FTA: "Microsoft is deeply committed to ensuring that we maintain the best possible experience for our customers". This from the company that brought us trickery-based forced 'upgrades' to Windows 10? Who are they trying to fool?
Why do companies bother to say this kind of crap? Do they think we believe them? Is it a nervous tic? Maybe the marketing droid equivalent of boilerplate legal disclaimers? These assholes should really listen to themselves some time. Then again, self examination is clearly not something they're willing or able to do.
Maybe corporate person-hood, along with the legal rights it bestows, should also allow for corporations to be locked up in psych wards until their sociopathic / psychotic / schizophrenic symptoms and behaviours are under control and they're judged fit to return to society.
In may 1943, Oberleutnant Herbert Schmid and Oberfeldwebel Paul Rosenberger defected from Nazi Germany, flying their Junkers 88 plane, (equipped with the latest radar), to England. As a result the Brits were able to jam Nazi radar on D-Day. My point? That it's really history that decides who was right and who was wrong. Those two airmen broke German law and would undoubtedly have been executed had they returned to Germany. So should they have gone back to face the music, 'because laws'? Would that have been 'the right thing to do'?
I believe history will look at Snowden in a similar light. Often it's merely a happy coincidence when the law and 'what's right' are in agreement, and this is NOT one of those times. Snowden SHOULD return to the US - but only if he wishes to, with all charges dropped or under a full pardon, and with the thanks of the American people.
So Canada will be fine, but Alberta's going to become a "have-not" province again. Considering how they lord it over the rest of us when oil prices are high, I don't expect much of the rest of Canada to give a damn.
I've lived in Ontario all my life, and I'm old enough to remember when we were top dog and lorded it over the have-not provinces. I've always considered Alberta's attitude simply as payback for the high-handed way we behaved back in the day.
... Meanwhile, Microsoft's reputation and credibility are in tatters, probably more so with the geek and professional community than anyone else.
True. But Windows is losing share on the server side really fast, so they've probably already given that one up. Might that be why they're going all Linux-y - to pave the way for officially throwing their own server OS versions under the bus in favour of MS-branded Linux? As for the rest of the enterprise, can you see IT departments migrating their entire user base to something other than Windows? In most organizations the pain and expense of that would cause heads to roll, so anybody who wants to keep their job and/or have a good reference probably won't take the 'dump Microsoft' idea beyond the bitch and moan stage. Besides, they probably see the writing on the wall - with Cloud services pervasive and growing more so, we're likely gonna end up back at the old thin client model anyway - only this time, it will stick and become ubiquitous. Then nobody will care much about the desktop OS.
IMHO that's why we haven't seen 'the year of the Linux desktop'. Not because Linux isn't good enough, and not because Windows isn't bad enough, but because such a large-scale change is too risky for the people who would have to promote and implement it, and in a few years it's not going to matter anyway. Maybe that's where Linux will finally have a chance - as a kickass scalable, reliable thin client OS that natively does things the same way as all those servers out there.
Win 10 will dominate the Windows market, the world will move on, and Microsoft will consider defending and possibly losing a massive class action suit as merely a cost of business.
What really needs to change across the board is the sizes of penalties in both civil and criminal suits against big companies. When the typical award is between 50 and 500 times what it is today, large corporations will tread more lightly. Until then, law suits, fines, etc. are just a business expense that the C-levels have already predicted and the bean counters have factored into their projections.
But where are people getting the news they post on social media? Every claimed innovation of the past ten years has pretty much been an interface for functionality that already existed. News isn't coming 'from' social media, it's just being posted there. So actually, people *are* getting their news ftom the same sources, just via a different interface. Beware of swiss cheese logic in the 21st century - it likely means someone is trying to manipulate you.
The tap water you drink probably comes from a nearby body of fresh water. But if you live in the average city, then I dare you to drink a big glass of water straight from the lake, river, or whatever. The difference, you see, is in the filtering and the sanitisation. Same thing with the news - the channels by which it's delivered have a significant effect on the content. Only in this case it's the raw source that's healthy, and the filtered one that can do long-term damage.
I'm not sure I'd call the study shitty, but it raised a couple of red flags for me. First, what constitutes 'statistically significant' is somewhat arbitrary and has been called into question over and over again, despite some scientists' view of it as almost a natural law. Second, wavelength at the highest cellular frequencies is about 5 inches. For us humans, that's comparable to the dimensions of our brains; but for a rat, it's comparable to their entire body length, and probably two or three times their body width. Because of that, I'm not yet satisfied that simply adjusting RF exposure levels according to body mass can be relied upon to give equivalent results.
and woe to the subject who points out that fact. Forget 'security by obscurity' - the gubmint seems hell-bent on 'security by denial'. These days it's safest to pretend not to see security failings. Failing that, it almost seems to be the safer, wiser course of action to profit illegally from said security flaws than to point them out in the hope that they'll be fixed.
So you're mad because sites that provide free content let Facebook pay for the content YOU decide to consume...
Most of the time I have no way of knowing beforehand that a site I'm about to visit has signed a deal with the Devil. Who do I ask? How do I know the answer is truthful? It's kinda like going on a date with someone who seems responsible and honest but whom you find out, (after the two of you have had sex), is indiscriminately promiscuous and riddled with STDs.
How entitled and spoiled you people are.
"Entitled and spoiled" for being indignant about being stalked around the Web? Grow up.
You just have to throw on an extension or two.
Which is essentially what GP said he was planning to do. He seemed more than a tad grouchy about it, but I really don't blame him. And perhaps he was also being angry on behalf of the people who don't even know that they should protect themselves against this shit, never mind knowing how to do it.
In exchange you get to look at someone else's work (that they're expecting to get paid for) for free.
All too often it's more like an attractive neighbour unexpectedly flashing you over the back fence and then expecting to be paid for it.
FTA: "The current state of terms and conditions for digital services is bordering on the absurd."
No, the state of terms and conditions for all kinds of "intellectual property" passed "absurd" at break-neck speed more than a decade ago. The current state of IP laws and terms is chewing-LSD-infused-magic-mushrooms-while-watching-Eraserhead-and-reading-Kafka-batshit-fucking-crazy. Absurd isn't even a tiny speck in the rear-view mirror.
Honestly, I can't 100% blame them. We witnessed how hard people hung onto XP. I still see companies with Windows Server 2003 in play (some of them still DEPLOY 2003). We know there are large swathes of people that simply do not accept change, no matter how good it might be (there are legitimate debates about win10 being better).
I could see Microsoft's point if their primary purpose in making changes was to enhance security and extend functionality. But in that case they could have (mostly) kept XP and built on it, couldn't they? I think people fail to accept change largely because so much of it seems both retrograde and arbitrary, like re-inventing the wheel as a dodecagon. As for Win10 being better, I haven't tried it, so this question is sincere: is there anything in it that's materially better than previous versions, that couldn't have come about by naturally evolving from XP without drastically altering a UI paradigm that most people found both comfortable and productive?
On the one hand Microsoft should be saying "screw them" and just move on. On the other, those people hanging on help to deteriorate the security posture of the rest of the internet and harm Microsofts reputation when they get hit with malware or other security issues.
Microsoft has an enormous user base. Trying to get that user base to move forward is painful. They're giving the OS out for free and people still push back.
For the second time in as many weeks you've caused me to examine my own sacred cows, so thanks. I can see how Microsoft almost has to push an upgrade really hard. Their deceptiveness still seems sleazy though, and probably wouldn't be necessary if they weren't forcing drastic changes in the UX and the business model instead of simply updating the security and maintainability of the OS.
... I have a very hard time taking these complaints seriously when in every case the people bitching are using Google for everything they can. Microsoft isn't doing anything with Win10 that Google isn't doing with Android/Chrome/Search and a plethora of web analytics.
Google lulled people to sleep, like the proverbial lobster slowly heating to a boil. Except for Android phones, (which are hardware that just happens to come with software), Google's products have never cost money. Microsoft software does cost money, and that's the perception even among people who only have Windows because it came on their computer. After all, lots of people have pirated MS software, so the fact that it costs money is widely known. How many people have ever pirated Google software? I think that has a lot to do with the inconsistency you call hypocrisy - in this case most people aren't aware that they're being hypocritical.
Nope, I'm a techie who uses Linux professionally and I don't like it either. You're absolutely right about them needing to start standardizing; it's way way overdue. The Gnome3 debacle, Unity, and consequential explosion of desktops made it much worse.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. As soon as Linux becomes 'standardized', it's only one small step away from being the next Windows, with all the attendant Microsoft-like corporate crap. IMHO, what's happening now with Red Hat and systemd, and what happened earlier with Unity and Gnome 3, occurred precisely because some players were pushing for top-down standardization. The only thing that saved average Linux users like me from being forced to eat one or the other of those crapcakes called Unity and Gnome 3, is the "I'll bloody well do it my way" attitude that permeates Linux culture. So if you want an inflexible monoculture with corporation-like motivations driving OS development, and you like the idea of "Android for Desktops", just keep on pushing for standardization in Linux.
I've been on Linux exclusively for about 8 years, and I too get frustrated - my two biggest peeves are the Freedesktop filetype / file extension mess, and the lack of fully-featured file-manager-integrated file search that MS managed to get mostly right more than 15 years. But I try to keep in mind that those frustrations are the price I pay for a level of freedom and autonomy that wouldn't be possible to me if I was running Windows, Mac, or some standardized OS.
FTS: "often, the police get a judge's sign-off for surveillance without even bothering to mention that they will be using a Stingray...claiming that they simply can't violate those FBI nondisclosure agreements"
So judges should just get into the habit of asking specific questions about Stingray, and anything similarly illegal, EVERY TIME law enforcement asks for a warrant. Force the cops to make a choice between lying to a judge and violating an NDA with the FBI. It would be entertaining to be a fly on the wall and watch the FBI get thrown under the bus a few (dozen) times in front of a variety of judges.
...The question is what happens to the people who don't have any skills other than those required for menial jobs.
No, I'm pretty sure the question is "what happens to even the people who have fairly advanced skills, when automation and AI can do their work so cheaply and so well that giving the job to a human is merely an act of charity?"
before the system is enhanced with on-the-fly password cracking to make the spying more universal? Presumably, (hopefully?), a lot of the passwords in use won't be easily cracked; but these days even a script kiddie could probably whip something up that would guess 25% of them, or more, in a short period of time. And I would guess most of the security on those cams isn't sophisticated enough to turf the attacker after too many wrong attempts, so basic brute-forcing would likely do a pretty good job.
But then again, what am I worried about? Law enforcement, being on the side of right and all, would never try to crack a private security system owned by someone who isn't even under suspicion of having broken the law. Oh, wait...
Certainly. What you posted is fantasy though so I'll try to reply without sounding like a prick.
Thanks - but I never thought you were being a prick. And because you work in Big Data I acknowledge that you're well versed in this subject and have likely given it a lot more thought than I have.
Where you went is not information about you. Neither is how you drive on a public road.
I suppose differentiating between information about 'what I did' and information about 'me' is useful here. But where I go on a regular basis, (and how I drive), although it's not information 'about me', can by inference be used to draw conclusions and make predictions about me, in a kind of profiling process, can it not?
Information about you would be medical data, information/communication you do with others (which I would hope you would be encrypting).
I have little or no say in how my medical data is handled. As for encryption, I don't use it in my communication with others because I don't want to be regarded with suspicion by whoever might be monitoring. I have no reason to believe that TLA's have any specific interest in me; but it seems that they monitor almost everything these days, and I think encrypted emails might be a red flag for them.
You've fallen into a trap that many people do. You've started off with the premise that people are looking for you. They aren't. You then proceed to list ways they "could" be looking at you, which they aren't. You then proceed to go on about how offensive this looking at you is, which it isn't because it isn't happening.
I don't think I'm operating under the premise that people are looking for me. But I do believe that technologies which make it much easier for people who might want to find out information about me, are dangerous. For example, say I'm applying for a job, and my prospective employer finds out that I've visited a gun shop, a head shop, a massage parlour, or any other place that would make it seem to him or her that I'm a risky hire. Now I would say that's none of the prospective employer's business. I suspect you would say that, because my activities were in public, I have no reasonable expectation of privacy, and that alone makes it the prospective employer's business.
My point is that because of technology, the scope of 'in public' has grown hugely in space, in time, and in detail. Somebody across the world may be able to see me in public in real time, and because video is recorded, what I do outside of my own home may be part of a readily accessible record for a very long time. By changing the scope, technology has effectively changed the definition of 'public'. Additionally, when it comes to the IoT and to things like Samsung smart TV's, technology is arguably extending 'public space' inside private residences. So when we talk about "in public" here in 2016, that ain't the same "in public" we talked about twenty years ago, IMHO.
I don't say these things to be mean. This is common because you don't understand it, yet you're intelligent and struggle to understand it using filters you already possess, ignorant of the fact those filters are not adequate to this particular task. You must first understand where privacy applies (not in public), you can then decide when something is violating your privacy.
Thanks for the disclaimer, but again, I don't see you as being mean. As for the filters, you're right, and thanks for pointing it out. This dialog has been a worthwhile exercise for me, and I'm in the process of re-evaluating what privacy is and its importance to me.
Regarding 'where privacy applies', see my argument above. I think both the definition and the common perception of 'in public' has changed, and continues to change rapidly. If privacy is something which applies 'not in public', then I'm pretty sure that privacy is shrinking, simply because 'public'
By way of reply I'll quote Insightfill, (from farther down in the thread), who puts to rest my comfort in not having my picture plastered all over the web, and also addresses the privacy / anonymity question:
Similar to web cookies, the aggregation of multiple sightings of you in public will construct an "identity" of you far more detailed than currently exists in the public record today. The sum total of where you live, where you shop, where you work, where (and who!!!) you visit will result in a profile fingerprint that's just as useful, simply lacking your name. It's enough.
I would add that with all the friends and acquaintances I have who participate in social media, the name to go along with that profile won't be long in coming.
So with pictures on FindFace and the like, and the inevitable geolocation data attached to them, at some point my interests, food preferences, entertainment preferences, friendships, family associations, daily habits outside my home, fashion preferences, driving style, and probably many other things, become public knowledge available at almost anyone's fingertips.
Wkipedia defines 'privacy' as "...the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves, or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively." I'd be interested to hear your take on how the situation I described above is even remotely compatible with the concept of privacy.
Slashdot Mirror
Samsung. Activity tracker. 'Nuff said.
My first pass at reading the title came up with 'How The FAA Shot Down Planes For Uber'. Seemed a little extreme to me...
would read "PayPal to suspend business operations". Full stop, no qualifiers.
FTA: "Microsoft is deeply committed to ensuring that we maintain the best possible experience for our customers". This from the company that brought us trickery-based forced 'upgrades' to Windows 10? Who are they trying to fool?
Why do companies bother to say this kind of crap? Do they think we believe them? Is it a nervous tic? Maybe the marketing droid equivalent of boilerplate legal disclaimers? These assholes should really listen to themselves some time. Then again, self examination is clearly not something they're willing or able to do.
Maybe corporate person-hood, along with the legal rights it bestows, should also allow for corporations to be locked up in psych wards until their sociopathic / psychotic / schizophrenic symptoms and behaviours are under control and they're judged fit to return to society.
In may 1943, Oberleutnant Herbert Schmid and Oberfeldwebel Paul Rosenberger defected from Nazi Germany, flying their Junkers 88 plane, (equipped with the latest radar), to England. As a result the Brits were able to jam Nazi radar on D-Day. My point? That it's really history that decides who was right and who was wrong. Those two airmen broke German law and would undoubtedly have been executed had they returned to Germany. So should they have gone back to face the music, 'because laws'? Would that have been 'the right thing to do'?
I believe history will look at Snowden in a similar light. Often it's merely a happy coincidence when the law and 'what's right' are in agreement, and this is NOT one of those times. Snowden SHOULD return to the US - but only if he wishes to, with all charges dropped or under a full pardon, and with the thanks of the American people.
Outstanding suggestions. Too bad I just finished spending my mod points.
That ship has sailed, manufacturing is never going to seriously help the Canadian economy.
Why? Citation, please.
So Canada will be fine, but Alberta's going to become a "have-not" province again. Considering how they lord it over the rest of us when oil prices are high, I don't expect much of the rest of Canada to give a damn.
I've lived in Ontario all my life, and I'm old enough to remember when we were top dog and lorded it over the have-not provinces. I've always considered Alberta's attitude simply as payback for the high-handed way we behaved back in the day.
... Meanwhile, Microsoft's reputation and credibility are in tatters, probably more so with the geek and professional community than anyone else.
True. But Windows is losing share on the server side really fast, so they've probably already given that one up. Might that be why they're going all Linux-y - to pave the way for officially throwing their own server OS versions under the bus in favour of MS-branded Linux? As for the rest of the enterprise, can you see IT departments migrating their entire user base to something other than Windows? In most organizations the pain and expense of that would cause heads to roll, so anybody who wants to keep their job and/or have a good reference probably won't take the 'dump Microsoft' idea beyond the bitch and moan stage. Besides, they probably see the writing on the wall - with Cloud services pervasive and growing more so, we're likely gonna end up back at the old thin client model anyway - only this time, it will stick and become ubiquitous. Then nobody will care much about the desktop OS.
IMHO that's why we haven't seen 'the year of the Linux desktop'. Not because Linux isn't good enough, and not because Windows isn't bad enough, but because such a large-scale change is too risky for the people who would have to promote and implement it, and in a few years it's not going to matter anyway. Maybe that's where Linux will finally have a chance - as a kickass scalable, reliable thin client OS that natively does things the same way as all those servers out there.
Win 10 will dominate the Windows market, the world will move on, and Microsoft will consider defending and possibly losing a massive class action suit as merely a cost of business.
What really needs to change across the board is the sizes of penalties in both civil and criminal suits against big companies. When the typical award is between 50 and 500 times what it is today, large corporations will tread more lightly. Until then, law suits, fines, etc. are just a business expense that the C-levels have already predicted and the bean counters have factored into their projections.
But where are people getting the news they post on social media? Every claimed innovation of the past ten years has pretty much been an interface for functionality that already existed. News isn't coming 'from' social media, it's just being posted there. So actually, people *are* getting their news ftom the same sources, just via a different interface. Beware of swiss cheese logic in the 21st century - it likely means someone is trying to manipulate you.
The tap water you drink probably comes from a nearby body of fresh water. But if you live in the average city, then I dare you to drink a big glass of water straight from the lake, river, or whatever. The difference, you see, is in the filtering and the sanitisation. Same thing with the news - the channels by which it's delivered have a significant effect on the content. Only in this case it's the raw source that's healthy, and the filtered one that can do long-term damage.
I'm not sure I'd call the study shitty, but it raised a couple of red flags for me. First, what constitutes 'statistically significant' is somewhat arbitrary and has been called into question over and over again, despite some scientists' view of it as almost a natural law. Second, wavelength at the highest cellular frequencies is about 5 inches. For us humans, that's comparable to the dimensions of our brains; but for a rat, it's comparable to their entire body length, and probably two or three times their body width. Because of that, I'm not yet satisfied that simply adjusting RF exposure levels according to body mass can be relied upon to give equivalent results.
and woe to the subject who points out that fact. Forget 'security by obscurity' - the gubmint seems hell-bent on 'security by denial'. These days it's safest to pretend not to see security failings. Failing that, it almost seems to be the safer, wiser course of action to profit illegally from said security flaws than to point them out in the hope that they'll be fixed.
So you're mad because sites that provide free content let Facebook pay for the content YOU decide to consume...
Most of the time I have no way of knowing beforehand that a site I'm about to visit has signed a deal with the Devil. Who do I ask? How do I know the answer is truthful? It's kinda like going on a date with someone who seems responsible and honest but whom you find out, (after the two of you have had sex), is indiscriminately promiscuous and riddled with STDs.
How entitled and spoiled you people are.
"Entitled and spoiled" for being indignant about being stalked around the Web? Grow up.
You just have to throw on an extension or two.
Which is essentially what GP said he was planning to do. He seemed more than a tad grouchy about it, but I really don't blame him. And perhaps he was also being angry on behalf of the people who don't even know that they should protect themselves against this shit, never mind knowing how to do it.
In exchange you get to look at someone else's work (that they're expecting to get paid for) for free.
All too often it's more like an attractive neighbour unexpectedly flashing you over the back fence and then expecting to be paid for it.
FTA: "The current state of terms and conditions for digital services is bordering on the absurd."
No, the state of terms and conditions for all kinds of "intellectual property" passed "absurd" at break-neck speed more than a decade ago. The current state of IP laws and terms is chewing-LSD-infused-magic-mushrooms-while-watching-Eraserhead-and-reading-Kafka-batshit-fucking-crazy. Absurd isn't even a tiny speck in the rear-view mirror.
Honestly, I can't 100% blame them. We witnessed how hard people hung onto XP. I still see companies with Windows Server 2003 in play (some of them still DEPLOY 2003). We know there are large swathes of people that simply do not accept change, no matter how good it might be (there are legitimate debates about win10 being better).
I could see Microsoft's point if their primary purpose in making changes was to enhance security and extend functionality. But in that case they could have (mostly) kept XP and built on it, couldn't they? I think people fail to accept change largely because so much of it seems both retrograde and arbitrary, like re-inventing the wheel as a dodecagon. As for Win10 being better, I haven't tried it, so this question is sincere: is there anything in it that's materially better than previous versions, that couldn't have come about by naturally evolving from XP without drastically altering a UI paradigm that most people found both comfortable and productive?
On the one hand Microsoft should be saying "screw them" and just move on. On the other, those people hanging on help to deteriorate the security posture of the rest of the internet and harm Microsofts reputation when they get hit with malware or other security issues.
Microsoft has an enormous user base. Trying to get that user base to move forward is painful. They're giving the OS out for free and people still push back.
For the second time in as many weeks you've caused me to examine my own sacred cows, so thanks. I can see how Microsoft almost has to push an upgrade really hard. Their deceptiveness still seems sleazy though, and probably wouldn't be necessary if they weren't forcing drastic changes in the UX and the business model instead of simply updating the security and maintainability of the OS.
... I have a very hard time taking these complaints seriously when in every case the people bitching are using Google for everything they can. Microsoft isn't doing anything with Win10 that Google isn't doing with Android/Chrome/Search and a plethora of web analytics.
Google lulled people to sleep, like the proverbial lobster slowly heating to a boil. Except for Android phones, (which are hardware that just happens to come with software), Google's products have never cost money. Microsoft software does cost money, and that's the perception even among people who only have Windows because it came on their computer. After all, lots of people have pirated MS software, so the fact that it costs money is widely known. How many people have ever pirated Google software? I think that has a lot to do with the inconsistency you call hypocrisy - in this case most people aren't aware that they're being hypocritical.
Just sleazy and unethical.
Which one? DMCA or Microsoft?
Nope, I'm a techie who uses Linux professionally and I don't like it either. You're absolutely right about them needing to start standardizing; it's way way overdue. The Gnome3 debacle, Unity, and consequential explosion of desktops made it much worse.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. As soon as Linux becomes 'standardized', it's only one small step away from being the next Windows, with all the attendant Microsoft-like corporate crap. IMHO, what's happening now with Red Hat and systemd, and what happened earlier with Unity and Gnome 3, occurred precisely because some players were pushing for top-down standardization. The only thing that saved average Linux users like me from being forced to eat one or the other of those crapcakes called Unity and Gnome 3, is the "I'll bloody well do it my way" attitude that permeates Linux culture. So if you want an inflexible monoculture with corporation-like motivations driving OS development, and you like the idea of "Android for Desktops", just keep on pushing for standardization in Linux.
I've been on Linux exclusively for about 8 years, and I too get frustrated - my two biggest peeves are the Freedesktop filetype / file extension mess, and the lack of fully-featured file-manager-integrated file search that MS managed to get mostly right more than 15 years. But I try to keep in mind that those frustrations are the price I pay for a level of freedom and autonomy that wouldn't be possible to me if I was running Windows, Mac, or some standardized OS.
FTS: "often, the police get a judge's sign-off for surveillance without even bothering to mention that they will be using a Stingray...claiming that they simply can't violate those FBI nondisclosure agreements"
So judges should just get into the habit of asking specific questions about Stingray, and anything similarly illegal, EVERY TIME law enforcement asks for a warrant. Force the cops to make a choice between lying to a judge and violating an NDA with the FBI. It would be entertaining to be a fly on the wall and watch the FBI get thrown under the bus a few (dozen) times in front of a variety of judges.
...The question is what happens to the people who don't have any skills other than those required for menial jobs.
No, I'm pretty sure the question is "what happens to even the people who have fairly advanced skills, when automation and AI can do their work so cheaply and so well that giving the job to a human is merely an act of charity?"
before the system is enhanced with on-the-fly password cracking to make the spying more universal? Presumably, (hopefully?), a lot of the passwords in use won't be easily cracked; but these days even a script kiddie could probably whip something up that would guess 25% of them, or more, in a short period of time. And I would guess most of the security on those cams isn't sophisticated enough to turf the attacker after too many wrong attempts, so basic brute-forcing would likely do a pretty good job.
But then again, what am I worried about? Law enforcement, being on the side of right and all, would never try to crack a private security system owned by someone who isn't even under suspicion of having broken the law. Oh, wait...
ATM is an acronym for Automated Teller Machine, so 'ATM machine' is redundant.
Certainly. What you posted is fantasy though so I'll try to reply without sounding like a prick.
Thanks - but I never thought you were being a prick. And because you work in Big Data I acknowledge that you're well versed in this subject and have likely given it a lot more thought than I have.
Where you went is not information about you. Neither is how you drive on a public road.
I suppose differentiating between information about 'what I did' and information about 'me' is useful here. But where I go on a regular basis, (and how I drive), although it's not information 'about me', can by inference be used to draw conclusions and make predictions about me, in a kind of profiling process, can it not?
Information about you would be medical data, information/communication you do with others (which I would hope you would be encrypting).
I have little or no say in how my medical data is handled. As for encryption, I don't use it in my communication with others because I don't want to be regarded with suspicion by whoever might be monitoring. I have no reason to believe that TLA's have any specific interest in me; but it seems that they monitor almost everything these days, and I think encrypted emails might be a red flag for them.
You've fallen into a trap that many people do. You've started off with the premise that people are looking for you. They aren't. You then proceed to list ways they "could" be looking at you, which they aren't. You then proceed to go on about how offensive this looking at you is, which it isn't because it isn't happening.
I don't think I'm operating under the premise that people are looking for me. But I do believe that technologies which make it much easier for people who might want to find out information about me, are dangerous. For example, say I'm applying for a job, and my prospective employer finds out that I've visited a gun shop, a head shop, a massage parlour, or any other place that would make it seem to him or her that I'm a risky hire. Now I would say that's none of the prospective employer's business. I suspect you would say that, because my activities were in public, I have no reasonable expectation of privacy, and that alone makes it the prospective employer's business.
My point is that because of technology, the scope of 'in public' has grown hugely in space, in time, and in detail. Somebody across the world may be able to see me in public in real time, and because video is recorded, what I do outside of my own home may be part of a readily accessible record for a very long time. By changing the scope, technology has effectively changed the definition of 'public'. Additionally, when it comes to the IoT and to things like Samsung smart TV's, technology is arguably extending 'public space' inside private residences. So when we talk about "in public" here in 2016, that ain't the same "in public" we talked about twenty years ago, IMHO.
I don't say these things to be mean. This is common because you don't understand it, yet you're intelligent and struggle to understand it using filters you already possess, ignorant of the fact those filters are not adequate to this particular task. You must first understand where privacy applies (not in public), you can then decide when something is violating your privacy.
Thanks for the disclaimer, but again, I don't see you as being mean. As for the filters, you're right, and thanks for pointing it out. This dialog has been a worthwhile exercise for me, and I'm in the process of re-evaluating what privacy is and its importance to me.
Regarding 'where privacy applies', see my argument above. I think both the definition and the common perception of 'in public' has changed, and continues to change rapidly. If privacy is something which applies 'not in public', then I'm pretty sure that privacy is shrinking, simply because 'public'
By way of reply I'll quote Insightfill, (from farther down in the thread), who puts to rest my comfort in not having my picture plastered all over the web, and also addresses the privacy / anonymity question:
Similar to web cookies, the aggregation of multiple sightings of you in public will construct an "identity" of you far more detailed than currently exists in the public record today. The sum total of where you live, where you shop, where you work, where (and who!!!) you visit will result in a profile fingerprint that's just as useful, simply lacking your name. It's enough.
I would add that with all the friends and acquaintances I have who participate in social media, the name to go along with that profile won't be long in coming.
So with pictures on FindFace and the like, and the inevitable geolocation data attached to them, at some point my interests, food preferences, entertainment preferences, friendships, family associations, daily habits outside my home, fashion preferences, driving style, and probably many other things, become public knowledge available at almost anyone's fingertips.
Wkipedia defines 'privacy' as "...the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves, or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively." I'd be interested to hear your take on how the situation I described above is even remotely compatible with the concept of privacy.
Very insightful. I'd mod you up if I hadn't already posted.