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Recently, a new opposition group has come into being. Unfortunately, it's not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. All it is, is a simple group opposing Google's new "Glass" project.

They are known as Stop the Cyborgs.

Here's what they say against Google Glass:

• Google has the marketing power to make acting like ‘Creepy Cameraman’ socially acceptable. Would you have even considered wearing a hidden spy camera or recording conversations a few years ago? Well soon everyone will be doing it and finding you odd for objecting.

• There is no way to know if you are being recorded by someone wearing Google Glass or a similar device. This is in contrast to a smart phone where the user must visibly hold the camera up to take a picture or record video. We must therefore assume that we are being recorded at all times(and possibly publicly broadcast) from a low angle where ones face is clearly visible.

• Even if the user is not recording video, audio for their own use it may still be being collected and processed in the cloud in order to display contextual information using image, object, face, voice identification and speech recognition. (so called augmented reality) for example.

• Display the G+ or Facebook profile of the person you are looking at.
  Give you reviews of the item you are looking at in a shop.
  Give Google debugging or image recognition training information.

• Information about you will not just sit in some database, read only by the security services and bored IT workers but rather will delivered directly to the people you are interacting with for example.
  What is your Klout score?
  Does your face look like someone on the sexual offenders list?
  Do you have any criminal convictions?
  Are your voice patterns correlated with stress and therefore lying?
  What is your relationship status?
  What is your credit rating?
  Map of where you are normally seen.
  

What do you guys think of these concerns? Are they valid? Paranoid? Desperate pleas against the unrelenting tide of progress? Or simply voices of reasoning trying to save us all before it's too late?

Well, I'm just waiting for Google to develop a brain chip at this point.

"Don't Be Evil"

The biggest concern about the information era is the mass breach of privacy. And I'm almost entirely comfortable I'm going to pass on a lot of the coming technology and just stick with what I feel I need.

Think about the future, if IT penetrates all layers of our lives, then almost everything we see can be seen by anyone. It is not a comfortable feeling, and the powers that be will be too powerful.

By the way, these quotes from Portal 2 are starting to sound far more rational.

"Before we start testing today, let's have our mandatory minute of silence in honor of Earth's governing body, the Sentient Cloud. [throat clear] Starting now. [a pause] [coughing] [a longer pause] [more coughing] [still more pausing] Good, right. All ha il the sentient cloud. Begin testing."

"I've just been notified that one of our test subjects may have angered the Sentient Cloud by beginning testing early. Now, as you all know, the cloud has banned all camera technology--hates getting its picture taken. So this'll have to be on the honor system: Will whoever started testing early please go outside so they can be consumed by the Cloud."‎

When something from Portal 2 is seeming slightly plausible, you're in trouble.

'Would you have even considered wearing a hidden spy camera or recording conversations a few years ago?'

You wouldn't mind if I read this top secret document with my beard, would you?

Google has the marketing power to make acting like ‘Creepy Cameraman’ socially acceptable. Would you have even considered wearing a hidden spy camera or recording conversations a few years ago? Well soon everyone will be doing it and finding you odd for objecting.

Have these people even heard of pen cameras? Surveillance devices have been around for years, and people have been wanting them since the first action-movie spy picked one up. The Google Glasses would actually be less secretive than a pen camera, as I could tell what its purpose was just by looking at your face (y'know, the first part of the body that you look at?).

There is no way to know if you are being recorded by someone wearing Google Glass or a similar device. This is in contrast to a smart phone where the user must visibly hold the camera up to take a picture or record video. We must therefore assume that we are being recorded at all times(and possibly publicly broadcast) from a low angle where ones face is clearly visible.

True. There is also no way of knowing if there is someone around the corner eavesdropping on my conversations. The argument about smart phones can be argued against with the previous one (pen cameras).

As for the "recorded at all times" part…


Personal privacy doesn't exist anymore. You should have brought up your arguments last century.

Even if the user is not recording video, audio for their own use it may still be being collected and processed in the cloud in order to display contextual information using image, object, face, voice identification and speech recognition. (so called augmented reality) for example.

You're already being recorded by quite a few "street-side" ad devices. As far as the cloud computing goes, it's nothing new. Amazon has been collecting and processing your habits for years, as has been your cellular carrier, credit companies and search engines (not just Google). As for facial recognition: We've seen in the past few years that humans are better at this than computers. Faces variate too much, and the processing power to simultaneously run a full diagnostic "facial recognition" program for hundreds of people isn't here yet, much less for millions. Augmented Reality is better for static structures, like roadways and businesses, than extremely dynamic ones.

Display the G+ or Facebook profile of the person you are looking at.
Give you reviews of the item you are looking at in a shop.
Give Google debugging or image recognition training information.

Examine face.
Facial construction complete.
Look for similarities.
Found. There are twelve thousand results.

Yeeaaaahhh.. We're not going to have a problem with this for a little while.

As for reviews of items you're looking at in shops? Uhg! How awful! Who on Earth would want..

That. Oh, well.. carry on then.

Debugging/Training information? I can see someone has never called Tech Support.

Information about you will not just sit in some database, read only by the security services and bored IT workers but rather will delivered directly to the people you are interacting with for example…

If my only interest in someone is sexual/dating, I would probably WANT to know relationship status. Saves world of trouble for everyone later on.

Sex offenders list? Look at previous argument about current inability and variety of facial recognition.

Credit rating? Who the fuck cares?

Map of where I'm normally seen? Wait.. wait.. I know this one..


Criminal convictions? Well, you can find that out with a name. Soo… okay? I guess we should ban the internet altogether.

Am I lying? Or maybe I need to pee? Maybe your comment about single parents just reminded me of how my asshole of a father disappeared? Have my allergies been acting up? Eww, I just saw a bug crawl across that restaurant dining table. Oh, or maybe I'm just nervous and want to make a good impression.

There are so many things that cause vocal stress that it would be impossible to tell what is a lie and what isn't.

Klout score: people care about Klout scores?

It's a paranoia group. Also, their name is stupid. Cyborgs exist just by having prosthetics on a person's body. Having a pacemaker technically makes you a definition-based cyborg by having mechanical parts assisting your biological body. This entire thing is grounds for being crazy, and I'm saddened I wasted my time with it.

I'd quote that post but it's huge.

You seem to be acting that just because we've lost privacy to other things that we shouldn't bother being concerned with Google Glass.

Well, you know what's worse than security dudes watching you out in some public places?

Everyone having this stuff everywhere.

You really shouldn't worry about being watched by corporations or governments, unless you are a spy or something. We are constantly under surveillance, legally I might add, but what is actually looked at is different to what is retrieved. Governments in particular 'pan for gold' so machines will look for buzzwords or certain images rather than having some guy look at each one and scrutinize every moment of everyone's life.
Even i you wan't to be, it would be difficult to go incognito but it has been done. There are types of spies known as 'ghosts' who have no name, no address, no nation basically they're invisible. You could do it but it's no way to live since they must move every day and can't really own anything or have friends.

I'm saying that the bitching isn't targeted in the correct direction. This specifically hits Google Glass, which is only a very tiny part of the personal privacy issue. Most of the arguments were just pathetic, focused over-inflation of a much broader issue. The ones that did have some trickle of truth to them are not Google's fault, it's the fault of online users wanting more information and going to places with less-than-stellar personal privacy standards to get that information.

Everyone having this stuff everywhere.

I can walk down the street and buy a miniature 2″×2″ 720HD video camera that fits inside of my hand for $15. Everyone already has this stuff everywhere.

I don't want my corporations to be watching me and sharing my personal info.

It's MY info.

And I much less want everyone to be able to.

More importantly, do you really want everything you say and do ending up on social media without your consent?
The SJWs will be able to hear your every IRL conversation.
Do you have any idea how annoying that would be?

You can already get disturbing amounts of information about people. This doesn't feel like it's going to invade personal space anymore than it can.

Up to now, the invasion has been with internet stuff, but now it's seeping into IRL. Stuff I say IRL isn't logged, it's not recorded, what I see isn't recorded. This makes an internet problem come into normal life.

I doubt that someone will be able to remotely hack into your glasses.

Seriously, it's not like Google will not implement a feature that disables camera usage when it's unneeded.

And I think this is all just paranoia right now.

They can already hack laptop cams, why not this?

Because the cameras look outwards on the Google Glass, not inwards like normal laptops.
Who would want to put effort into hacking just to watch everything from another person's view?

Sounds like paranoia to me. If you are going to protest against people walking around recording things in public area's then either start protesting every mobile phone in existence or never go outdoors. Why pick on Google Glass specifically? It's just another recording device of many already used to spy on everything you do in the public area and I stress the public area. If it's wrong to record what happens in public, then that protest was needed many, many years ago before we already decided we shouldn't be exposing private things in public.

Maybe if people were taking their Google glasses into my bedroom, then I would have a problem but I'm pretty sure I can ask people to take their glasses off indoors.

I'm more afraid of Google tracking every single thing I download than every single thing I see, there's a real privacy concern for you.

People looking at me and instantly finding my facebook page isn't a real privacy concern. My FB page is designed to be found by random nobodies and you wont get much out of it if you aren't on my friend list. Hell, if you really worry about privacy then you shouldn't be on FB in the first place

Hackers? Well…

If a hacker wants to break into my Google glass to see everything I see then you are going to get a very bored hacker. Have fun watching me mull around buying groceries. Am I going to be wearing Google Glasses when I'm looking at my bank statements? No.

If a hacker wants to break into someone else's Google glass to see everything I see, then good luck finding my personal stalker. Even if you could, he won't stalk me with Google Glass. He doesn't want anyone else getting on his shit.

What about all this stuff…

What is your Klout score?
Does your face look like someone on the sexual offenders list?
Do you have any criminal convictions?
Are your voice patterns correlated with stress and therefore lying?
What is your relationship status?
What is your credit rating?
Map of where you are normally seen.

I'm struggling to find sources stating that Glass can actually do these things. If it can find this info, then it did not supply this information itself. The information would have already been publicly accessible on the web in the first place where Glass can look it up.

I don't feel comfortable with random people being able to find out my power level just like that.

Imagine a scenario in which someone was living in or working in a state or area which has closed itself off from the world, if you could hack into someone's glasses and prevent an agent of your nation having to go into the country. This is just one idea of course but countries are already passing laws to allow this to happen, so yes you can be legally hacked and watched. Might I add that I completely don't agree with these laws, they're perverse and downright creepy.

I for one graciously accept our new Google Overlords. All hail to the Great and powerful Surgay!

Question: How does this effect me on a personal basis?

People will know what your face looks like and all of the stuff you put on Google+!

Something jumped out at me:

Would you have even considered wearing a hidden spy camera or recording conversations a few years ago?

Well see here's the thing.

It's not hidden.

It's right on your goddamn face.

Also, a recorded conversation took down the Romney campaign last year, and Watergate was centered around recorded conversations, so trying to pin the behavior on Glass
is, in my mind, lazy. And if I remember from a demo video, you have to speak aloud to get anything to record, so any spies would be announcing your plan before it happens.

If Google's trying to make this device nefarious in any way, it doesn't seem like they're trying very hard.

And anyway, with social media and advertising the way it is, along with CCTV, wire taps, and other means of government/corporate surveillance, we made the trade-off from freedom to security a long time ago. Google is the last entity I expect to sponsor that – remember along with Wikipedia, they were largely the reason SOPA died last year – and they are one of the few corporations I trust.