Cast-off Gadgets Spy on Owners (on Purpose for a Change)

Eric Smalley writes "For the project, dubbed Backtalk, researchers sent refurbished Netbooks to developing countries via nonprofit organizations. They set up the computers to record location and pictures, and send the data home to MIT--with their new owners' consent... The MIT team used the data to build visual narratives about the computers' new lives."

Comments

Re:Typical

[ElectricTurtle]

Nice logic there. It *could* be a Hobson's Choice therefore it *must* be a Hobson's Choice.

Which coincidentally is also an excellent movie directed by Sir David Lean.

It's ok we have "permisison"

[i kan reed]

I don't really buy the legitimacy claimed in the summary. Facebook, for example, has your permission to track everything you do. Lawyers love inserting clauses into every contract once they're aware of them.

We live in a society of a million de-facto laws created by contracts that we have no real alternatives to signing if we want to maintain a modern existance. Home Owner Associations, forced arbitration agreements, "we can terminate the contract at any time for free, but you must bay $X00 to do so".

Just because you've gotten someone to agree to something unethical, does not mean that ethical questions evaporate.

Re:It's ok we have "permisison"

[maxume]

Here's how they went about it:

http://senseable.mit.edu/backtalk/

Now you can provide a deeper explanation about how it was unethical, rather than accusatory hand-waving.

Re:It's ok we have "permisison"

[ElectricTurtle]

I get so sick of this whiny, hypersensitive attitude that voluntary agreements aren't really voluntary if you need it. The circumstances of need are not de facto coercion, no matter how badly your entitlement mindset wants them to be.

"Negative" aspects of agreements are essentially part of the cost weighed by actors within a market. If a person wants to choose to be part of this project instead of paying a higher upfront cost, it is to the mutual benefit of both parties. I don't see how it is unethical to give somebody an economic advantage in exchange for consent to some random images. The only argument against it that would still benefit the participants in this project is that they could afford to dispose of the equipment without the condition, which while true would offer less motivation to do so, which reduces if not eliminates supply, and so the poor get nothing.

In the end the Hobson's Choice still provides the willing with a service they otherwise could not have. If it is really a system wherein one must accept a small negative effect to receive a larger positive effect, is it really fair for you or anybody other than the interested parties to determine that it should be nothing instead? Isn't it presumptuous to assume that just because you might not act under the same conditions, that those conditions should not be offered at all?

In the end it's a damn better use of the devices than junking them and letting them end up in a toxic heap in the same countries to be picked over by urchins who will get lead poisoning melting them down.

Re:It's ok we have "permisison"

[ElectricTurtle]

Acceptance is always optional, or the contract is invalid on its face. If somebody is aiming a gun at a person and says 'sign this contract or I will kill you' then the contract is not legally binding. But of course when you say 'not optional' you mean 'because they need it!' Need is not coercion. So yes, you are not entitled to terms that are perfect for you in every way. If you want something from somebody, you play by their rules, except where otherwise prohibited by law (discrimination against protected classes, etc.).

And yes, it is an entitlement mindset to think that corporations who have interests in the political and economic climate that they must operate in should be censored by the government. Money is speech, that is more than just a principle, it is a precedent established by more than one Supreme Court decision. The way that lobbying works could use some reform, but nothing is worth censorship. Businesses should be as free to have political say as any other person or organization. In the end everybody still has one vote, regardless of who they work for.

Re:It's ok we have "permisison"

[ElectricTurtle]

This is the second time somebody has said that this necessarily leads to selling children into slavery. Its so distorted and disingenuous I can't imagine where you get off calling me a terrible person. Selling children into slavery implies involuntary actors, whether they be de facto or de jure, and so are excluded from possible scenarios of voluntary acts as a class. It's quite ludicrous, but you are so desperate to defend your mindset that there is no emotional appeal you won't sink to using, even if it is demonstrably inapplicable. You just hope people will be so blinded by a 'think of the children' argument that they won't realize you are using this specter to try to deprive people of choices just because you personally think the choices are bad.

In a way you are correct, I 'advocate pointless suffering' where people choose pointless suffering. For example I think being a monk is 'pointless suffering', but I don't think that my opinion of somebody else's lifestyle should be forced on them. If somebody wants to be a monk, it's not my right to stop them, nor is it society's right just because a lot of people might agree that it's a stupid lifestyle. Each person's life choices should not be at the whim of another's tyranny, whether that be the tyranny of a dictator or of the majority.

Each individual needs to be the final arbiter of their own happiness. You have no authority to decide for others what constitutes suffering for them against their own wishes. That will ultimately lead to far more individual suffering than it will prevent.

Re:Typical

[SockPuppetOfTheWeek]

exploit the poor to create "visual narratives". ... Consent is easy to get when there are no alternatives in the 3rd world hell holes they ship these too

This is exactly right; granted, the rest of your post was inflammatory and mostly unnecessary. It doesn't matter whether it's Massachusetts or anywhere else; it's not like this sort of thing is limited to one state.

In effect - "Sell your privacy for a netbook."

How many Slashdot readers would let someone spy on them in exchange for getting a cheap laptop? Not many, because we can afford not to... this is exploiting the poor, no different than letting rental companies install spying software on their rental laptops (which happened in Pennsylvania).

Re:Did facebook/google help fund this???

[interkin3tic]

I hope they didn't catch them doin the nasty.... *shudders*

Wait... what? I'm missing something. Is there another use for a webcam I'm not familiar with?

Re:So is it spying or not?

[Flipao]

New owner: Wait, you were spying on me?
MIT voyeur: Hey you agreed to this, it's in the EULA!

Re:Typical

[SockPuppetOfTheWeek]

How many would let someone spy on them if they were given a piece of technology that they realistically could NEVER afford in their life, EVER. I'd suggest that all of us would.

And that's exactly what's wrong with it. If someone wouldn't sell their privacy in exchange for a "cheap netbook", they shouldn't be required to sell their privacy in exchange for "a piece of technology that they realistically could never afford". Their privacy shouldn't be negotiable.

Re:Typical

[ElectricTurtle]

Their privacy shouldn't be negotiable.

Ipse dixit, eh? Who exactly died and made you king? If their privacy is, for whatever reason, worth more than their labor, who are you to say that they should not able to use this value about themselves?

This is just like the people who argue against legal prostitution. They assume that it is somehow intrinsically harmful and debasing and that nobody actually wants to do it, or if they do it must be because they have problems, because these people who lobby against it and generally have little to no first hand knowledge of the practice or its practitioners know better than they do what they should want and why.

People should be allowed to decide for themselves what they want to do. Get out of their business and stop telling people what they should and shouldn't want just because you think you're more morally sophisticated and developed than they are. If you are really advocating for respect than start with respecting people's decisions about their own lives.

Re:Typical

[Yakasha]

Typical Massachusetts, exploit the poor to create "visual narratives". The whole state is deranged by some kind of progressive-ism mind virus. Consent is easy to get when there are no alternatives in the 3rd world hell holes they ship these too, this is just disgusting.

I fail to see how they're being exploited. I understand some people think taking their picture will steal their soul, but I kind of assumed the desire to use modern electronics meant these people weren't of that type. So, what do they lose?

I actually wondered about the "refurbished electronics to 3rd world countries" business as i heard it was just big business attempt to avoid e-recycling/e-waste costs while skirting international law. Since it is illegal to dump used electronics in 3rd world countries, they "donate" them as refurbished so the other country then has to deal with disposing of them. This shows the programs, at least some of them, are benefiting real people. It puts a human face on the programs.

As the immortal Martha would say, It's a good thing.

Re:Did facebook/google help fund this???

[eln]

They fund the project by "catching" these people "doin the nasty" and selling the resulting videos. This is why they require potential recipients of these Netbooks to submit 3 photographs of themselves and their partner, at least one of which must be nude.

Finally

[PPH]

I'll get a look at that Nigerian who is sending me all those e-mails.