Slashdot Mirror
Corporate Fallout Detector
BandwidthHog writes "MIT student shows off Corporate Fallout Detector. Acts and looks kinda like a Geiger counter, but it's a UPC scanner with an internal, updateable database of corporate misdeeds, with both Pollution and Corporate Ethics modes. I want one."
here is a mirror of the movie
So... I scan a product. :: beep beep ::
And I get free, instant, corporation level blackmail?
Sweet.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
While this kid makes a funny point, one thing that's missing is the fact that a UPC barcode only links to the manufacturer or wholesale distributor of the finished good. Taking the trail back into the supply chain to contract manufacturers and raw materials suppliers would probably yield more enviro-nastiness than you'd find in consumer-oriented companies.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
It's a good thing that Enron and Worldcom products can't be barcoded, because the thing would explode if it scanned any of those...
The guy in that video was handling that Diet Coke bottle and that 3M spray can without any sort of protection at all, and those readings were through the roof!
I give him two to four hours, tops. Oh, what a brave sacrifice for research. I hope his suffering isn't prolonged needlessly.
Has anyone seen OpenGov MIT Project ? What is it with all this uncovering business, can't the creatures at MIT leave our act of a society alone?
So, what happens if you scan one of these detectors with another detector?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Supposedly so important that they only need be known by their initials. So do they have a monopoly on math and science? Or can any other school (or individual person) develop a sufficient weapon to wipe this "MIT" off the map?
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Does really seem to show much, but the original site /.'d...
google cache
<article text>
Corporate Fallout Detector
The Corporate Fallout Detector reads barcodes off of consumer products, and makes a noise similar to a gieger counter of varying intensity based on the social or environmental record of the company that produces the product.
I came up with the numbers by correlating several online bardcode databases with a pollution database and a corporate ethics database. Of course the data produced by this approach is subjective and inaccurate at times, but that's part of why I built it: It's difficult for consumers trace corporate actions through the maze of corporate ownership, and find who is really responsible. This helps create an environment where consumers have difficulty making informed purchasing decisions.... without the use of "special tools"...
The case is made from a discarded steel computer case, cut on a waterjet cutter and bent with a metal brake. Inside is a SaJe microcontroller and a Wasp barcode scanner.
Click on the thumbnails at left for larger images.
</article text>
After looking at this and all other articles pertaining to MIT generating massive amounts of ingenuity and vigilant social intelligence such as this bizarre device, my question is: how many more years will pass until MIT's home-grown nerd-mercenaries release their top-secret 9 Android Devils of Cambridge on the earth, therein enslaving man in a gruesome and enlightening web of technology, power and fashion emergencies?
If I could make this sig kill you, I would.
Well, you could subscribe to different groups, have different 'bands' on it...
'Well, it looks ok on the Amnesty International band, but check out the reading on Greenpeace!'
It tells you what product you have in your hands. All you have to do is the requisit research into the product. So if I scan an XBox the thing could figure the fallout from Microsoft and flextronics and any other companies who's products are inside. If I scan a copy of Windows XP, it would give me just the fallout from MS.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Thats great. Another MIT dweeb attempts to take the moral high ground. Meanwhile MIT sit on an entire Class A address block, as entire countries are forced to switch to IPv6. Got a scanner for that fallout?
I can't remember where it was -- might have been an interview -- but he envisioned something like a UPC scanner for your Palm Pilot. You'd point it at stuff in the grocery store and get a short summary of the good and bad about it. He said something like, "How would it affect people's buying habits if it said 'sure, these peas are 60 cents cheaper, but they'll give your kids liver cancer'?"
Carousel is a lie!
I built a corporate fallout detector, scanned a copy of SCO OpenServer, and the damned detector blew up!
I bet it would beep and buzz at nearly every single product out there. Someone, somewhere, considers just about any product you can name un-ethical, and they are PISSED about it.
Any company that uses meat of any kind would be on PETAs list, all energy companies would be on the list, any company that uses plastics would be on the list (evil petroleum used to make plastics, you know), and the lists go on and on.
The data is "somewhat inaccurate" *BUT* you want people to use it as the do-all end-all of consumer evaluation? Heh. Fat chance. Who guarantees the database is not full of this guy's issues with the companies that set the sensor off? (New coke was a *good* idea... how could you drop it? Let's see how you like being corporate depleted uranium!). I really dislike this "dumbing down" of the consumer... people trusting the device could be tricked into believing bad things of good companies and vice-versa.
Some product of the wrong company will give a high reading, and then this guy will be in a lot of trouble. He's going to get sued so hard his ancestors will be liable for damages!
This is an excellent question. But it's not an impossible problem. The question of who to trust when there is no central authority is pervasive and addressed in any number of interesting ways. A few:
The /. moderation system.
Various "seals of approval" from organizations (For example, kosher food is certified by a wide range of organizations. Not all organizations are accepted by all consumers of kosher food.) Another example would be AAA ratings, travel guides, etc.
his sounds like typical "if I don't like it, it must be immoral and capitalistic" leftwing grad school nonsense.
Are you saying that there's no such thing as morality, or that corporations never do anything immoral? Labeling something and arguing for or against it are different things.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
"MIT student shows off Imminent Slashdoting Detector. Acts and looks kinda like a Geiger counter, but it's a packet shaper with an internal, updateable database of slashdot users, with both Geek and Troll modes. He needs one."
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
I'm going to set this right next to the key to my electric car, my organically grown bean sprouts and my copy of Gore's "Earth in the balance." It should round out my "Liberal with too much time on his/her hands" tool kit nicely.
The article states that the instrument's response is based on a pollution database, http://www.scorecard.org/ and a corporate ethics database http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/research/corporate_ researcher.html
I think it's more of a (witty, IMO) satirical stunt item than anything that the guy thinks would actually be useful.
The article is /.ed but a google search implies that the ethics component is just simple number scale. So what if my ethics are different than the guy coming up with the scale?
For example I like companies that make health care products, like new drugs. They generally help us live longer for less money than surgery or other proceedures. But Christian Scientists have a different view. And people who think we should test products on humans instead of animals might also object some but not all of those products.
What if an entertainment company owns a casino? What if that casino is only 5% of revenues, is that enough to make them "bad"? What if they also make r-rated movies?
Muslims wouldn't consider a company ethical if it had outstanding bonds. But I think issuing debt is often good fiscal management.
And paying foriegn workers seems to be an issue that divides a lot of people ethically.
I guess my point is that abstracting to a simple number yields no useful information. This just sounds like a term engineering project that got too much hype.
This need to be designed using stealth technology. Stores can and do restrict behavior on their premises (it's private property). They won't allow behavior that they believe is not in their best interests. So if you are going to design products for today's brave new world, you are going to have to avoid unwarranted assumptions like free speech, individual rights, etc...
Adbusters is working on a design for an opensource version of this. It appeared in the previous issue & they've gotten some feedback.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Ths is a STUPID idea as far as summarizing the result as a single-magnitude noise from a "geiger counter." Companies are large and complex--there aren't just "bad ones" and "good ones." there are interrelationships, hidden subsidiaries, and every manner of nonsense. put another way--remember that stuff about the brent spar oil platform that was sunk? it turns out that royal dutch shell was actually right and the (largely german) "environmentalists" didn't understand the science or engineering.
the point is that under the current 'geiger counter', you'd get, say, one loud crack for royal dutch shell. under a more nuanced system, which is what is required, you'd have some way of making your own judgement based on your own values and understandings rather than somebody elses. no, it wouldn't be perfect, but it would be a hell of a lot better than the current cartoon idea.
(incidentally, would nike get a big "crack?" as well? because nike's labor practices are seen as either laudable or despicable, depending on who you talk to).
Would it measure ego in ESRs, RMSs, SCOs, or Perens?
What's the conversion rate between those units anyway?
It seems the google cache is slashdotted, here is a google cache of google.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
A coworker and I were just talking about this sort of concept not a few days ago. I brought up the fact that the founder of Domino's Pizza (as opposed to the Domino's corporation itself, which is not true), has made significant contributions to Operation Rescue, which is pretty hard-line against reproductive and gay rights.
He mentioned "what if there was a tool..." basically exactly like this -- scan a barcode, and find out if purchasing that item could potentially result in money moving to organizations that you don't support.
Even if it's a small concept, I honestly wish such a device went further, even if only as a demonstration piece -- take it into someone's kitchen and see what social issues are represented by the food in their pantry.
As long as the code is open, one could set his or her own parameters (In this case, reals from 0 to 1).
.05. .85 .4.
* Don't care much about animal cruelty: set the parameter to
* Concerned about consumption of foreign oil: set the parameter to
* Somewhat worried about obnoxiously high (CEO salary)/(average employee salary): set the parameter to
Bring in the databases that you trust, and weigh them accordingly. Exclude information provided by folks you don't believe. Whatever. Each person could configure his or her own rating system, in an attempt to model his or her own levels of "anti-goodness".
Don't poo-poo the idea. Embrace it, and it's configurability.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Impossible. That would suggest that /. members were trying to read an article before posting a well-informed comment.
Surely not... (looks out of windows to check for low-flying pork)
You can't take a ratio of infinities.
You might mean the CueHack, a program for those free :CueCats we bummed off RadioShack. CueJack was previously reported on Slashdot a coupla years ago.
The gave it up while I was there because "it was the right thing to do." Seriously, a university doesn't really need that right now. IBM on the other hand...
Lasers Controlled Games!
Which, interpreted, means: "I want someone else to tell me who to like/dislike."
Q: Why does the web-phone NOT tell you the nearest restraunt to your current location?
A: Because only certain restraunts have PAID the phone company to be available that way.
In other words, if you let someone else compile a database and then use it to make decisions, you give them the power to adjust that database in accordance with THEIR AGENDA. If you know and support the specific group and their ideals, that can be a good thing. But if you don't know how many groups are involved? How did they make their decisions? How was it keyed in? What are all their agendas?
This kind of thing comes under the heading of believing everything you hear/read/download...
It was a typically British birth... I was three at the time... They had a strike in the maternity ward... I came out in sympathy.
I was destined to be an actor. The day I was born I stood up and took a bow. Really. When the doctor slapped me, I thought it was applause!
Bobe Hope - 1903-2003
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
A simple program that I used to toy around with as a kid was called "Animal" - it asked you a series of questions to figure out what kind of animal you were thinking of. If it got it wrong you'd add one more question to specifiy the animal you were thinking of... perhaps you could do something simialr to program what a person thoguht of ethics:
...
EthicBuilder> Do you care if animals are hurt?
N
EthicBuilder> Even if they are little bunnies?
N
EthicBuilder> Oh really, here are some pictures. How about now?
OK FINE YOU WIN I CARE ABOUT CUTE LITTLE BUNNIES
EthicBuilder> Great, now how about cows?
EthicBuilder> Database complete, downloaded to scanner
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Of course, I will be modded down as flamebait, but it bears noting that not everyone around here is on the Liberal side of the aisle. Some of us who care about Corporate responsibility want to see these concerns addressed across the board, not just in support of liberal causes.
Or a database of music reviews for when shopping for CDs. Or movie reviews for DVDs. Or recipes for grocery shopping ("what the heck can I do with tamarinds?")
Left-wing, hand-wringing hysteria in a can. Plus it saves the users the terrible bother of making up their own minds.
Do they get more beeps for Nabisco enslaving elves and converting them to E.L. Fudge cookies, or extra beeps for being owned by RJ Reynolds/Phillip Morris cancer stick makers who also own the Kraft Macaroni & Cheese company my kids love so much? Having a Morse Code type interface is also pretty stupid.
Doesn't matter I suppose. It's not like I could stop buying Oreos.
Do some homework. The P.T. Nikomas Gemilang factory in Indonesia, which makes a large portion of Nike's shoes, pays its workers well below the poverty line for that country. Workers at that factory have to leave their homes and live alone in low-rent housing because they can hardly afford to feed themselves, let alone take care of a family. In this case Nike's practices are despicable in the context of the local economy.
The first response I hear to a statement like this is: "Should Nike just pull out then, and leave all those people unemployed and starving?" No, of course not. But that doesn't mean i like to see a wealthy american corporation exploiting the poorest of the poor. I will vote with my dollars by not buying their shoes, spread the word, and hope that other moral people can overcome the ocean of advertising in front of them and do the same.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
I've always found the phrase 'respect their beliefs' to be interesting. Most folks interpret this as 'accept the belief', at least if you are talking about that person's morals.
:)
I reject this concept, but do believe in respecting others' _rights_ to have different beliefs. I may feel that your faith (for example) is bunk, but I don't think you are bad/wrong/necessarily foolish to have it.
I lost a long time girlfriend over this... her particular branch of religion didn't accept marriages w/non believers, so I was out. Most of my friends said 'Man, [her belief] is wrong, tell her so and you'll get her back'.
Now, I believe that she is incorrect. But I have no particularly good evidence for a better view, so I could not say that. I find it funny how most religious folks don't object to attacking a given faith, so long as it is not their own.
Some time later I did tell her how I felt, and that I was sorry to lose her over what is to me a mythology. But I was proud of her for standing by her beliefs. sigh
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
my best friend's a catholic and being an atheist, I don't have a lot of respect for her religion, but if someone were to mess with her about it, I'd be right there to back her up. I have no respect the actual content of what she believes in, but I whole-heartedly respect her beliefs, simply because they are hers.
The World's Worst Webcomic!