PHK on Surveillance Which Is Too Cheap to Meter

canopic jug writes:

Developer Poul-Henning Kamp (PHK) has written a brief post in the July issue of Communications of the ACM about the cost of surveillance having become negligible. Furthermore, in many cases that surveillance is actually required either by large governments or by large corporations, thus making it cheaper to go with the flow and track people and their online activities very closely as it becomes more and more expensive for programmers and developers to even try to avoid tracking people and their online activities.

During his keynote address, risk management specialist Dan Geer asked the 2014 Black Hat audience a question: "What if surveillance is too cheap to meter?"

As is the case with electricity from nuclear power, technology has little to do with it: This is a question about economy, specifically the economy of the path of least resistance.

Surveillance is ridiculously cheap for governments. Many have passed laws that obligate the surveillance industry-most notably, the mobile network operators-to share their take "at cost," and we know law enforcement uses it a lot.

So why is so much cheap surveillance available for purchase?

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