Most phones will do this automatically, so this "study" is bogus. Even their numbers, 97% vs 95% success is so close that it can be considered statistically similar.
The reason for those numbers could range from different conditions during the testing hours (for example, number of cell phones in the area, weather, etc) to simply one or two of the phones tested not handling the switch well.
What baffles me is why would anyone study this. People really have too much time on your hands. And I have half a mind to say that they have no idea how most cell phones work.
The problem with most people was never that it was gathering info, but that everyone could access it. If someone stole your phone they'd have a footprint of your life in their hands. They encrypt it now and it's fixed.
Google's data is only accessible if you root the phone... And it'll only send info back and forth if you consent (Basically, if you want to use the geolocation boost you are forced to share your info too).
The issue is not a non issue. there is nothing wrong, in my opinion, in gathering information (remember, we are using some pretty neat services for "free", like gps), but you have to do it right.
Speech recognition is nowhere near perfect enough to make this replace anyone.
You can train a machine to recognize a person and/or dialect (without accent), but never to be perfect. I do believe that the Indian guy answering the phone will be able to type this into a terminal and get reasonable answers (very much like it did with jeopardy), and that might streamline the process, leading to less need for employees.
They are suing companies that have enough money to defend themselves, and will invalidate it by claiming prior art (this system has been used for a long time now).
It's patent troll 1 - 0 - 1, sue those without enough money to a lengthy court battle so you can charge a "reasonable" amount to forget the whole thing.
It's easier to have the default opt out (Don't want porn, don't go there) than force everyone to change DNS settings.
It's not trivial. And I highly doubt you'll open anything like that by "mistake" more than once:)
Also, most parental control software is a lot easier to install and there are even some free alternatives... In an ideal world I'd say the government would give you the tools to block it if you wanted (government sponsored software) and not force it on anyone.
PS: And correct me if I'm wrong, but blocking some site or another in australia, if a high level DNS is used, isn't there the possibility of contamination to other DNS's?
Well, with all the homework done, it could easily be adapted to spy on your employees, especially if they are using a company phone.
You could leave your company phone somewhere, true, but if someone happens to call you...:)
The shared database is a bit more tricky. I'd imagine that using the phone in a purse or in your pant's pocket would give out different signals, so each case would have to be trained individually. Only after a few months of training with enough people recording "soundprints" would you be able to use it in that way... But why would those people be using it in the first place is a mystery to me.
Or maybe "gee, I'm a boss that wants to know where their employees are, lets use something like this":)
On a more serious note, this will require training and labeling of the system, wifi/rfid based models just work everywhere (with varying degrees of success)
oh, and by the way, if the internet was working, then electricity had to be working, and so did the phones. I highly doubt that you heard that anywhere.
supernodes are not run by skype, they are user's computers that satisfy some conditions (not behind a firewall, decent computer/connection). It's all peer to peer.
this was common and part of a course project for everyone there.
it would be usable and it actually is a (very) simple version of how the Gnutella network worked which, if I remember correctly, allowed a very minimalist chat.
also, skype is 99.999% p2p and it has been around for years (although it is a bit more advanced that this scheme).
meh, for anyone that studied this in any degree there is nothing that astonishing in what has been done. Hurray, uTorrent has a chat client that is p2p based. Still cool, but not news.
I implemented something like this once, a long time ago, on a small scale. Just use sequence numbers to determine order, it might not be perfect, but it worked. Each client held a hash table with a limit size (can't remember) of the people they could "see". If you couldn't find a target you'd just "multicast" it to all the ones you knew were there and ask them to deliver, with a limited number of hops (to avoid infinite cycles).
The initial connection relied on invites. This was academic work, kind of a proof of concept. Why would this be news in this day and age baffles me.
They have 5 level high level characters following a leader and mirroring what it does. That allowed them complete a few select instances, providing them with some gold.
Selling that gold is what the spamm is for (mainly). Those 5 characters could vouch for anyone.
Furthermore, there is a bigger problem. Right now the spamming is pretty much only done with hacked accounts. If they'd get those hacked accounts to vouch for a low level character, they'd be able to spamm twice as much with each compromised player.
Honestly, I don't believe there is a solution to this problem other than make spamming irrelevant (by basing the economy on something you can't buy). But that would also screw a part of the game (trade skills give money, what's the point of those if money goes away?).
I'm sure blizzard theorized quite a lot around the issue, and I sure hope they solve this problem some day... I just don't think they will.
Lots of personal information stolen from customers;
They BUY the game and pay for anonymizers/vpn's so they can spamm, I'm sure a 2$ sms would not bother them. But I highly doubt that if someone is trying the game for free would pay 2$.
They could also "phone in"; Also, do you know many people that would gladly give out their personal info and personal phone number if they didn't have an ulterior motive? Like spamming you? Furthermore, Skype accounts are free and many people don't own a home phone nowadays, since mobile phones became ubiquitous.
What they already did: Tried to block every international IP (from non-supported countries) to access the game. There was a s**tstorm - lots of players play from non-supported countries; Started to ban by IP, the spammers started to use vpn's/proxies. Tried to block vpn's and proxys, there was a s**tstorm because some legit gamers use those;
There is no way apart from requiring a photograph of yourself and of your ID card to allow for that, and I wonder how many people would trust a big company with those.
Slashdot Mirror
Most phones will do this automatically, so this "study" is bogus. Even their numbers, 97% vs 95% success is so close that it can be considered statistically similar.
The reason for those numbers could range from different conditions during the testing hours (for example, number of cell phones in the area, weather, etc) to simply one or two of the phones tested not handling the switch well.
What baffles me is why would anyone study this. People really have too much time on your hands. And I have half a mind to say that they have no idea how most cell phones work.
damn, modded you down by mistake, just posting to clear
The problem with most people was never that it was gathering info, but that everyone could access it. If someone stole your phone they'd have a footprint of your life in their hands. They encrypt it now and it's fixed.
Google's data is only accessible if you root the phone... And it'll only send info back and forth if you consent (Basically, if you want to use the geolocation boost you are forced to share your info too).
The issue is not a non issue. there is nothing wrong, in my opinion, in gathering information (remember, we are using some pretty neat services for "free", like gps), but you have to do it right.
yes, you can tune it well to a specific person, but you can't tune it for everyone.
Speech recognition is nowhere near perfect enough to make this replace anyone.
You can train a machine to recognize a person and/or dialect (without accent), but never to be perfect. I do believe that the Indian guy answering the phone will be able to type this into a terminal and get reasonable answers (very much like it did with jeopardy), and that might streamline the process, leading to less need for employees.
This patent will go nowhere.
They are suing companies that have enough money to defend themselves, and will invalidate it by claiming prior art (this system has been used for a long time now).
It's patent troll 1 - 0 - 1, sue those without enough money to a lengthy court battle so you can charge a "reasonable" amount to forget the whole thing.
Trolls and idiots, I say
It's easier to have the default opt out (Don't want porn, don't go there) than force everyone to change DNS settings.
It's not trivial. And I highly doubt you'll open anything like that by "mistake" more than once :)
Also, most parental control software is a lot easier to install and there are even some free alternatives... In an ideal world I'd say the government would give you the tools to block it if you wanted (government sponsored software) and not force it on anyone.
PS: And correct me if I'm wrong, but blocking some site or another in australia, if a high level DNS is used, isn't there the possibility of contamination to other DNS's?
Excuse me...
If DSL was up, then phones were up. DSL travels through your phone lines.
Also, nowadays, TV, phone and internet all share the same "pipes". Saying that "the internet was one of the only things working" is bulls**t.
If the internet worked, then everything else was working. Whatever he or you were trying to prove is irrelevant.
Well, with all the homework done, it could easily be adapted to spy on your employees, especially if they are using a company phone.
You could leave your company phone somewhere, true, but if someone happens to call you... :)
The shared database is a bit more tricky. I'd imagine that using the phone in a purse or in your pant's pocket would give out different signals, so each case would have to be trained individually. Only after a few months of training with enough people recording "soundprints" would you be able to use it in that way... But why would those people be using it in the first place is a mystery to me.
Or maybe "gee, I'm a boss that wants to know where their employees are, lets use something like this" :)
On a more serious note, this will require training and labeling of the system, wifi/rfid based models just work everywhere (with varying degrees of success)
I meant phones, as in, DSL and the like. It has nothing to do with power.
And you need power to have computers that can access the internet. I failt to see the point of anything you said.
oh, and by the way, if the internet was working, then electricity had to be working, and so did the phones. I highly doubt that you heard that anywhere.
Almost 100% of japan's buildings built in the last decades are built to withstand earthquakes.
The fact that the datacenters were secure only means that they weren't built next to the ocean (the tsunami did the real damage in most cases).
This is a normal thing to happen. Interesting, but not news.
Almost every single building that wasn't in a coastal city or near the ocean survived. Why is this news?
I wouldn't say fill the gap, but if MS happens to fall down I can see Apple buying them out.
supernodes are not run by skype, they are user's computers that satisfy some conditions (not behind a firewall, decent computer/connection). It's all peer to peer.
I believe the only central server is for authentication (as it should be). It might also save the "initial" budy list, but a local copy is also kept.
Or actually, 1 minute in google:
http://www.mjalali.com/blog/?p=10
"Skype Authentication Server: This is the only centralized Skype server which is used to authenticate Skype users. "
you're not getting my point :)
this was common and part of a course project for everyone there.
it would be usable and it actually is a (very) simple version of how the Gnutella network worked which, if I remember correctly, allowed a very minimalist chat.
also, skype is 99.999% p2p and it has been around for years (although it is a bit more advanced that this scheme).
meh, for anyone that studied this in any degree there is nothing that astonishing in what has been done. Hurray, uTorrent has a chat client that is p2p based. Still cool, but not news.
I implemented something like this once, a long time ago, on a small scale. Just use sequence numbers to determine order, it might not be perfect, but it worked. Each client held a hash table with a limit size (can't remember) of the people they could "see". If you couldn't find a target you'd just "multicast" it to all the ones you knew were there and ask them to deliver, with a limited number of hops (to avoid infinite cycles).
The initial connection relied on invites. This was academic work, kind of a proof of concept. Why would this be news in this day and age baffles me.
Skype is p2p and while you might not see someone right after you connect it usually ends up showing everyone and is reliable enough.
I'll just tell you one of their old techniques.
They have 5 level high level characters following a leader and mirroring what it does. That allowed them complete a few select instances, providing them with some gold.
Selling that gold is what the spamm is for (mainly). Those 5 characters could vouch for anyone.
Furthermore, there is a bigger problem. Right now the spamming is pretty much only done with hacked accounts. If they'd get those hacked accounts to vouch for a low level character, they'd be able to spamm twice as much with each compromised player.
Honestly, I don't believe there is a solution to this problem other than make spamming irrelevant (by basing the economy on something you can't buy). But that would also screw a part of the game (trade skills give money, what's the point of those if money goes away?).
I'm sure blizzard theorized quite a lot around the issue, and I sure hope they solve this problem some day... I just don't think they will.
Any computer that can be used to interact with your phone is enough (since iTunes is a requirement)
If you only allow your clients to do it in the office then yes, it should be safe. But is that as safe as BB?
Spammers nowadays have:
Lots of personal information stolen from customers;
They BUY the game and pay for anonymizers/vpn's so they can spamm, I'm sure a 2$ sms would not bother them. But I highly doubt that if someone is trying the game for free would pay 2$.
They could also "phone in"; Also, do you know many people that would gladly give out their personal info and personal phone number if they didn't have an ulterior motive? Like spamming you? Furthermore, Skype accounts are free and many people don't own a home phone nowadays, since mobile phones became ubiquitous.
What they already did:
Tried to block every international IP (from non-supported countries) to access the game. There was a s**tstorm - lots of players play from non-supported countries;
Started to ban by IP, the spammers started to use vpn's/proxies.
Tried to block vpn's and proxys, there was a s**tstorm because some legit gamers use those;
There is no way apart from requiring a photograph of yourself and of your ID card to allow for that, and I wonder how many people would trust a big company with those.
I'm sure they'd love to hear your ideas.
I'd say that whatever method you could use to "prove" you're not one, the spammes would use too :)
And most of the time they require the item to be returned in mint condition, and games with cd-keys and whatnot usually aren't accepted.