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The Globe and Mail has an editorial about the many disadvantages of the upcoming Sidewalk Toronto surveillance project. If one sets aside the repeated conflation of copyright, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets under a single, misleading moniker, the editorial covers how much control over public resources and public spaces is being relinquished to private companies without transparency or accountability, especially in regards to surveillance data collected.
With politicians rushing to show Canada's innovation chops, "smart cities" have emerged as their new frontier. Most consequential of these is a high-profile agreement between Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet. A year ago, Canadians were treated to an announcement involving the leaders of all three levels of government gushing and fawning about an enlightened urban partnership with a foreign company whose business model is built exclusively on the principle of mass surveillance.
The most insightful comments during the public announcement came when Eric Schmidt, Google's former executive chair, said they had realized their long-running dream for "someone to give us a city and put us in charge." He also thanked Canadian taxpayers for paying, creating and transferring the core artificial-intelligence technology he credits for Alphabet's success, making it the world's third most valuable corporation. The Google parent's past and future growth are based on the intellectual property (IP) they own and the data they control.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday October 07 2018, @04:43PM (3 children)
I don't know about Toronto. But I know New York. And I'll tell you, in New York, you want to build something -- if you want it built right -- you're going to be dealing with certain guys. With a certain group of guys. For the concrete, for the everything. Anything big that happens, they're in it. Getting a piece of the action. And a lot of times, the guns do come out. Look at Big Paul Castellano. I knew him. Terrible thing that happened to him!
But, I wouldn't call them strange. I wouldn't say, peculiar. These guys can get very very rough when they have to. But the rest of the time, they're just regular guys. You look at them -- they look like regular guys. You talk to them -- they talk like you or me. See one of them on the street, you wouldn't give him a second thought. They do their business. And they go home to their homes, their families. Like anybody else. They're basically the same as you or me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @07:20PM (2 children)
Big Paul Castellano [wikipedia.org]:
Then you said:
They are quite UNLIKE me or anyone I know.
That you think they are basically the same as YOU, says a lot about YOUR character!
You could have called the police or the FBI, stood up for what was right, but instead decided to go along with them. Condoning and supporting their activities. SAD!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 07 2018, @07:40PM
I'm sure there are bad people on both sides!
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday October 07 2018, @10:16PM
Please don't feed the trolls.