Guilty By Association

dmf writes "News.com is running a little piece about Microsoft's forays into researching aspects of social computing. With AOL Buddy Lists, Yahoo Messenger, Friendster, and other mappable relationship environments, is it possible the information will soon be used against you? Scenarios such as governments tracking private citizens, investigating terrorist links, political groups finding potential donor lists, marketing departments finding affinity groups, and other easily imagined data mining opportunities could open the doors for information abuse and misinterpretation of individual ties. What implications can it bring in the future of the personal life?"

Comments

Their gender detection code leaked already!!

[va3atc]

#include
#include

void main()
{

if

contacts more then 75 = female;

anything else = male;

}

**any code monkey wish to do this properly it would be more humours :-) **

Re:Their gender detection code leaked already!!

[Bendebecker]

#include <Slashdot.h>

char* gender;

char* main(){
if (SlashDot->contactsNumber >= 75)
gender = "female";
else
gender = "male";
return gender;
}

Re:Their gender detection code leaked already!!

[stratjakt]

//slashdot.h, def file for slashdot member..

#include <stolen_sco_code.h>

const char* gender = "Male";

Re:Their gender detection code leaked already!!

[cybermace5]

That code is so bloated! Here is a more optimized Slashdot gender detection routine:

#include <Slashdot.h>

char* gender;

char* main(){
gender = "male";
return gender;
}

Re:Their gender detection code leaked already!!

[guarddonkey]

If they're trying to catch people using business contacts or over a certain age the code will probably need to look like:

COPY SLASHDOT

PERFORM P-1000-INITIALIZE

IF VAR-COUNT GREATER THAN 75 THEN
MOVE 'YOU ARE FEMALE' TO OUT-REC
ELSE
MOVE 'YOU ARE MALE' TO OUT-REC
END-IF

WRITE OUT-FILE FROM OUT-REC

STOP RUN

Good thing I post as AC

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I don't have to worry about browsing slashdot, and nobody can associate me with all the terrorists and mexican drug lords among the slashdot community.

Easy Solution

[2MuchC0ffeeMan]

have everyone add 'Link' to their buddy list... now everyone is everyone's 'second cousin' through link.

if you can beat em, flood them with false data.

Re:Easy Solution

[2MuchC0ffeeMan]

exactly, this is why we are all 103 years old and live in beverly hills, or washington dc, or new york...

(born in 1901, zip = 90210, 20005, 10005)

bonus! for extra fun i like to put my name as george bush, this way he gets all my crappy newsletters sent to 1600 pennslyvania avenue... or president@whitehouse.gov

sadly, this makes my tax dollars somehow get spent very wisely filtering out junk mail.

Re:Easy Solution

[h4rm0ny]

"Lie about your income, your age, gender and Race,
Spell your name incorrectly, so it's harder to trace."

That is the philosophy behind Three Dead Troll's fantastic Privacy Song

If anyone here hasn't heard of them, you really should have a listen. Not sure what Slashdot will do to their download link though.

Less on-topic but still relevant - I went through a phase of entering bollocks on forms to see what got through. I recieved regular letters from my ISP for Ms. Penelope Pittstop and got regular junk mail for Hugh G. Rection.

Hopefully the new tennants in my old flat are now getting some of the other names that weren't processed before I left. ;)

Guilty by Association?

[The Beezer]

Absolutely.

Motion Picture Association of America

Recording Industry Association of America

Feel free to contribute...

ACHTUNG!!!

[Dark Lord Seth]

OSAMA BIN LADEN wants to MURDER the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, a certain chap named GEORGE W BUSH by hitting him repeatedly over the head with a ROCKET PROPELLED GRENADE LAUNCHER shaped sausage while dreaming of using TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS and drive his fave Type-R sport ZSU-23 SHILKA with BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL and NUCLEAR AAA rounds.

There, Eris knows wether US intelligence is tracking this or not but if they are, this is sure to mess up someone's day, hehehe... Ooo, look at that pretty black helicopter!

By Association

[ackthpt]

I post on Slashdot

Trolls post on slashdot

Trolls watch TV

George W. Bush watches TV

In Soviet Russian, TV watches YOU!

You breath air

Terrorists breath air

Terrorists see the stars at night

Posting on Slashdot can be associated to Astronomy. Cool!

Re:By Association

[FroMan]

You missed the obvious Kevin Bacon link here...


# I post on Slashdot
# Trolls post on slashdot
# Trolls watch TV
# George W. Bush watches TV

* Movies have been on TV.
* Tremors is a movie.
* There were cows in the movie Tremors.
* Cows are animals.
* Pigs are animals.
* There are pigs in soviet russia.

# In Soviet Russian, TV watches YOU!
# You breath air
# Terrorists breath air
# Terrorists see the stars at night

* There is a constillation of Orion made out of stars.
* Orion was a hunter.
* Hunters shoot deer.
* Deer have meat.
* Bacon is meat.
* Bacon is meat is an anongram for, "bam! sit a cone."
* I like to sit and eat ice cream cones.
* I have seen a Kevin Bacon movie.

See, you are within 22 degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Bin Laden is no buddy

[Jonboy X]

"...governments tracking private citizens, investigating terrorist links..."

So, you're saying that I should take Osama off of my buddy list if I don't want trouble from the feds?

Re:Bin Laden is no buddy

[Sloppy]

I think they're saying that you shouldn't have uploaded your signature on his pgp key, to the public key servers.

Re:Bin Laden is no buddy

[Jonboy X]

How do you know that bi_kinky_girl_18 that you've been having some rather explicit chats with recently (yes, we are watching) is not Bin Laden?

'Cuz she sent me a picture of herself. In fact, she looks an awful lot like Pam Anderson...

Ohhh

[savagedome]

Kevin Bacon is surely going to be in a lot of trouble.

Terrorist Self-exam

[crawdaddy]

1. Post on Slashdot?
2. ?
3. You're a terrorist!

This is easy enough

[kin_korn_karn]

Simple! Just jack Kevin Bacon into the Matrix and you'll have a link to everyone!

Re:Isn't this a bit late..

[El]

Anybody stupid enough to not pay cash every time they go out to get drunk DESERVES to have the FBI turn their files over to MADD!

Re:big brother is watching.

[Phosphor3k]

But...does he know what brand tinfoil I use for my hat?

Re:Friends of Friends on orkut bad enough

[dr_dank]

but you can't do that with an auto bot that then goes and pumps your details into Yet Another Mass Marketing Tool

I don't remember that Transformer...

Re:Problems with recylcing addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

Think thats bad. My ISP account was recycled. The first time I used email on it I reterieved about 700 waiting spam / existing email messages. The previous owner was a Windows Programmer. Guess what, I'm now a Windows Programmer. Reading all those Windows progamming spams/mailing list emails just changed my mind about Microsoft all together. You just never know how the internet will change your life.

Re:Paranoid people fuel the government

[pbox]

That is a really faulty argument. Some government agencies purely consist of paranoid people. Those people can out-paranoid (by mass paranoia) any paranoid which can be found in the wild (outside of the agency or agencies) and they even get paid for it and get paranoia training at paranoia seminars to keep them on top of their game...

PS: Paranoia. I had to have it in here once more.
---

the funny thing is...

[wtlssndlssfthlss]

I have a friend named Osama (pronounced differently than the terrorist...) and his name is included in his buddylist...I always kinda worried about that one...