Bill Gates Knows What You Did Last Summer

theodp writes "Give Bill Gates your 'pictures, videos, documents, e-mail, instant messages, addresses, calendar dates/scheduling information (e.g., birthdays, anniversaries, appointments), voice mail, phone logs, RSS feeds, subscriptions, bookmarks, mail lists, project management features, computing device data, tasks and location data,' and he'll improve your 'quality of life.' That's the promise behind a patent issued Thursday to Bill Gates and his 20 co-inventors for 'Personal Data Mining', which Microsoft notes 'can include a monetization component' that 'could initiate an auction to sell information to the highest bidder.'"

Comments

Privacy

[Hatta]

Is not privacy essential to a high quality of life?

Re:Privacy

[Hijacked Public]

Not for everyone.

The way to combat this is to kill the monetization component. The way to do that is to beat Bill to the punch and give all your data to everyone before he does, so they have to motivation to buy it.

Re:Privacy

[Hatta]

Being free from the manipulations of other people who think they know what is best for me is an absolutely indispensable part of a quality life. Be it marketers or moralists, I don't care.

Re:Privacy

[DancesWithBlowTorch]

Okay, I'm confused. Whenever privacy is discussed around here, we say "wouldn't it be great if we could retain personal control over our data, and could willingly decide whom to sell our data to?"

So know someone with a great deal of economic leverage is trying to push exactly such a system, and all of slashdot goes "Oh my god, how evil! Quick, everyone give your data away for free, so nobody can monetize them any more, not even yourself!"

Guys, Bill Gates stopped being the most evil man about five years ago. I care much less about the shortcomings of Windows than I care about Google and Facebook knowing more about me than I do myself. At this point, I'd be willing to pay Bill Gates if he offers to secure all my personal data.

Re:Privacy

[An ominous Cow art]

I think it's time to post a link to this story again.

Re:Privacy

[Lumpy]

You CAN do that by limiting the amount of data created.

#1 - Store loyalty cards? GET RID OF THEM.
#2 - Use ONLY CASH for every transaction. Some really big ones you cant, but you can limit the data creation.
#3 - DONT register warranty cards, or registration of anything.
#4 - Xbox live user? Use a not connected to you information base and ONLY use scratch and sniff cards. make a random person that cant be connected to you, this is not hard.
#5 - Prepaid cellphone with only cash bought minutes from cards linked to fake information.

There are a lot more, but it can be done. The problem started with YOU not getting verbally upset with banks selling your information to everyone. Along with stores, etc... The time to have stopped this was 20 years ago before an entire industry was created around collecting data on everyone.

Some places now have cameras at the card swipe machine pointing at your face from the keypad. I guarentee these are taking a snapshot of you and can be used to attach your cash purchase to you. Simply covering the camera before you enter view will solve that.

If you want to protect your information and privacy you have to work hard at it because your government does not care one tiny bit about it.

Re:Privacy

[PotatoFarmer]

The fact that someone would do all those things is in itself more data about that person's habits. The real trick is to selectively limit your audit trail so that you still appear in the middle of the distribution curve. Like schooling fish and flocking birds, the best form of anonymity is to surround yourself with a few million things just like yourself.

Sadly, the end result of this sort of behavior is that Netflix recommends I watch Transformers 2. A high price to pay, but such are the wages of freedom.

Re:Privacy

[Hatta]

What sort of privacy did you have in a hovel with -3-4 generations of family all sleeping on the same dirt floor?

What sort of quality of life did you have then? You had piss poor privacy, and piss poor quality of life. As people's fortunes improved, they chose to improve their quality of life by increasing their privacy.

Re:Privacy

[Hatta]

The Video Privacy Protection Act was passed after the video rental records of a Supreme Court nominee were leaked. So your suggestion does have precedence.

Re:Privacy

[natehoy]

#1 - Store loyalty cards? GET RID OF THEM.

A few friends and I used to rotate our Kroger cards randomly about once a week. We were all from different walks of life, so I can imagine what Kroger thought after a while. "One week: 5 packs of Ramen and a 24-banger of Bud. Next week: Filet, salmon, fresh vegetables, and a couple $30 bottle of wine. Next week: Weight Watchers Meals and 'Vitamin Water'. WTF?"

Re:Privacy

[RichM]

Sadly, the end result of this sort of behavior is that Netflix recommends I watch Transformers 2

Have you been searching Google Images for "megan fox nipslip?".

Sincerely,
Bill Gates.

It's only Evil when Microsoft does it

[You'reJustSlashFlock]

When Google does it, it's okay.  Thats why Slashdot has the evil Borg for Bill Gates and the friendly Google logo for Google.

Re:It's only Evil when Microsoft does it

[EzInKy]

For the most part that is because Google doesn't require using Google software on your personal computing device to access Google services. Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to take offense if you are not using their platform.

Re:It's only Evil when Microsoft does it

[shutdown -p now]

Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to take offense if you are not using their platform.

I guess it's why e.g. Office Live Apps officially support Firefox (including on Linux and Mac), and Safari.

You could say that using IE (or at least Silverlight) is nonetheless suggested, but then again, every time I log into GMail with my favorite browser (Opera), I see the ad urging me to try out Google Chrome...

Isn't that called Google?

[nweaver]

Isn't that already called Google, where you give them your email, your pictures, your videos, your calendar, all your documents, all your web searches, and about half of your total web surfing (*cough* analytics *cough* doubleclick *cough)?

Re:Isn't that called Google?

[rdavidson3]

Isn't that already called Google, where you give them your email, your pictures, your videos, your calendar, all your documents, all your web searches, and about half of your total web surfing (*cough* analytics *cough* doubleclick *cough)?

That's why double-click and google-analytics are on my blocked no-script list.

Re:Isn't that called Google?

[amicusNYCL]

What exactly did Google do to earn your trust that Microsoft never could?

Re:Isn't that called Google?

[nschubach]

especially not a publicly traded, for-profit corporation.

You say that like the "not-for-profit" companies are any better. Most of them are pushing agendas of their own. Just because they don't profit share with stockholders doesn't make them any more trustworthy.

Re:Isn't that called Google?

[mcgrew]

A clean interface; not wanting to own my computer; not wanting me to do everything their way; not calling design flaws "features"; not charging me for beta software; not charging me hundreds of dollars for products that should cost, at most, tens; not being cutesy and pandering to ten year olds (including Clippy).

Google treats me like I'm a respectable adult. Microsoft treats me like I'm a retarded five year old.

Hmm

[goldaryn]

Gates can have all that stuff, but there's no way I'm giving him my chair

Re:And you were worried about Google?

[MozeeToby]

It looks like you're getting married, would you like to...
() Perform background check on your fiance
() Take out a loan to pay for the reception
() Invite Clippy... Please? I'm so lonely...

He wants to recreate you virtually!!

[vivin]

'pictures, videos, documents, e-mail, instant messages, addresses, calendar dates/scheduling information (e.g., birthdays, anniversaries, appointments), voice mail, phone logs, RSS feeds, subscriptions, bookmarks, mail lists, project management features, computing device data, tasks and location data,
 
... and then he will use your virtual avatar and put it into a military robot... we know where that goes!

An obvious case for prior art

[way2trivial]

see this link
http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html

We know something about Bill Gates too

[Yvan256]

He started watching Caprica.

Re:No

[Hatta]

If you are confidant that others can not use personal information against you, then there is no need for privacy. For instance, if everyone knew everything about everyone, then everyone would know that someone was using your information against you, and could act against that person.

You don't think that a guarantee of privacy would have made, say, Alan Turing's life much better? If you do things that are not morally wrong, but other people think they are then privacy is very much essential for your quality of life.

One note about data mining...

[NecroPuppy]

You get such interesting stuff when it's way off.

I recently picked up, at a going out of business sale, a piece of jewelry that was normally $1200 for less than $200.

Since then, I've gotten several high end credit card offers, none of which I would normally qualify for.

So mess with the system.

Use your grocery store card... but only when buying beef jerkey and toilet paper.
Get your name on a couple strange mailing lists.
etc.

If the data becomes so worthless that they can't actually use it, they'll stop. But only if enough of us go through with this.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Re:Office.microsoft.com hates alternative browsers

[b4dc0d3r]

(apologies for the formatting, I just created this 20 minutes ago for my own purposes). Bottom line: the entire intention of this Office.Microsoft.com "feature" is misguidedly implemented, showing a complete lack of testing using the common 'alternative' platform.

Visiting Office.Microsoft.com with FireFox and NoScript gives the following message:

<noscript>
<table border=0 height=95%>
<tr><td valign=middle>
<div><center><b>One Moment Please...</b></center></div><br>
<div>To help optimize how your Web pages are displayed, we are checking to see if a 2007 Microsoft Office program is installed.</div><br>
<div>If this page does not automatically redirect, you have scripts disabled. <a href='/_services/errors/error.aspx?id=5'>See more information on scripts.</a></div><br>
<div><a href='http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?assetid=FX010562591033'>Follow this link if the page is not redirected.</a></div>
</td></tr>
</table>
</noscript>

Enabling scripts, loading the page, then disabling scripts, results in the message at the top of the page, along with the requested page content (which doesn't appear prior to loading scripts):

Warning: This site requires the use of scripts, which your browser does not currently allow. See how to enable scripts.

That seems to be a disconnect. The second message shows that the site can be used with scripts disabled. The only reason I see the "One Moment Please..." message is the lack of cookies. In theory, the browser would check which versions are installed, and then show customized content for your version. IE browser allows ActiveX controls which could access the local filesystem, which can report that information.

VBScript function ofctestax() creates objects using the following CLSID values and then calls GetOfficeX() and/or GetOfficeLcid() functions to see what's installed:

• 4453D895-F2A1-4A38-A285-1EF9BD3F6D5D
• 6632AA50-49DC-475B-B911-A02B84C7C794
• C9712B19-838B-45A5-ABF2-9A315DDDED50

It then calls the function ofcpost() which sets cookies describing which versions are installed. ofctestax() is called inline from a script at the bottom of the page.
How does this work in FireFox?

if (typeof(window.external)=='undefined') {
if (navigator.mimeTypes['application/x-msoffice12'] != null && !IsOpera())
document.write("<embed id='ofcnp' type='application/x-msoffice12' f='ofcpost' width='0' height='0'>");
else if (navigator.mimeTypes['application/x-msoffice'] != null && !IsOpera())
document.write("<embed id='ofcnp' type='application/x-msoffice' f='ofcpost' width='0' height='0'>");
else
ofcpost('N','0','N','0');
} else {
if (typeof(ofctestax)!='undefined')
ofctestax();
else
ofcpost('N','0','N','0');
}

ofctestax is a VBScript function, so in IE and any browsers supporting VBScript, it will run. In other browsers, it will not be recognized, and thus be undefined. ofcpost() function is called with default values, setting cookies to uninformative values.

With no cookies, this happens, because ofcpost() calls post() function:

<script language='JavaScript'><!--
function post()
{

What did I do last summer?

[harry666t]

I was camping in a middle of a fucking forest with a herd of hippies, that's what I did.

So, how can you improve the quality of my life, mr. Gates? Can you give me a bigger forest? More hippies? Less villagers with pitchforks?

Bing is supposedly better than Google, rememeber?

[Enderandrew]

Where are all the /. posters who've said the past few months that everyone should move to Bing over Google, because Google is the evil behemoth that doesn't respect your privacy?

I'm just curious.

Re:No

[spun]

Actually, modern research suggests you are at least partially wrong. In fact, less than 5% of people will act that way the majority of the time and regardless of circumstance. Around 15% will almost always act in a fair and equitable manner, even if everyone around them is cheating and acting unfairly. The rest will act fairly when in fair situations, and take advantage only when they see the majority of people around them taking advantage.

Google 'fairness reciprocity economic research.' Most people are not in fact driven primarily by self interest, but by notions of fairness and reciprocity. Look up games theory on wikipedia for an interesting jumping off point if you are interested, read about some of the experimental games played, and how people do not act to maximize their personal benefits, but to create and maintain justice.

We're not all evil, but the belief that 'we're all evil' is itself a primary motivation to act in a selfish fashion.

A "privacy" article at Techflash? Really?

[natehoy]

If you're running AdBlock, click on the blacklist for that site. In my case, it's literally the first time I've seen that AdBlock has a mechanism for handling more blocked scripts than my screen can display.

If you're not running AdBlock, and you value your privacy at all, don't read the article.

6 Doubleclick cookies, a Quantserve pixel, cookies AND a pixel image from 2o7, more scripts from more companies than I care to count.

"My God! It's full of crap!"