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Big Data for People and Revolutionaries, Not Just Businesses (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the if-they're-watching-you-why-not-watch-yourself-to-see-what-they-see? dept.

This started as a basic, "Tell us how your service can help Slashdot readers who might want to go go into business," interview, but quickly morphed into something else. For one thing, Sumall CEO Dane Atkinson is not only a William Gibson fan, but actually knows Mr. Gibson rather well. For another, he soon jumped off the business topic, let his inner idealist take the stage, and started talking about how we, as individuals, can use Sumall's (free) service to track ourselves much the way NSA and big businesses do, and how we can see at least some of what they know about us. Then we started talking about how political candidates, parties, and even revolutionaries can (and do) use Sumall to track results of their actions -- and how cults and dictatorships do, too. The interview moves into subversive territory at around 7:40, but if you watch/listen from the beginning you'll get a more complete grasp of how this particular Big Data subset works, whether it's for small business marketing or as a way to justify your personal paranoia level.

9 comments

  1. Is this what they mean... by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 2

    by "Slashvertisement-fuck-you-Dice" ?

    1. Re:Is this what they mean... by Cenan · · Score: 2

      Yeah, I'm contemplating just outright blocking Roblimo. That seems like it would take care of most of the obnoxious posts with videos and nobodies.

      Dane Atkinson is who again? Maybe I don't work with stuff that's enterprisey enough to have heard of any of the websites (note that all of his ventures seem to be identified by URLs, not you know, company names) - and I can't imagine why you would need to name drop a cyberpunk writer for added credibility (on an IT site? c'mon guys!)

      Another funny thing. Googling his name instead of relying on the source brings up a thin BusinessWeek profile. Googling Squarespace, show the site to have a title "Build a website", following the link with NoScript turned on returns a logo centered in the browser, that's it. What the fuck dude? The link said you'd help me build a website.

      --
      ... whatever ...
    2. Re:Is this what they mean... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Essentially. The fact that they go out of their way to disguise what they're doing is really insulting.

  2. Yeah, no. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

    This is clearly a proposal oriented at earning money from businesses, not changing the world. The deceitful headline doesn't cover the blatant sales pitch in the summary. Which was more than enough to deter me from watching the video.

  3. Or, you know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Or, just maybe, hold our government accountable for their illegal actions, forcibly shut the program down, and put those who violated their oath to the US Constitution in jail, and the employees "just following orders" on supervised probation. You know, the sort of thing that would happen to you if you ignited a small piece of plant in the privacy of your own home.

  4. Big Data = statistics by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need a new poll on lame tech buzzwords.

    1. Re:Big Data = statistics by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      It's not even that. It's frequently just "having a CRM database".

  5. Big Data is rarely ethical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most of the time that 'Big Data' is aquired through probing, so let's not pretend that this isn't about big businesses sorting your personal information.

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