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Your Tivo Is Watching You
photozz writes: "Salon is running this story about Tivo and their plans to track user viewing habits for targeted ads. It also explores their stance on the 'hacking' of the Tivo for more memory." According to their CEO Mike Ramsay, "We do that in a non-personal way, protecting everybody's privacy," but the details of the actual data aggregation aren't addressed here. That the data is gathered should come as no surprise to anyone who notes that Tivo features a "learning" program-suggestion feature, but the mechanism and how closely data is linked to the customer is something I wish they would explain in more detail.
Why would I want to *pay for* ads and promotions? I don't want them, and yet I already 'get them for free'; I'll pay a company who gets it, to ensure that I *don't* get ads of any sort.
So; show of hands. Who has already ripped video from their Tivo? From the FAQ, it looks like they're working on this...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
why is it that they have to finds new and creative ways to advertise to you? its freaking rediculous how people make a living by selling our personal information and what we look at.
Bold is mine. This is light years ahead of most privacy policies, and they seem to be upfront about what info they use and what they don't.
Truly anonymous targeted ads are a Good Thing, as long as they are (let's repeat that) truly anonymous. They bring revenue for the company and are perhaps even useful to the consumer. (How much revenue is another thing - he flat-out admits that 80% of people fast-forward the ads.)
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
Don't want to pay that monthly fee and have a home computer with a large hard drive? Buy an ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON card. It does everything TiVo does but completely under your control without lifetime monthly fees.
ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON
If you don't like it, don't use the service. They don't have a right to your private (although anonymous, they say) information anymore than you have a right to TV.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
TiVO is providing its customers with a useful service, and people react whining and throwing a fit just because TiVO's real-world policies don't fit in with certain ultra-libertarian ideals. Look, it's one thing to track information about your personal life. But setting up a targetted advertising scheme based on your TiVO viewing preferences isn't a crime -- hell, TiVO is doing you a favor. They could just throw random commercials on the screen like every other TV network; instead, they're trying to cater to each user individually.
Stop whining and give TiVO the respect they deserve for bringing new life to the dusty old idiot box.
So is your DSS receiver, your cable company, your Internet Service Provider, and "friendly" agents riding around in your neighborhood with everything from mobile wiretapping devices to bugs and microphones to Van Eck phreaking setups. They're monitoring your viewing habits, listening to your phone calls, pulling images off of your monitor, and God knows what else. But it's not Tivo that's doing it, and it's certainly not Tivo that we need to be afraid of. It's the liberals. They're watching us, and people need to know it.
.. if you're scared of Project Echelon or Carnivore, you're being naive, because those projects are positively benign compared to some of the other things the liberals have up their sleeves.
When you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Micheal Reagan, do you think that you're just sitting back and listening to real Americans talk about the current sordid state of affairs in your country? Do you think that agents of the government don't care that you listen to these patriots? They do. I have several acquaintances that work at high levels within the United States "national security" system, and believe me when I tell you that they know who each and every one of us are. Each of us who chooses to listen to Rush instead of Geraldo Rivera is being monitored by the federal government in case we decide to do something un-American, such as speak out against the liberals that run this country (God forbid!)
Liberalism is about two things: first, the enslavement of children and second, the suppression of any and all opinions that run contrary to it. To that end, the government has established a vast network of surveillance devices capable of monitoring us wherever we may be. Think you're safe at the gun range or at church? Think again. They're watching our every move. And let me tell you, friends
Look. We don't have to worry about Tivo or other corporations "watching us." They are, after all, not government agents. They are corporations in pursuit of wealth creation, and the creation of wealth is among the Godliest things that a person or entity can aspire to do. If a corporation wishes to target entertaining advertisements at us that aid us in our quest to engage in conspicuous consumption (as is every American's duty), then we should be applauding them. That is not the problem. The problem is leftist government agencies monitoring everything we do.
I suggest every Slashdot reader keep aware of these issues by constantly monitoring WorldNet Daily, which is about the only objective source of news left in this country. There is far too much at stake here for us to sit back and remain complacent. Only by rising up against our government will we regain our freedom.
I actually happen to like this idea if it done properly. I own a Tivo, and I find it does a pretty good job of picking shows to record that I might like.. and if I don't I just give it's selection a thumbs down on the remote, and it will gradually get better. So if Tivo the company can use the same intelligence to send me comercials that it uses to record me shows, perhaps I might actually watch them. Everyone seems to forget that advertising is not the devil incarnate. If company X is having 60 gig hard drives on sale for $100, you bet I wouldn't mind if they told me. Too many companies advertise fluff that I have absolutly no interest in that I'm just in the habit of fast forwarding through every commercial by now though, but that could change if they could send me commercials that concern products I am interested in. Of course the one thing that does concern me is that they would link my preferences to my name, but Tivo has said they don't do that numerous times.. of course they might be doing it anyway without telling us, but that kind of info has a way of getting out eventually, and then look out lawsuits. just my 2 cents :)
From a statistics point of view, a single persons viewership profile is insignificant. Nobody would ever look at your stats specifically and say "Wow, this fellow sure likes watching the Playboy Channel". They need to amalgamate the stats from thousands of viewers to get any information that's of use. So it's not like anyone is spying directly on you.
"I can only show you Linux... you're the one who has to read the man pages."
I'd like to see their data on me if I got one of these boxes.
"Let's try and target some commercials for him."
"Yeah what commercials does he watch."
"Um none."
"Alright kick in the subliminals."
My Weblog
Through a few links, found this interesting discussion :
;) Also, I can see the following as a challenge don't you?
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Hacke rs don't upset TiVo--yet
Looks like the discussion started from this site :
The unofficial TiVo Hackers Site
And the fact that the CEO is _okay_ with it is pretty interesting. But what's kinda scary is this quote
"One of the reasons we've created the receiver the way we have is that the disk is sealed into the receiver; you cannot get access to the digital information. So we are somewhat concerned about the ability of people to hack in and get access to the copyrighted material because obviously our partners in the media industry are very concerned about this. "
What! A SEALED disk is what's protecting this information?! Okay, I'm sure this isn't the case (let's hope not!) but still, kind of a funny quote nevertheless
Q: So you're afraid that people will save a bunch of movies, then transfer them from TiVo to their computers and eventually the Net. How possible is this?
A: It's an incredibly difficult task. It's one thing to record what you see onto the TiVo drive, but the format on that drive and how you get access to that drive is totally proprietary to us. It would be very difficult for somebody to actually hack into that. And as far as we know, no one is doing that today.
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From the article:
So you're afraid that people will save a bunch of movies, then transfer them from TiVo to their computers and eventually the Net. How possible is this?
It's an incredibly difficult task. It's one thing to record what you see onto the TiVo drive, but the format on that drive and how you get access to that drive is totally proprietary to us. It would be very difficult for somebody to actually hack into that. And as far as we know, no one is doing that today.
Security through obscurity... Yeah, that'll work. NOT!
Someone must have thought of this before, but how easy would it be to make one yourself? A capture card, a large hard disk, a cheap processor... Sure, it'd cost more than US$399, but then you'd be calling the shots. That's gotta be worth it.
Has anyone done anything on this?
To tell you the absolute truth, I cant see how TIVO knowing what I watch, even if its tied to me by mention of my name or whatnot, can effect me in any way. I mean, on the net, I want privacy from corporations and individuals because its more personal information at stake (credit card information, visiting 'questionable' sites :). But when I'm watching TV, I WANT Them to know I skip over the sh*itty shows and watch others. Then I will be effecting what they play, and will, in a very small way, effect what they play.
I know a lot of you are saying that this will enable targeted advertisments, Good! at least I wont have to sit through tampon comercials!. And I can always walk out of the room for a snack, its not like targeted ads are more evil then non-targeted ads. and they will probably be limited to a banner anyway since tivo is a bit limited in video capabilities.
And the last argument to tracking what people watch that people often make, that it reveals something about that person to the mega-corporation-super-consperacy. They know that you watch SURVIVOR!! OOOH.
my point is there isn't too much incriminating content on TV, unlike the Internet. Because its so filtered and such a massive media, the only thing they will learn is that you watched the same thing as 500,000 other people that night.
To that, I say big deal. Privacy as an issue matters on the Internet, but I personally don't think it has much bearing on television viewing habits.
As long as they're not tracking me using my personal information and rather doing something like "Tivo #38741 likes the Simpsons and the X-Files, show him some Simpsons ads." I don't care. I'm actually all for it. Maybe that way I'll see ads I care about rather than ads for the fucking Backstreet Boys and their deal with Burger King.
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We chose early on to make it possible to fast-forward through ads but not to completely skip them. Replay, on the other hand, decided to do a 30-second skip. That created a line in the sand, and we were on the side that has allowed us to have a much better relationship with the networks.
OK, they are playing nice with the studios... rather smart, actually...
We're able to do ad substitution, and some of our advertisers, especially car manufacturers, are interested in this.
Holy !@#! They're going to eat you alive and make you walk funny.... Tivo is going down...
So we are somewhat concerned about the ability of people to hack in and get access to the copyrighted material because obviously our partners in the media industry are very concerned about this.
So they're worried about Tivster. And well they should be. 3 things I need: >10Mb Internet connection, 100Mb Ethernet in my house LAN to the Tivo box, and the warez to play the philes (which you've dropped in my Tivo Linux box, how 'bout that.) Then, we will 0wn you. Write a napster/gnutella gateway through my home *nix box to the files on the Tivo to share with the world? No prob.
Should be fun to see what happens.
If you don't want to share any information, it's simple: UNPLUG FROM THE NET. Obsessing about data sharing, especially when it's used for targeted and personalized content, is so 1995.
This compares with the :cue:cat. Both are the product of marketing genius.
Manufacturers would pay good money to find out who, buying their products, also bought other products so they could target them better.
I'm sure we all knew at some point it would come to this .. all in the name of convenience ..
TiVo is a more difficult issue, but the :cue:cat issue would be easily solved by creating an open database -- something like FreeDB, of the free CDDB project did.
just a suggestion
of course the other option is to sample the shows you think you might like instead of some tv appliance telling you that you might like that show .. *shrug* :)
Speculation has been that the primary purpose of this is to keep people from buying cheap TiVo units ($99 for a 14hour unit with rebates) and stripping them for parts.
The work-around to the locked drive involves moving the IDE connection from the TiVo to the PC with the drive powered up. Not for the faint of heart.
As to extracting the MPEG data, it's actively being worked on. To actually be useful, first we need some interface faster than the 115Kbps non-flow-control serial port on the TiVo.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
From the article:
I find the exact opposite to be true - I watch about 90% less television with my TiVo than before. I think there are two reasons for this:
1. I only watch what I've told TiVo to record for me, which amounts to about 3 hours per week. Right now, since everything is in reruns, TiVo's just storing up a bunch of stuff I'll probably never look at; the TV's not been on since last Tuesday or so. Since I don't spend time channel-surfing, I watch almost no TV at all now.
2. When I zip through commercials, I don't stop for anything - no ads at all if I can help it. This includes ads for the upcoming NEW SHOWS!!! Since I don't get seduced by the new shows, and I'm not really interested in watching more just to become a "better" source of demographic information (a privilege for which I pay, no less!) my viewing habits remain, at best, flat. They're losing money on me, and there's fuck-all they can do about it. That makes me very happy.
The moment that TiVo-inserted ads become non-skippable, or I start getting targeted-phone calls, or targeted-junk mail, or (yikes, they HAVE my email address) spam, they'll be getting the box back.
Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...
It'd be best if you could put a NIC in the Tivo, of course...
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Apparently, according to a CNBC interview with the CEO(?) of Tivo, the little box doesn't actually send out this information to the big corporate mainframe - it doesn't even send it out at all -- it just customizes the incoming tv signals and tries to figure out what you'll like. So the only privacy issue is "Do I want the box to know what I watch?" - and most of the time, the box won't laugh at you for watching Buffy. - The aforementioned CNBC interview was thursday? I'm sure any interested party can request a transcript - even have someone figure out exactly what day/show the interview took place on! KB
No. One of the reasons is the sheer volume of GPL'd software currently available that imposes no such restriction, which would make anything released under your modified GPL much less attractive.
bash is GPL'd and the source code is freely available, but I don't know C well enough to make any useful modifications. Maybe bash should come with C tutorials so I can learn how to modify it.
No, bash can be modified by anyone who knows what they're doing, and so can the TiVo. If you can't figure out how to modify the kernel that they gave you the source for, that's your own problem, not theirs. It certainly can be done.
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
HANDYHBT.... bravo!
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day #1 :
.sig --
Daughter watches smurfs.
Dad watches porn.
day #3 :
Dad sees "My Little Pony" commercials.
Daugher sees "I'm So Horny" commercials.
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Sounds like you can decide whether or not to participate.
Look, if you buy a Tivo, expect your viewing habits to be sold. Expect your personal data to be tied to them. The kind of highly-granular, personally-identifiable viewing data (down to what commercials are fast-forwarded) Tivo can collect is worth a hell of a lot more than the $10/month.
Of course, they'll generously guard your privacy now while building their installed-base (especially among tech-savvy, privacy-conscious early adopters), but once its popularity blooms beyond that market into the millions, expect an about face.
You may wail and moan and cancel your service at that point, but you'll never get the data you already gave them out of their systems, where it will be bought and sold and subpoenaed.
You will have no recourse.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Aren't they always?
(Made fun of by a gay man with lesbian friends, some of whom work in inner city schools where the day-to-day language isn't BBC English and many of the folks are Islamic...)
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
You're completely wrong, check a dictionary for the meaning of thief, it says when you deprive the original owner of something.
Copying IP is *never* theft.
He posited a very Net-centric society with most everyone running very heavy filters to extract the data that interested them. Gerrold was obviously worried about this; the protagonist wrote a virus that would simply mess with people's filters a little. It would start letting in a worldview that they wouldn't ordinarily subscribe to. It was designed to shake them up a little without being overtly destructive. It helped keep people from going completely insular and stale.
I can see a couple of strong parallels here, and I don't think this has crossed very many people's minds. We already know about the obvious abuses: if they really knew what people watched, it would be fairly easy to determine a good chunk of the potentially-rebellious population simply by accessing their viewing records. Folks who watch a lot of TV Nation and Discovery Channel are not likely to be nearly as malleable as the Millionaire crowd.
Right, you knew that. But I think there's a more subtle danger here. In essence, by targeting you with personalized ads and, presumably, actual programs, aren't they able to manipulate your worldview to an astonishing degree? Wouldn't they be able to sort of bury you into a feedback loop? IE, if you are paranoid, feed you programs to fuel your paranoia and extract more money from you for bomb shelter supplies?
I don't think this is possible, I think this is INEVITABLE. They're going to do whatever they can to extract as much money from you as possible. Telling you the truth is not on the agenda. If lying to you extracts more cash from you, that is the right thing to do from the perspective of the stockholders.
Personally, I do NOT NOT NOT like the fact that ANYONE can control what I see but me. I'm unwilling to surrender that much of my choice. Admittedly there is already a great deal of manipulation going on in the media (if you don't think so, go read some foreign newspapers -- you'll be AMAZED at what you don't hear about here.) But TiVO is going from the subtle and indirect to the obvious and blatant.
I worry, as did Gerrold, about the feedback loops in self-referential reinforcing programs and behavior. That way leads to madness -- literally. As a culture we are already nuts, bonkers, crazy as loons. Individual people I know are almost always quite sane and reasonable, but in a group we believe in Life as Seen On Television, generally don't question what's on the tube. We cherish and embrace simulated homicide as light entertainment before dinner, and pay no attention whatsoever to state-sanctioned executions or the fact that we have a higher percentage of our population in prison than any other First World country.
We're already nutty as fruitcakes, as a group. What are we going to do when they can control what we see directly? Do we go mad one by one instead?
To me, yes it is a suprise. I've had a TiVo since christmas time. The one characteristic that makes TiVo better than any other gadget I've owned is it's innovativeness. Not many peope thought of the digital VCR, but not only a digital VCR, one that is so perfectly geared towards the average consumer. I love the interface on it, since it is so easy, yet has so many features. There are few companies that I trust, and I trust the creators of TiVo. Most people don't see this a big deal, but I didn't expect this from the people behind TiVo.
When I read this article 24 hours ago, I got very nervous by the headline that seemed to claim targeted advertising based on your watching habits. However, after reading the article, I could find nothing to support such claims, but instead sensed some key TiVo features are being taken out of context.
:)
While the TiVo can and probably does monitor what you watch, claim I've seen is that this data is aggregated and never used on the individual level, nor sold to third parties. I personally see no problem in calculating an in-house version of the Nielson Ratings. In fact, I encourage it.
The 'targeted ads' bit is more than likely a reference to the TiVoMatic function, also known as TiVo Takes. This is used on a handful of networks right now as a way of scheduling programming on a 'See it. Want it. Get it.' basis. Basically, it's a hyperlinked embedded in an ad to let you schedule the program in the ad for later viewing. I personally want to see more of this, so ads have some use to me and so I don't have to click away from live tv in order to schedule a program.
Finally, for those concerned about the Suggestions being used by TiVo, you can put your black helicopter theories back in the Paranoia Bin. The processing for preferences is done on the box itself, as has been proven by hackers that can make the listing re-gen on demand. It would seem an awful waste to have these centrally processed anyway, since the CPU on a TiVO is mostly idle.
One of Tivo's best features is it's autorecording of shows you might like that you might not have thought of.
To honestly allow the mp3-sharing servers to expand our listening, how about song recommendations based on "people who have this song often also have this other song". To go further towards Tivo, how about letting me set aside a gig for Gnutella to d/l songs to that it thinks I might like?
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You see, the nagative implications outweigh the positive ones. Yes, there are positive advantages to targeted adverts, like showing you something you might actually be interested in instead of something you're almost surely not.
However, what we rail against is the potential for abuse. To generate targeted ads, there must be a database of your preferences. This information about you could be used against you, to harm your character or reputation, or as evidence against you in a criminal proceeding.
For example, tracking information indicating that you frequent gay/lesbian/bisexual sites could be used to unwillingly "out" you, and even to destroy your career. One of the most notable cases is that of Tim McVeigh--not the bomber, though they share names--who was outed to the military by one of AOL's "guides" who handed over information about McVeigh's interest in gay chatrooms.
Also, databases of consumer buying patterns have already been used against people in criminal cases. The example which comes to mind immediately is that of a small-town marijuana dealer unfortunate enough to use a store discount card at the supermarket--police subpoenad his shopping records, to ascertain whether he bought an unusually large number of plastic baggies or other "drug paraphernalia." Let's not forget that, while he was a criminal, the legalization of marijuana is favored by an extraordinarily large percentage of Americans, and that the potential for such databases to be exploited in investigations goes far beyond this.
Do you want your TiVo records to indicate that you watch a lot of softcore Cinemax porn when you're falsely accused of rape? Believe it or not, conservative juries can look down on even softcore legal stuff, and some judges will let it in. Or, what if you watch a lot of The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon and you're falsely accused of child molestation? Such "evidence" would *definitely* be used against you since a psychiatrist would be called to testify as to how well you fit the profile of a pedophile--watching excessive amounts of kids' shows is common pedophiliac behaviour.
Even worse, corporations have total control over this data--they can merge it into vast databases, covering every aspect of your life. That's what several corporations are aiming to do. What if this data is made available to other corporations for a small fee? Well, then a prospective employer could do a background check which includes your TV viewing habits and shopping habits, and screen you out because you watch too much Cinemax porn or too many mindless sitcoms, or because you buy too many OTC medicines and must be a health risk. Right now, privacy policies aren't really legally binding and can be changed without notice, so all this information could be merged into a seamless database without any legal recourse to stop it.
It's quite clear that the benefits of seeing ads I might be more inclined to click through are far surpassed by the risks. It's all in the name of making human beings into blathering, mindless consumers instead of citizens anyway--do I really care what ads they throw at me? Fuck no, I ignore them, like a good *individual* should. The less I give to corporations or support their domination of every media outlet, the better.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Yes sir, if I were working on an Embedded set-top box, with say, network connectivity and all sorts of spiffy features and a hard drive and... oh... wait...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's suprising how strong the protections are. A specific court order is required to disclose video rental data. A search warrant isn't sufficient; the renter has to have the opportunity to contest the request before the info is disclosed to law enforcement. This is much stronger than the requirements for phone records, and stronger even than the requirements for wiretaps.
Why is it so strong? It's called the "Bork Bill", because it was enacted after somebody got the video rental records of Judge Robert Bork (the Republican moralist and author of "Slouching to Gomorrah") and revealed that he has some unusual video watching interests.
Whether what Tvio does involves is covered is a nice legal question. The original law is narrow, but one can argue by analogy that a new technology performing a comparable function is covered.
You are depriving the original owner of their _time_. They put the time in, knowing that they would be compensated for it, because that's what the law says.
You are then changing this implicit contract they had and stealing that time they spent.
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My Journal
TiVo has stated in the past that they do not send your thumbs-up/thumbs-down ratings back to their servers. It's just a preference algorithm that picks shows you may like. Both the suggestions and the method for determining them stay on the box (as I understand it).
TiVo does collect information regarding shows recorded, commercials fast-forwarded through, etc. but only at the aggregate level. They don't use anything lower than the zip code level.
I don't have a problem with this. It's the best money I've ever spent. I'd sooner give up the rest of my home theater components. Um, except the TV. I kinda need that with the TiVo.
What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?
You'll find hundreds WND stories on Y2K and every single one of them utterly alarmist.
WND also ran banner ads on many of these stories, offering sets of videotapes on y2k preparation - including some really survivalist nonsense - for hundreds of dollars. The videotapes and other survivalist nonsense were produced by... you guessed it, WND.
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Would it be reasonable to make an optional extention to the GPL requiring all devices running Linux (or any other GPL'd software) to include instructions on how to extract and modify the source?
It's so much easier to go to the TiVo website and download the code.
If you don't care about voiding your warranty, the instructions on how to remove the hard drive, mount it in another PC and modify the system are available.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
As a Tivo user, I've read the tivo section of the avs forum linked to from the tivo web site. This has come up, and after learning about how these targeted ads will work, I am confident that my privacy isn't being intruded upon.
First, what's probably going to happen is the Tivo service is going to reserve space on the tivo for these targeted ads. They are doing this in new models already. Second, Tivo doesn't upload personal info with you viewing habits. All they know is what was watched, not who watches it (yes, it would be easy to link it, but thier privacy policy, and representatives guarantee that they will not link said data if you don't let them, and you can even opt out of the aggregate info upload. Third, all information on what YOU watch on Tivo is stored locally. Not on a server. If the unit crashes, they can't help you. You get a new Tivo and start setting up recordings, giving thumbs up/down on shows like you did when you first got it.
So, I gather from what I DO know about Tivo, that what will happen is that the locally stored data will be used to record ads that match your viewing habits into the reserved space mentioned above. How you will be presented with these ads, I don't know, but the point is that all of the decisions on what you see are determined locally. Tivo doesn't know what Joe Tivo User watches. They do know that X people what dramas, Y people what sci-fi, and Z people watch both. That kind of data they know.
So I'm not concerned about Tivo specifically. But just wait until other companies get into the game. Microsoft is targeting the PVR market; how do you think they'll handle your privacy?
The thing is hackable, you know. It runs Linux. If you're worried about what it's sending back, did it occur to nobody to just look?
Three files are uploaded to TiVo daily: tivoLog.pub, tivoLog.prv, and a log for 'myworld', the program that runs the machine.
tivoLog.pub appears to contain info on internal errors that have occured, but is usually empty.
tivoLog.prv is the issue here, it contains a log of every program watched and every button pressed on the remote.
Now, looking at the dialup scripts (Yes! It's all scripted!) You can see how it RANDOMIZES the name of the file before uploading it. No identifying information at all is in the file itself, the serial number isn't there. The serial number is used as the filename for upload, after being randomized. It appears possible for TiVo to change a setting and have the serial as the file name not randomized, but this is not set. It seems to be for debug purposes.
Sheesh.
Now the kicker: why shouldn't they have this info? It says it's taken in the manual. It says so on the site. Call up customer service and ask, they won't deny that they get it. One thing they do claim is that it's totally anonymous (true) and if you still don't want it, you can tell them to turn it off and it's done (also true, there's a setting in the box for it).
One final word (to correct a bad assumption): The TiVo Suggestions are computed entirely on your personal TiVo. No TiVo servers are used to compile this info, none of your thumbs ratings for shows are sent back to TiVo for this purpose. It's all local.
From now, before you bash something, learn what's really happening. It's fine to argue in the abstract, but a computer is not abstract, it's a real physical device. It's simpler to actually hack the thing and find the real story.
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- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
They were using a video camera, zoomed up to his hands. That was why it failed when someone walked in the way, and why the conversation went: "It looks like he pressed "L".... "L" isn't even on that side of the keyboard!"
However, kudos for a Sneakers reference!! I wish they made more caper movies like that.
Rader
TiVo should know better than this.
The fact is, any proprietary data format can and will be hacked, regardless of whether or not TiVo moves to stop it. My guess: it'll be cracked inside of two years, probably more like one. Is that good? Not particularly. But the situation is what it is.
If you want to stop copying, you use encryption. Strong encryption, not the puny stuff MPAA used in DVD players (and even that wasn't as bad as most geeks make it out to be; the only reason CSS was hacked in the first place was because Xing left its key out in a non-secure spot, which the hackers then found). Hardware-based encryption chips can be made quite cheaply (and alleviate speed issues), and it doesn't take much to burn the key into a secured ROM. Even better, use battery-backed RAM so the contents of the chip are lost if it's removed (i.e. for analysis). The batteries on SRAM can last for ages (I have examples upwards of eight years old with the original batteries still in place and chugging away) so the chances of the batteries running out in an active unit are basically nil, and you provide some way of restoring the key at the factory just in case of an accident (if the user has to send the unit in, then it can also be checked for signs of tampering).
Once your encryption is in place, all you have to do is use standard MPEG-2, and you're all set to go (hardware MPEG-2 en/decoders aren't that expensive either). You have data that can be made as safe as you want it (to protect against media lawsuits), and you still save a ton in research and development (since you don't have to develop a proprietary format and the hardware/software to run it).
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Now the crucial things to understand here are two. One, yes, that is well established fair use. Two, NO, it would not be legal under the DMCA. The DMCA attempts to circumvent fair use rights, by making it not the use which is illegal, but the act of bypassing any technological roadblock that's been thrown up to prevent the exercise of fair use rights. This is a direct result of the fact that rights belong to the general public, which is statistically ignorant and apathetic, while the privileges the DMCA seeks to exalt over our rights are cash cows for corporations with deep pockets and plenty of public officials already bought.
Do you think this is an outrage? Do you want to do something about it?
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
That URL above is where slashdot posted that Tivo okayed hacking of there systems. We already new that. So they are tracking what you view. Slashdot is tracking all your comments, as well as your preferences. I mean don't you think that slashdot knows more about you then Tivo does? Does anyone else wonder if slashdot is targeting ads at them?
On a less parynoid note. This is not really anything new. Web site are doing this all over the place. Any data that they can get about you to figure out what you may or may not buy is used. Doubleclick does this just read there privacy statement. What is Tivo's privacy statement? Do they even have one? Maybe that is the question that you should be asking your self.
Personally, I think it would be better to just put a UPS on your VCR and go about things that way. Then you don't have these concerns, you don't get programs that you probably don't want. And guess what, it works!
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
As I recall, the only thing "unusual" about Bork's viewing habits is that he has a penchant for Golden Age song-and-dance numbers--a lot of Sinatra and Astaire movies.
Saying that Bork has "unusual video watching interests" does nothing but slander a man's name. While intelligent people often disagree with Bork's politics, I would hope that we're all mature enough to shy away from slander.
The initial setup call the TiVo makes dials a toll-free number, from there it downloads a list of your local numbers based on the zip code you enter as part of the setup.
I'm not suggesting that TiVo is using the information available from your call to the toll-free line, but it is available to them.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.