#surveillancecapitalism

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SMUD - an appropriate name for the electric company conducting surveillance for the police.

The $94 Million Smart Meter Surveillance Scheme Exposed

https://youtu.be/onYWQJsWFpk

Sacramento residents discovered their utility company has been secretly feeding their private energy data to police without warrants, leading to a massive surveillance operation that generated $94 million in fines. This explosive investigation reveals how SMUD transformed smart meters into government spy devices, monitoring when you shower, sleep, or use appliances.

Innocent homeowners faced armed police raids for using electricity to power medical equipment or mine cryptocurrency. One resident was forced outside in his underwear at gunpoint, while another disabled veteran was threatened with arrest for refusing warrantless entry. The surveillance threshold dropped dramatically from 7,000 to just 2,800 kilowatt hours per month, making air conditioning use suspicious in Sacramento's brutal heat.

Internal documents expose how SMUD analysts actively mined customer data for police, checking over 10,000 …

Is one big flaw in how we generally think about and development in how we embrace this vibrant feeling and energy that existed at the time the early web was emerging? At that time time the expectation was that the would liberate us.

A decade later we have , the Corporate Web and , while and are knocking on the door.

Nowadays when we excitedly publish our innovations as we did then, is that still responsible?

"(...) In 1982, eleven clandestine Radio Solidarity radio stations were shut down across Poland. The scientists who cooperated in the balloon project were risking serious jail time in addition to the loss of their career and livelihood.

Their act of defiance didn't bring down the state. It didn't do much more than give hope and brighten the day of a few hundred people. But it went straight back to that first idealistic promise of radio: that there existed magic, invisible rays that had the power to erase the distance between people, bypass all intermediaries, and penetrate even the thickest walls.

I tell this story to reassure you that just because everything is heavy and political right now, it doesn't mean we can't also fight these fights on our own terms, as nerds.

The Utopian qualities that made us love the web have not disappeared, even as it's become centralized and …

Why we can’t stop people for fun
This is another excellent video vy @taylorlorenz about what is becoming an additional digital plague: . This increasingly popular practice, deeply rooted in , is desentizing us to the issue of as well as , and legitimizing them, with catastrophic consequences for , but also for our capacity to live together and trust each others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZUqGvOnLik

Google is tracking you even when you use DuckDuckGo https://www.simpleanalytics.com/blog/google-is-tracking-you-even-when-you-use-duck-duck-go

'Think DuckDuckGo keeps you safe from Google? Well think again. A new study shows that even with a privacy-focused search engine, Google's trackers follow you around the web (mostly through analytics, ads, and video embeds). The research by SafetyDetectives compares four countries and reveals just how hard it is to avoid Google online.'

Don't judge the tech bros on how cringeworthy or clumsy they are. Judge them on their intent

Our reactions to things like this are "hey everyone, this is really dumb. Lol"

It feels good to speak on the ugliness and stupidity and get affirmation others also see how fucked up it is

But there is no protection in that, it's a momentary salve, it doesn't make it go away

Begin to think about how we fight what is coming

Stop laughing. Start fighting

Sign in an airport in San Francisco: "Palantir Technologies Est. 2003 USA Software that dominates Palantir.com"