The Spy In Our Living Room

An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera at Polygon ponders the surveillance capabilities of our gaming consoles in light of recent NSA and GCHQ revelations. 'Xbox One Kinect can see in the dark. It can keep a moving human being in focus without motors. It knows how to isolate voices from background noise. The privacy implications of having a device that originally couldn't be removed pointed at your living room at all times was always kind of scary, and that fear has been at least partially justified.' Kuchera, like many of us, habitually disconnects cameras and microphones not currently in use. But he also feels a sense of inevitability about the whole thing: 'If the government wants this information they're going to get it, no matter what we do with our gaming consoles. It's important to pay attention to what our government is doing, but this issue is much bigger than our gaming consoles, and we open ourselves up to much greater forms of intrusion on a daily basis.'"

Comments

1984

[slapout]

Reminds me of the TVs in "1984".

Re:1984

[memnock]

... But he also feels a sense of inevitability about the whole thing: 'If the government wants this information they're going to get it, no matter what we do with our gaming consoles. ...

Sure, if you keep thinking it's okay to keep your mouth shut and roll over. I suppose though that at least he is writing about this and spreading the word, so he's not just keeping his mouth shut.

But the way he makes it seem like a foregone conclusion to me just doesn't sit well with me.

I wonder about the legality though

[erroneus]

What if I put an XBox360 in a locked room with no windows, turned it on with a kinect camera pointing at a sign which threatens a top political figure. If someone acts on it, how would they justify their actions? Legally it would be extremely questionable and ultimately, it would not be a threat as much as it would be a trap for the government to fall into. After all, discovery would result in all manner of details which should enter public record. ...or I could disappear into a puff of darkness.

Sounds like telephones in the old Soviet Union

[dtjohnson]

The landline telephones in the old USSR didn't hang up when the user put the handset back in the cradle and so people routinely put a pillow over them.

Ben Kuchera and Polygon

[sexconker]

Ben Kuchera is a fucking tool who has no business writing about anything. The same goes for Polygon.
Kuchera was one of the assmunches on the front lines defending MS's initial DRM and always-online schemes for the XBOX One.

His opinions were so bad and so obviously paid-for that he got kicked out of Penny Arcade for shit like this http://penny-arcade.com/report... (I think they pulled it down because it was so bad) and this https://twitter.com/BenKuchera... .
Penny fucking Arcade realized how shitty he was, Yes, that Penny Arcade. The one run by the no-standards shills that did an instant 180 from gamers to tools once MS started paying them. The PA that bullies its own fans and offers a kickstarter to remove ads from their massively-profitable website, with stretch goals to remove more ads, but still not all the ads.

Ben Kuchera's internet fame was spawned from PA, and he became such an insufferable goon that even PA realized he needed to be cut loose. He shat around Arse Technica for a while and now he's shitting it up at Polygon.

We all know games "journalism" is about one of the most laughable things ever, but Kuchera and Polygon represent the fucking highest echelon of shilling, shit-flinging, and all around douchebaggery. There is zero integrity involved with Polygon as a whole and with Kuchera as a person. You shouldn't simply distrust their reviews, news, opinions, etc., you should actively trust it to be complete and utter paid-for horseshit.