fingerprints remain concrete
> But soon, the average person might need to deploy surveillance countermeasures.
Already there. If you want privacy and anonymity online, you're looking at literal terrorist cell tier tradecraft. That means pulling up documents written by people from the "counterterrorism community" and "intelligence community" and learning how all of these "clandestines" operate.
Unlinking one's identity from one's actions and speech requires some serious OPSEC now. It requires constant, never ending effort. It requires perfect execution and discipline.
Own a general purpose computer you can run arbitrary software on, not just corporation and government approved software? You're clearly a money laundering drug trafficking child molesting terrorist.
I used to think he was just paranoid...
Don't doubt it for even a second.