More and more participants will be using these - while they add to security, they can also add an extra item to troubleshoot in the event of problems. Configuring them should be the participant's responsibility (obviously) but if you are using free games (as some posters have suggested), they may be new to some people - so having a note of ports used would be a good idea for your network guru.
Avoid DHCP if at all possible, it's much better to have a well thought out addressing scheme.
And who is going to configure all those PC's IP addresses? If the uses, how many will get the address correct? Of those who get it wrong, what are the odds they use someone else's IP, giving you the headache of determining who messed up?
DHCP may have some gotchas, but having manually assigned IP addresses on any large scale is just begging for grief.
Make it clear that cheaters will be evicted with no refunds.
This makes it sound as if you have muscle on hand to physically throw out a gamer (probably not hard) and his overclocked, ubercooled, Kryotech/Vapochill/Prometia PC (probably very hard). An easier option, make sure that the network switches you use can be configured to block off individual ports. If someone is causing trouble, block their port and there is precious little they can do about it. Of course, cutting the network cable would be another way - but, hey, those CAT 5's may need some effort.
The problem being there is no way to tell how old the person who checks the email address is.
Agreed, but measures can be taken to verify someone's age (requiring a credit-card ID seems a rather popular one). However, given that a spammer is posting to millions of addresses, he/she is doubtless well aware that a portion of them are underage so the comparison between such individuals and someone going up to a child and showing them pictures should be a valid one. Since these emails typically include links to "teaser" images (which then pop up automatically for someone using Outlook Express without a suitably configured firewall), this should make it a serious felony. Which, BTW, is probably why every spammer that has given a public interview has always said they "don't do porn". Ha!
Corporate firewalls are not a replacement for a personal one either. That corporate firewall has no way to tell what application is trying Internet access - so a connection to port 80 outside could be Internet Exploder/Netscrape or SuperStealthTrojan with both being dealt with in the same way.
Both types of firewall are needed - and with new ways for malicious apps to piggyback onto legitimate ones like Firehole, an up-to-date personal firewall that can handle DLL injection (I believe the latest ZoneAlarm does as does version 2 of Outpost - currently in beta) should be thought of as a necessary companion to the corporate firewall. An application firewall like System Safety Monitor should also be considered - properly configured this can stop any spyware in its tracks.
Finally, restricting Active Content (ActiveX, Javascript and Java) to only a few "trusted" sites will do a great deal to prevent users from being affected by drive-by downloads, home page hijacking and various other forms of malware. A good reference on these can be found at Eric Howes' Privacy and Security Site.
There is an application called PeerGuardian that can block communications with untrustworthy hosts (using an IP list like the P2P Enemies list). Shareaza users should check the forums - especially the Security and Privacy one for the Shareaza Security Update, that does a similar thing.
Users of the Agnitum Outpost firewall can download the Blockpost plugin which blocks access to sites at the IP level (i.e. you would not even be able to ping such restricted sites). A Blockpost filter list based on the P2P Enemies list can be found in this thread.
Build your own, and you (and only you) control it. The one you buy is ultimately controlled by Tivo themselves, who log your activities (even if the data is not tied to subscribers now, it still can be in the future) and can set recordings without yourconsent.
Furthermore, there is no guarantee that Tivo will not inject their own advertisements into your future recordings - unlikely yet but wait until the subscriber number reaches critical mass - and don't count on being able to fast-forward these either.
Quite possibly - the original statement was correct when it talks about sound hitting both ears at 'more or less' the same time. It was also arguably correct about the bass sound wave being larger than your head (talking wavelength rather than amplitude).
Your "ripple" explanation of sound is a correct one, as is the situation of bass being harder to locate due to differences between their oscillation points seeming less.
Now for really high-pitched sound, the wavelength will be tiny (20Khz, say, gives 330/20000=0.0165m or 1.65cm). The phase difference between your left/right ears will be greater, and will vary noticeably since your head will be moving (even if you stand still, keeping your head rock-solid is pretty hard). Now this variation happens with lower pitches too, but not to as great an extent since the wavelengths are longer. You should find that, when trying to track the source of a high-pitched noise, you have an easier time if you stay still (a technique I used to track down which computer monitor had been left on in a lab a couple of times).
The comment you made about a sound seeming to be in front of you if the ears received it in the same phase does not take into effect the amplitude difference - this explains you not encountering your "5 cm situation". However, you can get this by using headphones and listening to an old ('80s or previous) record - stereo effects were created using amplitude difference only back then - it was only more recently that the "timing difference" (aka phase) between channels was included and used to provide a better stereo effect.
A sound is simply vibration of molecules. Amplitude is how much they are vibrating (which will vary according to what point they are on the sound wave, ie the phase). Wavelength (and pitch) is the distance between peaks of this vibration. A sound wave is best visualised as a collection of compressions and rarefractions travelling through the air. Your original comment regarding a sound wave being too large to fit into an ear seemed to misunderstand this (were you thinking of sound being a transverse wave like light?). While you could have a sound so loud that the amplitude involved vibrations larger than an ear, in practice not only would someone be completely deafened by it, they would also likely be pulverised (only a slight exaggeration).
The original poster talked about sound waves "being bigger" which was vague (could be either amplititude or pitch) but did then refer to bass (implying pitch and therefore wavelength). The poster did not mention amplitude - your arguments concerning it seem off the point (and, if you consider it, quiet sounds are as easy to locate as loud - as long as they are audible).
The location information comment was (an attempt) to explain why bass sounds are harder to locate - the phase difference is less noticeable with lower pitches. The amplitude difference is also used, but is less noticeable at low/high frequencies due to the ears' lessening sensitivity.
The original poster should have been talking about wavelength rather than wave size. The length of a wave can be calculated from the forumula speed(m/s)=freq(Hz) x wavelength(m). The speed of sound in air is about 330m/s. So a 60Hz sound (fairly deep bass) has a wavelength of 330/60=5.5 metres (this is why, btw, placement of subwoofers (doing 15-40Hz) in a room is so important - reflections and standing waves in this frequency range can be a major issue).
Now sound does not just "fit in your ear". It also travels through your head - especially through the bones of your skull. This is why your voice always sounds different from when you listen to a recording of yourself - when you speak, your ears pick up vibrations from your vocal cords through the skull adding apparent depth to your voice.
Your point about sensitivity at extreme frequencies (high and low) is a valid one. Location information is, however, also gained from the delay in the sound reaching the left and right ears. This is normally small but some people have bigger heads than others:-). This results in a phase difference between the ears but due to the greater wavelengths involved in bass, this difference is far less noticeable. Since this phase difference (along with amplitude and other stuff) is used to determine the source, this explains why bass sounds are more difficult to locate.
BTW, I am not someone who "REALLY KNOWS", I just spend too much time (and money!) playing with home cinema.
You could try a look at the Weemote and its "big" brother the Weemote Snr. They do have that simple layout you were asking for...
For the control issues, a Pronto may do the trick but you would need to use "discrete power codes" (separate IR codes for power-on and power-off rather than a toggle) - and whether these are available or not depends on the equipment you have (sometimes there are workarounds even when the codes aren't there - eg pressing Play will switch on many DVD players if they are off, so Play=Discrete Power On, Play+Power=Discrete Power Off). Check out your equipment by going to RemoteCentral, visiting the Files section and checking the Discrete Codes (go here for codes in Pronto format).
I would agree - this review was a rush-job and scarcely worth the paper it wasn't printed on:)
Further work with the Pronto should have come up with its greater flexibility and the ability to directly edit IR codes (gaining access in some cases to functions not available on the original remote - like service codes and discrete power codes). Last but not least, he should have checked the online resources available - like the Files section at RemoteCentral.
Nevo may be OK for providing the sort of functionality you might expect from a One-for-All but it falls well short of what a Pronto-class remote provides.
With Pronto you have almost total freedom on how you arrange your buttons and what shapes you use (Nevo limits you to a 5x3 button layout - although I believe you can change the button styles). You can also edit the IR code directly to access features not found on the original remote (manufacturer service settings, discrete power codes being two examples).
Best of all, you can share your files with others. Check out RemoteCentral (specifically the Files section) for some examples of what is available. With Nevo, you are limited to what UEI allow you to download from their website.
PDAWin for the Ipaq would be a more credible alternative (it can use the Pronto CCF file format) - you then just have the hardware issues of the Ipaq (not enough buttons) and the software issues (PocketPC - need more be said?) to deal with.
There are other issues too. IR Range is poor with PDAs (not really intended to communicate with equipment 20+ metres away) but this can be fixed with extra hardware.
Another issue is the availability of "hard buttons" (the physical ones v. touchscreen graphics). There are certain controls (channel, volume, cursor/menu selection) common to all devices and having them accessible via a hard button makes them more convenient (and spares touchscreen space for more specialised functions). PDAs invariably have very few buttons that can be used in this way (4 or 5 typically) while the Pronto in the review has 17 (counting the cursor pad as 4).
Finally there are software issues. If your PDA switches off after a few minutes, can you still adjust volume/change channel with a single button press? Or do you have to power it on, switch to the remote control application and *then* adjust the volume?
Pop over to the Scientology website and do one of their "on-line personality tests" in your friends name...for his profession put down "Venture Capitalist" or something else that suggests loadsamoney.
Did this for Alan Ralsky - wonder how much snail-mail spam he's received from them so far?
Great spam opportunity! Instead of "expanding your penis" you can now expand your screen! Satisfaction guaranteed! For more information contact: Alan M Ralsky 6747 Minnow Pond Drive West Bloomfield MI 48322
Hmmm...I would not agree that this is a consequence of the medium (presuming that you mean the POP3/SMTP protocols) but more a case of certain "features" (in this case, HTML formatting) being exploited in ways unintended by their creators - web bugs also falling into this category.
Whether you regard this as an abuse of the system or a clever twist on it is your opinion, but I believe that most people are not aware of this usage and would object if they did.
Given most people's relative ignorance of network issues, "fixing it" by firewall configuration is not an ideal solution for the masses - and not using email at all is a little unrealistic for most. Having email clients that do not downloading HTML links for remote servers *by default* would be a good start, but without a widespread education programme (an Internet driving test?) most users are going to fall prey to further tactics of this nature.
Email containing HTML links which cause your email reader to access the sender's web server can be an intrusion on your privacy. How? If unique links are used (i.e. a unique URL for each email) not only does it tell the sender that your email address is in use, it tells them when you read their emails. They can even set a cookie for future reference. This technique tends to be used a lot by marketing outfits - both "respectable" and downright dodgy (see here).
For this reason, my email is configured not to download HTML and is blocked from accessing any ports aside from POP3 and SMTP by my firewall just in case...
And if you were never born no processing could be done either, what's your point?
The point is that personal privacy depends upon personal data being restricted and given out as sparingly as possible. What information you give out today will be used in unanticipated ways in the future. Witholding information is therefore your best defense.
Their best intrest (sic) IS mine. If they can sell me something then we BOTH win
*You* only win if the item being sold was (a) something you wanted/needed and (b) at the best price. As anyone living in a modern society should have figured out by now, the most heavily-advertised products are invariably the most expensive (the prices include the cost of advertising) and price is never a guarantee of quality. Saying that a corporation's interest aligns with yours is high-order naivety - did those buyers of Ford Pintos who ended up horribly disfigured in accidents due to the car's design flaws have their interests served by Ford?
Laws cannot protect privacy. Intrusions of privacy can be too undetectable these days, the only way to protect someone's privacy would be to destroy everyone else's.
Rubbish, rubbish and more rubbish. European countries like Norway have strong and effective legislation. Breaches on an individual scale can be stopped by using encryption and auditing all database accesses. Breaches on a company scale will tend to show up more easily due to the scale involved but can be countered by offering rewards to employees who reveal company lawbreaking, along with having a properly empowered regulator. The last point you made about having to destroy everyone else's privacy is ridiculous - can you provide an example?
1984 is probably the most miscited book ever. Analysis after analysis has shown...
Examples of this analysis please? Links? The point about the 1984 reference was the issue of an all-powerful state determining every aspect of its citizen's lives. With the increasing amount of personal information floating around and the US Government's desire to access and integrate it, this scenario is becoming more likely. And yes, control *can* be maintained with a good enough security apparatus and contempt for human rights (look at Iraq, China, Burma for good examples).
Here are your options for the future. These are the only two.
No they are not. A third option is to have regulation of computer data (as in most European countries), but with extra restrictions on data transfer between companies. Strong one-way encryption of databases can be used to prevent illegal or illicit transfers (as covered here). And those politicians coming up with uber-databases and big-brother style legislation should be voted out of office.
This of course, requires active monitoring of the legal system and lobbying by the people of companies and legislatures. And it will be the sheep like you that rely on the activists to protect your rights.
The technology is out and there's no way to stop it. But... why would you want to stop it anyway? Just because you have a little irrational hangup on privacy....
If you want to live in a house with webcams everywhere making sure that you are not brewing bombs for Al'Qaeda in your bathroom, that's your choice. If you want every little action to be subject to public scrutiny and challenge then that is also your choice. It is however not mine, nor is it likely to be that of most of the people browsing this site. If you want to dismiss privacy as an "irrational hangup" then you deserve all the junk mail, intrusive advertising, conmen selling you penis expanders and "get rich quick" scams and other personal invasions that you are going to get.
...the collection of data is not the problem, the processing of it is
Without any data to collect, no processing can be done and no inferences can be drawn.
It's in the best intrests (sic) of the analysts not to err, and by giving them (allowing them to take) more information you allow them to be more accurate.
Yes, but *why* should you need to give information in the first place. Should you not be "innocent until charged guilty"? And with regards to analysts' interests, they are there to produce results - if the criteria are set to value quantity rather than quality then mistakes below a certain level will be acceptable. How often, for example, does a Wall Street analyst successfully predict market movements? With a lot of the correlation and even conclusions on data being supplied by data-mining software, there is going to be less of the "obvious mistakes" being corrected. Finally, bear in mind that their best interest is not yours. In the case of marketing, the goal is not to "know the customer" or "develop a relationship" (to quote some cuddly marketspeak) it is to get you to spend more money on their products and services. Unless you are wealthy enough not to care about money (is that your butler reading Slashdot? Hi Mr Smithers!) this is probably contrary to your best interests.
...it's simply not true that I lose control over this information in these ways because I never had it in the first place.
Sadly, this is more true for US residents - Europe has stricter laws on computer data (you can demand a copy of information held on you and have it corrected if wrong). Nevertheless, when you supply information you usually have an expectation in which you see it being used (eg using a supermarket loyalty card gives the retailer an idea of your purchasing pattern). However, if that information was sold on to, for example, a debt-collection agency to whom you owed money, they may use it to determine how much you were spending on luxury goods (chocolate biscuits, fruit cake) rather than essentials and therefore be used as leverage to demand a higher payment level from you - or even to increase their interest rate *just enough* to stay within the bounds of affordability. In other words, limiting personal data transfer between companies allows you to better predict the consequences of divulging personal data.
...you won't be able to detect that he's purchasing that undetectable bubble lens camera
Filming someone in a public place (where the expectation of privacy is low) is not as serious a problem (until this is coordinated on a nationwide basis to the extent that everyone is filmed doing everything). However, filming someone in their home should be a very different situation - and similarly what you watch, what you listen to and what you do within your home should be off-limits unless you specifically state otherwise.
If we sit down and accept it as part of our lives we will gain the benefits from it...
Err...ever read George Orwell's 1984? Information gathered on such a global basis has *far* more opportunity for misuse than benefit. Do you think you are going to hear about corrupt Congressman X if his contacts in the TIA-Stasi are able to blackmail every journalist with personal information? What about if a community leader/trade union official/ordinary Joe takes a stand against the State on some issue and then sees all their personal details bared to public view? "Knowledge is power" is something that could be applied like never seen before - and all in the supposed "Land of the Free".
Despite the somewhat trollish nature of this AC post, there are a couple of points that should be made.
TiVo *does* have the ability to "push" content (as demonstrated here) - it just has not done too much of it yet.
As for the collection of "aggregate anonymous" viewing habits - without knowing exactly what data TiVo themselves have on their database, how can you be sure that data will *stay* anonymous? The data could be stored by unique system ID without violating their privacy policy (which simply excludes tying the data to a household's account number) which *at some point in the future* could be associated with the account id quite legally (with a change in the privacy policy).
Corporations *give*?! This sounds as if you live on a different planet from the rest of us. The reason for gathering such data is to *sell* it to every marketroid who might have the vaguest idea on how to exploit it to get you to buy *more*.
Why is this a bad thing? First, you as an individual lose any control over the information that is being passed on *and* the correlations/conclusions that may be drawn. Listening to gangsta rap a lot and suddenly finding your credit rating plummet (stereotypical criminal) and being subject to more frequent "stop and search" orders by the police is one possibility. Developing a taste for Middle Eastern music and ending up on a profile as a "suspected terrorist" is another (and with Total Information Awareness steamrolling onwards this should be a real concern). On the other hand, would you fancy being deluged with dozens of ultra-short-lifespan CD-samplers through the post based on what the labels *think* you may like? (for an example of product tie-in gone really bad, check this out.
As for there being no hope for reversing this, well there are a couple of possibilities. Preventing any data being collected is one (either through aggressive use of security measures such as filters/firewalls or by not purchasing invasive products in the first place). Producing false/irrelevant data to "poison" the data pool is another.
That is good news. However DiSEqC 1.2 does have its disadvantages compared to a built-in positioner - due to limitations on the current that can be sent through the cable to the LNB (500mA if I recall), it is limited to dishes of 1m diameter or less and takes longer to move the dish. It is OK for some, but for a "dream system" I would go for a full positioner.
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More and more participants will be using these - while they add to security, they can also add an extra item to troubleshoot in the event of problems. Configuring them should be the participant's responsibility (obviously) but if you are using free games (as some posters have suggested), they may be new to some people - so having a note of ports used would be a good idea for your network guru.
And who is going to configure all those PC's IP addresses? If the uses, how many will get the address correct? Of those who get it wrong, what are the odds they use someone else's IP, giving you the headache of determining who messed up?
DHCP may have some gotchas, but having manually assigned IP addresses on any large scale is just begging for grief.
This makes it sound as if you have muscle on hand to physically throw out a gamer (probably not hard) and his overclocked, ubercooled, Kryotech/Vapochill/Prometia PC (probably very hard). An easier option, make sure that the network switches you use can be configured to block off individual ports. If someone is causing trouble, block their port and there is precious little they can do about it. Of course, cutting the network cable would be another way - but, hey, those CAT 5's may need some effort.
Agreed, but measures can be taken to verify someone's age (requiring a credit-card ID seems a rather popular one). However, given that a spammer is posting to millions of addresses, he/she is doubtless well aware that a portion of them are underage so the comparison between such individuals and someone going up to a child and showing them pictures should be a valid one. Since these emails typically include links to "teaser" images (which then pop up automatically for someone using Outlook Express without a suitably configured firewall), this should make it a serious felony. Which, BTW, is probably why every spammer that has given a public interview has always said they "don't do porn". Ha!
Both types of firewall are needed - and with new ways for malicious apps to piggyback onto legitimate ones like Firehole, an up-to-date personal firewall that can handle DLL injection (I believe the latest ZoneAlarm does as does version 2 of Outpost - currently in beta) should be thought of as a necessary companion to the corporate firewall. An application firewall like System Safety Monitor should also be considered - properly configured this can stop any spyware in its tracks.
Finally, restricting Active Content (ActiveX, Javascript and Java) to only a few "trusted" sites will do a great deal to prevent users from being affected by drive-by downloads, home page hijacking and various other forms of malware. A good reference on these can be found at Eric Howes' Privacy and Security Site.
Users of the Agnitum Outpost firewall can download the Blockpost plugin which blocks access to sites at the IP level (i.e. you would not even be able to ping such restricted sites). A Blockpost filter list based on the P2P Enemies list can be found in this thread.
Furthermore, there is no guarantee that Tivo will not inject their own advertisements into your future recordings - unlikely yet but wait until the subscriber number reaches critical mass - and don't count on being able to fast-forward these either.
Your "ripple" explanation of sound is a correct one, as is the situation of bass being harder to locate due to differences between their oscillation points seeming less.
Now for really high-pitched sound, the wavelength will be tiny (20Khz, say, gives 330/20000=0.0165m or 1.65cm). The phase difference between your left/right ears will be greater, and will vary noticeably since your head will be moving (even if you stand still, keeping your head rock-solid is pretty hard). Now this variation happens with lower pitches too, but not to as great an extent since the wavelengths are longer. You should find that, when trying to track the source of a high-pitched noise, you have an easier time if you stay still (a technique I used to track down which computer monitor had been left on in a lab a couple of times).
The comment you made about a sound seeming to be in front of you if the ears received it in the same phase does not take into effect the amplitude difference - this explains you not encountering your "5 cm situation". However, you can get this by using headphones and listening to an old ('80s or previous) record - stereo effects were created using amplitude difference only back then - it was only more recently that the "timing difference" (aka phase) between channels was included and used to provide a better stereo effect.
The original poster talked about sound waves "being bigger" which was vague (could be either amplititude or pitch) but did then refer to bass (implying pitch and therefore wavelength). The poster did not mention amplitude - your arguments concerning it seem off the point (and, if you consider it, quiet sounds are as easy to locate as loud - as long as they are audible).
The location information comment was (an attempt) to explain why bass sounds are harder to locate - the phase difference is less noticeable with lower pitches. The amplitude difference is also used, but is less noticeable at low/high frequencies due to the ears' lessening sensitivity.
Now sound does not just "fit in your ear". It also travels through your head - especially through the bones of your skull. This is why your voice always sounds different from when you listen to a recording of yourself - when you speak, your ears pick up vibrations from your vocal cords through the skull adding apparent depth to your voice.
Your point about sensitivity at extreme frequencies (high and low) is a valid one. Location information is, however, also gained from the delay in the sound reaching the left and right ears. This is normally small but some people have bigger heads than others :-). This results in a phase difference between the ears but due to the greater wavelengths involved in bass, this difference is far less noticeable. Since this phase difference (along with amplitude and other stuff) is used to determine the source, this explains why bass sounds are more difficult to locate.
BTW, I am not someone who "REALLY KNOWS", I just spend too much time (and money!) playing with home cinema.
For the control issues, a Pronto may do the trick but you would need to use "discrete power codes" (separate IR codes for power-on and power-off rather than a toggle) - and whether these are available or not depends on the equipment you have (sometimes there are workarounds even when the codes aren't there - eg pressing Play will switch on many DVD players if they are off, so Play=Discrete Power On, Play+Power=Discrete Power Off). Check out your equipment by going to RemoteCentral, visiting the Files section and checking the Discrete Codes (go here for codes in Pronto format).
Further work with the Pronto should have come up with its greater flexibility and the ability to directly edit IR codes (gaining access in some cases to functions not available on the original remote - like service codes and discrete power codes). Last but not least, he should have checked the online resources available - like the Files section at RemoteCentral.
With Pronto you have almost total freedom on how you arrange your buttons and what shapes you use (Nevo limits you to a 5x3 button layout - although I believe you can change the button styles). You can also edit the IR code directly to access features not found on the original remote (manufacturer service settings, discrete power codes being two examples).
Best of all, you can share your files with others. Check out RemoteCentral (specifically the Files section) for some examples of what is available. With Nevo, you are limited to what UEI allow you to download from their website.
PDAWin for the Ipaq would be a more credible alternative (it can use the Pronto CCF file format) - you then just have the hardware issues of the Ipaq (not enough buttons) and the software issues (PocketPC - need more be said?) to deal with.
There are other issues too. IR Range is poor with PDAs (not really intended to communicate with equipment 20+ metres away) but this can be fixed with extra hardware.
Another issue is the availability of "hard buttons" (the physical ones v. touchscreen graphics). There are certain controls (channel, volume, cursor/menu selection) common to all devices and having them accessible via a hard button makes them more convenient (and spares touchscreen space for more specialised functions). PDAs invariably have very few buttons that can be used in this way (4 or 5 typically) while the Pronto in the review has 17 (counting the cursor pad as 4).
Finally there are software issues. If your PDA switches off after a few minutes, can you still adjust volume/change channel with a single button press? Or do you have to power it on, switch to the remote control application and *then* adjust the volume?
Did this for Alan Ralsky - wonder how much snail-mail spam he's received from them so far?
Great spam opportunity! Instead of "expanding your penis" you can now expand your screen! Satisfaction guaranteed! For more information contact:
Alan M Ralsky
6747 Minnow Pond Drive
West Bloomfield
MI 48322
At last! Something useful to make with all those Enron share certificates!
Whether you regard this as an abuse of the system or a clever twist on it is your opinion, but I believe that most people are not aware of this usage and would object if they did.
Given most people's relative ignorance of network issues, "fixing it" by firewall configuration is not an ideal solution for the masses - and not using email at all is a little unrealistic for most. Having email clients that do not downloading HTML links for remote servers *by default* would be a good start, but without a widespread education programme (an Internet driving test?) most users are going to fall prey to further tactics of this nature.
For this reason, my email is configured not to download HTML and is blocked from accessing any ports aside from POP3 and SMTP by my firewall just in case...
The point is that personal privacy depends upon personal data being restricted and given out as sparingly as possible. What information you give out today will be used in unanticipated ways in the future. Witholding information is therefore your best defense.
Their best intrest (sic) IS mine. If they can sell me something then we BOTH win
*You* only win if the item being sold was (a) something you wanted/needed and (b) at the best price. As anyone living in a modern society should have figured out by now, the most heavily-advertised products are invariably the most expensive (the prices include the cost of advertising) and price is never a guarantee of quality. Saying that a corporation's interest aligns with yours is high-order naivety - did those buyers of Ford Pintos who ended up horribly disfigured in accidents due to the car's design flaws have their interests served by Ford?
Laws cannot protect privacy. Intrusions of privacy can be too undetectable these days, the only way to protect someone's privacy would be to destroy everyone else's.
Rubbish, rubbish and more rubbish. European countries like Norway have strong and effective legislation. Breaches on an individual scale can be stopped by using encryption and auditing all database accesses. Breaches on a company scale will tend to show up more easily due to the scale involved but can be countered by offering rewards to employees who reveal company lawbreaking, along with having a properly empowered regulator. The last point you made about having to destroy everyone else's privacy is ridiculous - can you provide an example?
1984 is probably the most miscited book ever. Analysis after analysis has shown...
Examples of this analysis please? Links? The point about the 1984 reference was the issue of an all-powerful state determining every aspect of its citizen's lives. With the increasing amount of personal information floating around and the US Government's desire to access and integrate it, this scenario is becoming more likely. And yes, control *can* be maintained with a good enough security apparatus and contempt for human rights (look at Iraq, China, Burma for good examples).
Here are your options for the future. These are the only two.
No they are not. A third option is to have regulation of computer data (as in most European countries), but with extra restrictions on data transfer between companies. Strong one-way encryption of databases can be used to prevent illegal or illicit transfers (as covered here). And those politicians coming up with uber-databases and big-brother style legislation should be voted out of office.
This of course, requires active monitoring of the legal system and lobbying by the people of companies and legislatures. And it will be the sheep like you that rely on the activists to protect your rights.
The technology is out and there's no way to stop it. But... why would you want to stop it anyway? Just because you have a little irrational hangup on privacy....
If you want to live in a house with webcams everywhere making sure that you are not brewing bombs for Al'Qaeda in your bathroom, that's your choice. If you want every little action to be subject to public scrutiny and challenge then that is also your choice. It is however not mine, nor is it likely to be that of most of the people browsing this site. If you want to dismiss privacy as an "irrational hangup" then you deserve all the junk mail, intrusive advertising, conmen selling you penis expanders and "get rich quick" scams and other personal invasions that you are going to get.
Without any data to collect, no processing can be done and no inferences can be drawn.
It's in the best intrests (sic) of the analysts not to err, and by giving them (allowing them to take) more information you allow them to be more accurate.
Yes, but *why* should you need to give information in the first place. Should you not be "innocent until charged guilty"? And with regards to analysts' interests, they are there to produce results - if the criteria are set to value quantity rather than quality then mistakes below a certain level will be acceptable. How often, for example, does a Wall Street analyst successfully predict market movements? With a lot of the correlation and even conclusions on data being supplied by data-mining software, there is going to be less of the "obvious mistakes" being corrected. Finally, bear in mind that their best interest is not yours. In the case of marketing, the goal is not to "know the customer" or "develop a relationship" (to quote some cuddly marketspeak) it is to get you to spend more money on their products and services. Unless you are wealthy enough not to care about money (is that your butler reading Slashdot? Hi Mr Smithers!) this is probably contrary to your best interests.
Sadly, this is more true for US residents - Europe has stricter laws on computer data (you can demand a copy of information held on you and have it corrected if wrong). Nevertheless, when you supply information you usually have an expectation in which you see it being used (eg using a supermarket loyalty card gives the retailer an idea of your purchasing pattern). However, if that information was sold on to, for example, a debt-collection agency to whom you owed money, they may use it to determine how much you were spending on luxury goods (chocolate biscuits, fruit cake) rather than essentials and therefore be used as leverage to demand a higher payment level from you - or even to increase their interest rate *just enough* to stay within the bounds of affordability. In other words, limiting personal data transfer between companies allows you to better predict the consequences of divulging personal data.
Filming someone in a public place (where the expectation of privacy is low) is not as serious a problem (until this is coordinated on a nationwide basis to the extent that everyone is filmed doing everything). However, filming someone in their home should be a very different situation - and similarly what you watch, what you listen to and what you do within your home should be off-limits unless you specifically state otherwise.
If we sit down and accept it as part of our lives we will gain the benefits from it...
Err...ever read George Orwell's 1984? Information gathered on such a global basis has *far* more opportunity for misuse than benefit. Do you think you are going to hear about corrupt Congressman X if his contacts in the TIA-Stasi are able to blackmail every journalist with personal information? What about if a community leader/trade union official/ordinary Joe takes a stand against the State on some issue and then sees all their personal details bared to public view? "Knowledge is power" is something that could be applied like never seen before - and all in the supposed "Land of the Free".
TiVo *does* have the ability to "push" content (as demonstrated here) - it just has not done too much of it yet.
As for the collection of "aggregate anonymous" viewing habits - without knowing exactly what data TiVo themselves have on their database, how can you be sure that data will *stay* anonymous? The data could be stored by unique system ID without violating their privacy policy (which simply excludes tying the data to a household's account number) which *at some point in the future* could be associated with the account id quite legally (with a change in the privacy policy).
Why is this a bad thing? First, you as an individual lose any control over the information that is being passed on *and* the correlations/conclusions that may be drawn. Listening to gangsta rap a lot and suddenly finding your credit rating plummet (stereotypical criminal) and being subject to more frequent "stop and search" orders by the police is one possibility. Developing a taste for Middle Eastern music and ending up on a profile as a "suspected terrorist" is another (and with Total Information Awareness steamrolling onwards this should be a real concern). On the other hand, would you fancy being deluged with dozens of ultra-short-lifespan CD-samplers through the post based on what the labels *think* you may like? (for an example of product tie-in gone really bad, check this out.
As for there being no hope for reversing this, well there are a couple of possibilities. Preventing any data being collected is one (either through aggressive use of security measures such as filters/firewalls or by not purchasing invasive products in the first place). Producing false/irrelevant data to "poison" the data pool is another.
That is good news. However DiSEqC 1.2 does have its disadvantages compared to a built-in positioner - due to limitations on the current that can be sent through the cable to the LNB (500mA if I recall), it is limited to dishes of 1m diameter or less and takes longer to move the dish. It is OK for some, but for a "dream system" I would go for a full positioner.
Warning! The link in the above comment is just an attempt to get Mr Anonymous Coward lots of ad banner clicks for a free shell or root account!