Hacker News resurfaces 2013 essay on surveillance risks and 'civic hygiene'
A decade-old article about building technologies resistant to authoritarian misuse gains renewed attention on social platforms.
What to know
- A 2013 essay on surveillance infrastructure and authoritarian risk resurfaces on Hacker News, gaining significant traction 13 years after publication.
- The core argument: even benign data collection systems can be weaponized by future governments with different values and intent.
- The essay invokes Bruce Schneier's concept of 'civic hygiene'—designing technology to resist misuse, not based on trusting current leadership but on preparing for potential future abuse.
- Social media response includes both serious engagement with privacy ethics and sarcastic commentary on government surveillance justifications.
Civic hygiene is a sound principle for technology design—systems must be architected to resist authoritarian misuse regardless of current government trustworthiness.
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“It's bad civic hygiene to build technologies that could someday be used to facilitate a police state.”
Bruce Schneier · Civic Hygiene blog post
Government surveillance arguments for civic purposes (school planning, health services) are disingenuous covers for broader population monitoring.
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“Ah yes, because the government totally needs to know everyone's bedroom preferences for "civic planning" purposes. 😂”
ngate · Mastodon
“Civic hygiene isn't about saying we distrust our current government - it's about not trusting the next government.”
Shra, Essay author · Civic Hygiene blog post
Shra Essay author
Bruce Schneier Security expert
The record 3 articles and posts · last 30 days
- summary covers to here · Aug 19, 1:55 PM · 1 piece above arrived after
What people are saying 24 voices from 2 sites · best of 32 · verbatim
- Aug 20
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Isn't it an age old maxim: democratic governments should remember to not build tools/give them selves powers that they won't want the opposition to be able to use WHEN they come to power.
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In my country there are two parties always being elected. Quite similar to US system. It's always first saying "elect us, otherwise second will win" and the second saying the opposite.Asymptotically those parties go the same way, but always introducing new laws that improve oppression-style control, explaining that those others must be controlled…
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Civic Hygiene – Terence Eden’s Blog https:// shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/11/civic -hygiene/ Gerade mit der ganzen # Flock Geschichte und Chatkontrole braucht es # Sozialhygiene . # Datenschutz wird oft als nervig abgetan, aber das Ziel ist und bleibt Nobel.
- Aug 19
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Title was mangled. The actual quote is:> It's bad civic hygiene to build technologies that could someday be used to facilitate a police stateNot “avoid building technologies that could be used by a police state”, as the HN title currently says.The HN title reads like any technology a police state could ever use should be avoided. Like cars, or…
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If your government has elected someone bad its already over. So much effort is put into trying to restrict what the highest point of power may do. But its the highest point of power and if its compromised you've already lost. See trump breaking all the checks and balances. Its better to build what you need and focus on getting good people into…
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Hay un refrán que dice algo así como que no aceptes que el gobierno que has elegido haga algo que no le consentirlas al peor gobierno que te puedas imaginar, y es por esto, si ahora le permites a un gobierno "de izquierdas" que restrinja Internet para "proteger a los niños" (por ej.) cuando la derecha llegue al poder tendrá ahí esa herramienta…
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clearly people have a responsibility to sit down and think long and hard and try to rule out as much as possible the negatives of any tech or ideas they share with other people. Or at least give it a cursory thought or find someone with that mindset to tamp those issues down. Absolutely before even considering a funding step or presentation to…
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Keeping it within game dev, I will say that telemetry and bug report tooling looks really cool. Big fan of it grabbing build info directly from the session that the user was playing. Feeling kinda inspired to build something similar for the studio I work at now.Thanks for sharing!
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I don't think the article is saying don't build a payload-agnostic telemetry engine. The specific examples cited are that it's probably legitimate to have a vehicle registration database (with the caveat that even that could be abused), but not a database of sexual orientations or religious affiliations.
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Do you actually object to countries having standing armies with ranged area weaponry?This isn't what the article is talking about at all. It never says don't build military technology. It says don't build things like a database of who in the country is and isn't gay and what religion everyone practices, for fear a future bigoted administration…
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I'm a tech worker.I'm given a promotion for adding invasive features based on "insights".I'm incentivized to create something patent-able to restrict competition.I'm rewarded for more detailed metrics to reveal more.I'm hired by how many people were affected by my previous work regardless of ethics.There is no reward for protection, privacy, and…
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Yep. Early in my career I developed a simple driver for a CAN interface to be used in a medical device, which was my assigned project.The same code was used in another project of this same company. The project was a missile. It felt weird.
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As a recruiter once said to me, if you don't do the defence work, somebody else will. So you might as well do it and do a better job and get paid well. I didn't go for the job.
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You didn't expect the application you developed called "Skynet" that has an eye of sauron as it's logo to be used by the military? Sorry, I don't believe you.
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>Harder than it looks.But maybe easier than it sounds.All technology can be weaponized. It can also be de-weaponized.One of my favorite late-night thought experiments, is "what would it take to turn an AK47 or an AR15 into a water pump?" .. the possibilities are endless.The only difference between peaceful technology and a weapon is the intention…
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I'm in the UK and it always seems weird to me how in the USA its totally normal to publically register yourself as either a Democrat or a Republican. To me seems like the kind of thing that should be private. In the UK I might choose to be a member of a political party but no-one needs to know that except that particular party. Or I can just join…
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Defaulting to discussing the US here: let's start with reducing the state's size - it shouldn't be the world's largest employer, it shouldn't be able to run an unfathomably large deficit, it shouldn't be able to declare war without congressional approval. Technology to run a police state is just the last step in a long line of ridiculously…
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I think there's a distinction between creating generic info-gathering technology that helps them gather their own data from their own users, and you gathering data that the government can then ask (force) you to hand over.
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I don't think the author is suggesting we shouldn't build useful things. He's saying to the people who built the military system that they shouldn't be doing that.It's the last step that's the problem, not the people who built all the things they stand on. Otherwise we'd be suggesting that no one build a database engine or a digital camera or a…
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I've been arguing with folks on Reddit about this lately when it comes to Google's changes to Android (where they've made it more difficult to install any software on your device without Google first tracking the identity of the developer). My argument ultimately comes down to the fact that Google (and Apple already) have built a technology that…
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The other rule here is that you cannot avoid politics if you want to create a better world. If you want the freedom to develop technology without worrying it will be used by a police state, you need to put in the work to make sure a police state doesn't happen - you cannot ignore politics and just "focus on technology."
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Recently my wife got locked out of her bank account - all cards blocked, unable to log in to the website or app, so effectively her whole finances were frozen - because she was trying to order a new bank card over the phone and some system couldnt do voice recognition (which we did not know they even used). We were getting ready to get on a plane…
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Harder than it looks. Everything is dual use. Certainly didn't expect my game development telemetry[1] system used to improve artillery [2]...[1]
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🔍 Ah yes, because the government totally needs to know everyone's bedroom preferences for "civic planning" purposes. 😂 Spoiler alert: this article seems to worry that your # kinks might just end up dictating school budgets! 🙄 # PrivacyPanic https:// shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/11/civic -hygiene/ # PrivacyConcerns # CivicPlanning # BedroomPreferences…