IBM also imitated Apple in keeping the ROM BIOS source code closed, and making it legally difficult for anybody to reverse-engineer it.
I thought that at one point you could get a large book, from IBM, with the complete, commented, assembly source for the PC BIOS. I understood that is was intended as a resource for programmers, not reverse-engineers, but that it formed the basis for some of the early (CompaQ?) clones...
I could be making this all up, but I don't think so...
in meatspace, if i go into a ford dealership and put a big ad for chevy up in the middle of the showroom, they're not going to keep it up. Why? Well for one its private property, but also because its just plain ridiculous.
Guess what - What you see on your monitor when you direct your browser to www.ford.com is not a Ford dealership. It is not Ford property. Hell - it isn't even the ford.com web server. It's the output of YOUR browser. It probably doesn't even look anything like the output of MY browser.
Yes, the _actual_ HTML written by a web designer for Ford is copyrighted material. And your browser, and my browser, and the broswer of that guy down the street who just installed Gator, or Kazaa, are all rendering the same copyrighted HTML. They just do it a little differently.
Now, if you hack into the ford.com web server, and "put up a big ad for chevy" in the middle of their homepage, then yes, you have probably trespassed onto Ford private property, and done a couple of other things they can get you arrested for. And they especially won't like it because it advertises a competitor.
But if all you're doing is installing a program which pops up a chevrolet.com website when you go to ford.com, or even if you're writing that program in the first place, you're doing nothing wrong.
I control what my computer does when it renders a web page. What you are proposing is equivalent to legislation saying that I can't write notes on the Ford dealership ad in MY yellow pages (Or that the phone company can't put a GM dealership ad on the same page as that Ford ad).
It is silly. The solution to this (if there is really a problem in the first place) is in education, not legislation.
Then that's not a firewall, and shouldn't be marketed as such.
At best it's a packet filter.
A firewall should be a seperate machine, which, among other things, filters network packets to protect internal machines.
The fact that the software on the machine you are trying to protect is capable of actively bypassing the filtering rules set up to protect it means that you do not even have an effective packet filter. What you have is a marketing device.
I think what's going on is that these peripheral vendors, for whatever reason, are trying to play the same lockin games that people like Microsoft and Apple play, probably trying to milk the developers for license fees.
That's an old game for peripheral manufacturers, and one that doesn't work so well any more. The video card people, the sound card people, the printer people, the scanner people -- they've all played that game in the past. Those were the bad-old-days, though, when every program came with a half dozen driver disks just to support your printer or sound card.
Since then, we've evolved into a standards-based commodity market for peripherals. (And I hate to say it, but MS kicked off this whole trend with Windows 3.1.) Basically every peripheral out there must conform to (more-or-less) open standards, such as TWAIN, DirectX, or the Win32 printing API. And it's considered the responsibility of the manufacturer to supply drivers which provide that conformance.
There are essentially no developers for the HP scanner outside of Hewlett-Packard itself. Similarly, there are practically no developers for the latest SB Live sound card outside of Creative, and with the exception of some game companies out there, there is nobody developing a thing for your latest 3D video card.
The developers working for the manufacturer have to write the driver software, so that all of the other developers in the world can work with their hardware without paying any license fees.
The reason these companies won't give you the specs for their hardware isn't that they're worried you'll actually write an application which uses it -- it's that their corporate culture, with 40+ years in the hardware vending business, tells them "don't give out the specs, it makes it easier for our competitors to duplicate it, or even extend it".
I agree with you, BTW, that this IP really isn't worth as much as they think it is. They would have a happier, and more loyal customer base if they were to give out the specs, so that we know we can always write our own drivers, even 20 years from now. They are screwing us over, by locking us in to their drivers, which they have no obligation to support on past, future, or alternate operating systems.
> Clue: Open Source does not mean that everyone has access to the source. GPL-style free software licenses mean that those who can get a binary can get the source for free, which in this case would've been a good idea. Then the facility in question could've found and fixed the bug long ago.
This statement might actually be relevant if we were talking about a piece of commercial (or commercial-grade) software here. But we're not. This is about a piece of software written for a department of defense contract, and for which I would almost guarantee you the DoD got the source code. The military doesn't just go asking for bids for this kind of project and expect that in the end all they get is a 3.5" floppy disk with a binary on it. "Here you go, here's your nuclear materials inventory software. Now can we have our $10M?"
The GPL, or its absence, is completely irrelevant to the availability of the source code in this case. The purpose of the GPL is to stop people from distributing binaries without source code, or from modifying software without making the modifications available. This is a situation where a piece of software is written for a single customer, who then has the source code, and there is no incentive on anyone's part to try to distribute it, with or without source.
You are correct in that the GPL would not have given everyone on the planet (and their dog, and their neighbourhood terrorist, as some here are suggesting) access to the source code. But it's not the only method of making the code available.
> Or would you rather confidential government systems be running a closed-source solution like NT and not know who's getting what data from them?
Incidentally, I have heard reports of the US military getting access to source to MS windows when they've decided that it's important.
Open vs. closed source only makes sense in the consumer world of mass-market software, EULAs, shrink-wrap licenses and DMCA.
That doesn't look like it was done in the the name of "interoperability" at all...
But of course it was:
"My copy of Windows XP didn't work any more after I changed my hardware, so I took it apart to find out why! Oh, and by the way, here's what I found out..."
I wonder how long it will be until dial-up goes the way of BBS's?
Not soon enough for my liking... and I hope to see dynamic IP addresses go with it.
Dial-up access has done some good things for making the Internet accessable, but it's only a stepping stone to an infrastructure where every host is connected all the time over broadband lines.
The problem with dialup is that it enforces the idea that your machine is only a client, with just enough access rights to talk to the Big Servers out there. Big Servers, of course, require Big Connections, which cost thousands of dollars each month, so they are the exclusive domain of Big Companies.
The original intent of the Internet was that every machine would be equal, with its own IP address, and the smallest machine would have the same rights to provide services as the largest. Practically every consumer-level Internet technology seems designed to go against this, from Dial-up temporary connections through an ISP, to DHCP randomly assigned IP addresses, to Acceptable Usage Policies which prohibit running any sort of server at all.
I admire the goal of freenets, which is to provide free or affordable Internet access to those who would otherwise be without, but I would be much happier if they were unnecessary.
(BBS's, on the other hand, were a Good Thing. The phone company never once complained that I had a computer answering my phone line 24-7, or that I was providing services, which even little consumers like me were able to do. The consumer Internet has turned that model into a much more centralised system, where that sort of behaviour is not allowed.)
I don't think that just living within the area described is sufficient to call someone an American, without the accompanying citizenship. Plenty of people who are not Americans have taken up residence, even if only temporarily.
An alternate (better?) definition might be "Someone who is a citizen of any of the countries comprising 'the Americas'" (That covers all of the Canadian and Mexican US-immigrants who I just excluded, and includes most other people in this hemisphere who should be considered 'American':)
"They are saying the Dnet client costs 59 cents per second for the Internet transmissions!"
He doesn't refer to "one single Distributed.net client" like the writeup says, just "the Dnet client", which can just as easily refer to every instance of the client he has installed on the school's computers.
BTW, your link is broken. Try using <A> tags next time
> > According to the State of Georgia, one single Distributed.net client costs 59 cents per second in datatraffic.
As far as I can tell, that statement only exists in the/. writeup on this story. In the message on the bulletin board that started this, he only says that they claimed that d.net was costing them 59 cents/second. No mention of how many clients he was running (being the "configurator of the computers" he must have had access to more than one machine:)
And further down that thread, someone responds to him:
"Wow, you were outputing over 60k/day at peak time. That's around 400-600 P2-300's power, 2 years ago"
I can't remember what a reasonable RC5 rate is anymore, but that doesn't sound like the output of a single client, even if that estimate is outdated by two years.
Of course, even if Georgia is getting terrible rates on bandwidth, say $20/GB, he'd have to be using 29MB/second to be costing them that much. I'm pretty sure that no d.net configuration could possibly use up that much bandwidth.
"the fact that there is no license attached to a piece of software you have obtained (been given) does preclude you from using the software."
Not true. US law defines running software (or copying it into memory) as fair use right.
Oops... that should have been "does not preclude you from using the software." (Thanks)
So US copyright law expressly permits you (under fair use) to copy software into memory in order to run it. In the abscence of a license which might prohibit you from running that software under certain circumstances, then, you should be free to use the software as you like.
And copyright law still prohibits you from
making further copies of the software for distribution.
what gave them the right to use the software then? They should know it's copyrighted...
[My emphasis, of course]
AFAIK (IANAL, AFAIK), the fact that there is no license attached to a piece of software you have obtained (been given) does preclude you from using the software. Copyright law still expressly prohibits you from copying the software for distribution, but I don't think that was the problem in this case. People weren't makeing copies of the StartUpdate installation files, they were just using the software, which is a perfectly legal action in the absence of a license.
There is no way for them to see that you've changed the expiry date on your cookie.
When your browser requests a page from their site, it only sends the cookie name and value. The expiry date is never sent; it's only there to let your browser know when to delete the cookie.
There are ways for them to get around this (I haven't seen the cookie, so I don't know what's in it,) such as embedding the date-of-issue into the cookie value, but if the cookie format is just a string which says "Opt Out", then this hack should work for as long as their opt-out program is in place.
You don't use your "Player's Card" in the restaraunts, but what you do is charge it to your room. You will always be told to charge everyhting to your room, so they can track, and comp you on it.
Interesting... (+1, Interesting, except I'm fresh out of mod points:)
Do you have any idea how this works when they explicitly say that they don't connect husband and wife stats? The room number would be common in those cases, so who gets the points?
The article said one casino had information on a lot of people -- and it said only a fraction of them carried those customer cards.
Errm... yeah... I'm not as happy about that. Reading the article again, I see that Harrah's has been gathering information for six years now, probably before the cards were implemented (unsubstantiated guess:)
Presumably, they are getting this info through other means, like through your room number if you are staying at the casino, and if you bill things like food or telephone charges to your room, or if you have a line of credit at the casino.
The amount of information they can get from these sources must be insignificant compared to the loyalty cards, though. And they still can't gather anything from the person who walks in from the street and gambles with cash.
My assumption when I got the card(s) was that they were collecting info ONLY on my gambling habits.
My original point, though, was that you did know that they were collecting info on your habits.
I'm surprised at just how much data (onions comes to mind) they collect.
That surprised me too, when I read the article the first time. It seems, though, that the way they are getting this information is by getting people to use their cards in the casino restaurants (something I haven't seen).
If you are giving them your card when you order your hamburger (with onions), then you've got to expect that they have access to that data if they want it. If you don't want them to collect that kind of thing, just don't swipe the card (and of course, don't charge it to your room, either)
Now, that I severely doubt. I really don't think the average customer stops to think for even a second to consider what kind of information on their habits will be collected when they hear the magic word "free".
People may not know the extent of the collection, or the sophistication of the data analysis, but that is just a matter of degree.
The people who use these cards want the casino to watch them play. They want the casino to know how much they are playing, because they know that the more they spend, the more rewards they will get. They want the casino to know how they are playing - most casinos will offer better comps to people who play for big money on table games, even if the people who play all day on the nickel slots are spending just as much.
The promotional material for these cards is designed to give the impression that if you're a better gambler (from the house's perspective) then you could be entitled to better comps. They even go so far as to tell you what sort of behaviour they're looking for, in the hope that you will become a better customer:)
That pretty much says "We're watching you, and tracking your gaming habits, in return for these rewards."
The casinos are not trying to hide the fact that they do this. That's why they were so open about it in the article, even bragging about how well they can judge a gambler by the information they collect.
If they didn't want people to know that they were being tracked, then you would have seen a very different article here. Most likely, they would have had a lot of "No comment" quotes from casino executives.
Alright, yeah, some people are trusting. That's usually a good thing, except:
1) Online
2) When money is involved
Maybe an opt out policy is in order? Or an opt in?
Well, seeing as this story is about physical casinos, here's how it actually works:
If you are a regular casino customer, you can apply for, and receive, a loyalty card (you don't even have to be a regular, all you have to do is apply. It doesn't even cost anything.)
Every time you use this card, the casino gathers data on what you are doing, and for how long (how much you are spending - or winning). They do this because this information is valuable to them, and you do it because they are willing to pay (comps) for that information.
Everybody using a card like this knows that the casino is tracking them, collecting information about their habits. That's why they use the card. If they didn't think that the casino was watching, then why would they use it in the first place?
If you care more about your privacy, then your path is fairly clear - don't apply for one of these cards! If you've already got one, then just stop using it. The casino is perfectly happy to let you walk in off of the street and lose as much money as you want - in cash if you prefer it that way!
This is about as opt-in a system as you could ever ask for. Not only that, but it's a fair trade - you actually get something valuable in return for your information. And, as the article says, they generally don't even sell your information, as most companies would.
This seems like the most responsible use of private information that I've ever seen.
Of course, if you're worried about privacy in casinos in the first place, then maybe you should just avoid them altogether. There're more cameras per square foot in those places than just about any public place on the planet...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually it's only about 8.5 minutes, the way the trip's usually made
Thank you for your input, Slashdot user #202465.
Your sentiments have been duly recorded for posterity in comment #2251343.
Actually, it's G as in General.
IBM also imitated Apple in keeping the ROM BIOS source code closed, and making it legally difficult for anybody to reverse-engineer it.
I thought that at one point you could get a large book, from IBM, with the complete, commented, assembly source for the PC BIOS. I understood that is was intended as a resource for programmers, not reverse-engineers, but that it formed the basis for some of the early (CompaQ?) clones...
I could be making this all up, but I don't think so...
in meatspace, if i go into a ford dealership and put a big ad for chevy up in the middle of the showroom, they're not going to keep it up. Why? Well for one its private property, but also because its just plain ridiculous.
Guess what - What you see on your monitor when you direct your browser to www.ford.com is not a Ford dealership. It is not Ford property. Hell - it isn't even the ford.com web server. It's the output of YOUR browser. It probably doesn't even look anything like the output of MY browser.
Yes, the _actual_ HTML written by a web designer for Ford is copyrighted material. And your browser, and my browser, and the broswer of that guy down the street who just installed Gator, or Kazaa, are all rendering the same copyrighted HTML. They just do it a little differently.
Now, if you hack into the ford.com web server, and "put up a big ad for chevy" in the middle of their homepage, then yes, you have probably trespassed onto Ford private property, and done a couple of other things they can get you arrested for. And they especially won't like it because it advertises a competitor.
But if all you're doing is installing a program which pops up a chevrolet.com website when you go to ford.com, or even if you're writing that program in the first place, you're doing nothing wrong.
I control what my computer does when it renders a web page. What you are proposing is equivalent to legislation saying that I can't write notes on the Ford dealership ad in MY yellow pages (Or that the phone company can't put a GM dealership ad on the same page as that Ford ad).
It is silly. The solution to this (if there is really a problem in the first place) is in education, not legislation.
</rand>
Then that's not a firewall, and shouldn't be marketed as such.
At best it's a packet filter.
A firewall should be a seperate machine, which, among other things, filters network packets to protect internal machines.
The fact that the software on the machine you are trying to protect is capable of actively bypassing the filtering rules set up to protect it means that you do not even have an effective packet filter. What you have is a marketing device.
Plus, someone should tell him that the "laws" of economics are wholly unlike the laws of physics
Actually, they're quite similar, in at least one respect:
If you can break it, then it wasn't a law to begin with.
I think what's going on is that these peripheral vendors, for whatever reason, are trying to play the same lockin games that people like Microsoft and Apple play, probably trying to milk the developers for license fees.
That's an old game for peripheral manufacturers, and one that doesn't work so well any more. The video card people, the sound card people, the printer people, the scanner people -- they've all played that game in the past. Those were the bad-old-days, though, when every program came with a half dozen driver disks just to support your printer or sound card.
Since then, we've evolved into a standards-based commodity market for peripherals. (And I hate to say it, but MS kicked off this whole trend with Windows 3.1.) Basically every peripheral out there must conform to (more-or-less) open standards, such as TWAIN, DirectX, or the Win32 printing API. And it's considered the responsibility of the manufacturer to supply drivers which provide that conformance.
There are essentially no developers for the HP scanner outside of Hewlett-Packard itself. Similarly, there are practically no developers for the latest SB Live sound card outside of Creative, and with the exception of some game companies out there, there is nobody developing a thing for your latest 3D video card.
The developers working for the manufacturer have to write the driver software, so that all of the other developers in the world can work with their hardware without paying any license fees.
The reason these companies won't give you the specs for their hardware isn't that they're worried you'll actually write an application which uses it -- it's that their corporate culture, with 40+ years in the hardware vending business, tells them "don't give out the specs, it makes it easier for our competitors to duplicate it, or even extend it".
I agree with you, BTW, that this IP really isn't worth as much as they think it is. They would have a happier, and more loyal customer base if they were to give out the specs, so that we know we can always write our own drivers, even 20 years from now. They are screwing us over, by locking us in to their drivers, which they have no obligation to support on past, future, or alternate operating systems.
> Clue: Open Source does not mean that everyone has access to the source. GPL-style free software licenses mean that those who can get a binary can get the source for free, which in this case would've been a good idea. Then the facility in question could've found and fixed the bug long ago.
This statement might actually be relevant if we were talking about a piece of commercial (or commercial-grade) software here. But we're not. This is about a piece of software written for a department of defense contract, and for which I would almost guarantee you the DoD got the source code. The military doesn't just go asking for bids for this kind of project and expect that in the end all they get is a 3.5" floppy disk with a binary on it. "Here you go, here's your nuclear materials inventory software. Now can we have our $10M?"
The GPL, or its absence, is completely irrelevant to the availability of the source code in this case. The purpose of the GPL is to stop people from distributing binaries without source code, or from modifying software without making the modifications available. This is a situation where a piece of software is written for a single customer, who then has the source code, and there is no incentive on anyone's part to try to distribute it, with or without source.
You are correct in that the GPL would not have given everyone on the planet (and their dog, and their neighbourhood terrorist, as some here are suggesting) access to the source code. But it's not the only method of making the code available.
> Or would you rather confidential government systems be running a closed-source solution like NT and not know who's getting what data from them?
Incidentally, I have heard reports of the US military getting access to source to MS windows when they've decided that it's important.
Open vs. closed source only makes sense in the consumer world of mass-market software, EULAs, shrink-wrap licenses and DMCA.
A few hundred years ago, the (european) public believed (because they were told) that the earth was round.
And guess what? It is :)
A few hundred years before that, (almost) everyone believed (because of common sense) that the earth was flat.
That doesn't look like it was done in the the name of "interoperability" at all ...
But of course it was:
"My copy of Windows XP didn't work any more after I changed my hardware, so I took it apart to find out why! Oh, and by the way, here's what I found out..."
Not soon enough for my liking... and I hope to see dynamic IP addresses go with it.
Dial-up access has done some good things for making the Internet accessable, but it's only a stepping stone to an infrastructure where every host is connected all the time over broadband lines.
The problem with dialup is that it enforces the idea that your machine is only a client, with just enough access rights to talk to the Big Servers out there. Big Servers, of course, require Big Connections, which cost thousands of dollars each month, so they are the exclusive domain of Big Companies.
The original intent of the Internet was that every machine would be equal, with its own IP address, and the smallest machine would have the same rights to provide services as the largest. Practically every consumer-level Internet technology seems designed to go against this, from Dial-up temporary connections through an ISP, to DHCP randomly assigned IP addresses, to Acceptable Usage Policies which prohibit running any sort of server at all.
I admire the goal of freenets, which is to provide free or affordable Internet access to those who would otherwise be without, but I would be much happier if they were unnecessary.
(BBS's, on the other hand, were a Good Thing. The phone company never once complained that I had a computer answering my phone line 24-7, or that I was providing services, which even little consumers like me were able to do. The consumer Internet has turned that model into a much more centralised system, where that sort of behaviour is not allowed.)
I don't think that just living within the area described is sufficient to call someone an American, without the accompanying citizenship. Plenty of people who are not Americans have taken up residence, even if only temporarily.
An alternate (better?) definition might be "Someone who is a citizen of any of the countries comprising 'the Americas'" (That covers all of the Canadian and Mexican US-immigrants who I just excluded, and includes most other people in this hemisphere who should be considered 'American' :)
Thanks for the link, asshole. :)
What "the dude" states in the message is this:
"They are saying the Dnet client costs 59 cents per second for the Internet transmissions!"
He doesn't refer to "one single Distributed.net client" like the writeup says, just "the Dnet client", which can just as easily refer to every instance of the client he has installed on the school's computers.
BTW, your link is broken. Try using <A> tags next time
As far as I can tell, that statement only exists in the /. writeup on this story. In the message on the bulletin board that started this, he only says that they claimed that d.net was costing them 59 cents/second. No mention of how many clients he was running (being the "configurator of the computers" he must have had access to more than one machine :)
And further down that thread, someone responds to him:
"Wow, you were outputing over 60k/day at peak time. That's around 400-600 P2-300's power, 2 years ago"
I can't remember what a reasonable RC5 rate is anymore, but that doesn't sound like the output of a single client, even if that estimate is outdated by two years.
Of course, even if Georgia is getting terrible rates on bandwidth, say $20/GB, he'd have to be using 29MB/second to be costing them that much. I'm pretty sure that no d.net configuration could possibly use up that much bandwidth.
"the fact that there is no license attached to a piece of software you have obtained (been given) does preclude you from using the software."
Not true. US law defines running software (or copying it into memory) as fair use right.
Oops... that should have been "does not preclude you from using the software." (Thanks)
So US copyright law expressly permits you (under fair use) to copy software into memory in order to run it. In the abscence of a license which might prohibit you from running that software under certain circumstances, then, you should be free to use the software as you like.
And copyright law still prohibits you from making further copies of the software for distribution.
what gave them the right to use the software then? They should know it's copy righted...
[My emphasis, of course]
AFAIK (IANAL, AFAIK), the fact that there is no license attached to a piece of software you have obtained (been given) does preclude you from using the software. Copyright law still expressly prohibits you from copying the software for distribution, but I don't think that was the problem in this case. People weren't makeing copies of the StartUpdate installation files, they were just using the software, which is a perfectly legal action in the absence of a license.
There is no way for them to see that you've changed the expiry date on your cookie.
When your browser requests a page from their site, it only sends the cookie name and value. The expiry date is never sent; it's only there to let your browser know when to delete the cookie.
There are ways for them to get around this (I haven't seen the cookie, so I don't know what's in it,) such as embedding the date-of-issue into the cookie value, but if the cookie format is just a string which says "Opt Out", then this hack should work for as long as their opt-out program is in place.
Interesting... (+1, Interesting, except I'm fresh out of mod points :)
Do you have any idea how this works when they explicitly say that they don't connect husband and wife stats? The room number would be common in those cases, so who gets the points?
Errm... yeah... I'm not as happy about that. Reading the article again, I see that Harrah's has been gathering information for six years now, probably before the cards were implemented (unsubstantiated guess :)
Presumably, they are getting this info through other means, like through your room number if you are staying at the casino, and if you bill things like food or telephone charges to your room, or if you have a line of credit at the casino.
The amount of information they can get from these sources must be insignificant compared to the loyalty cards, though. And they still can't gather anything from the person who walks in from the street and gambles with cash.
My original point, though, was that you did know that they were collecting info on your habits.
That surprised me too, when I read the article the first time. It seems, though, that the way they are getting this information is by getting people to use their cards in the casino restaurants (something I haven't seen).
If you are giving them your card when you order your hamburger (with onions), then you've got to expect that they have access to that data if they want it. If you don't want them to collect that kind of thing, just don't swipe the card (and of course, don't charge it to your room, either)
People may not know the extent of the collection, or the sophistication of the data analysis, but that is just a matter of degree.
The people who use these cards want the casino to watch them play. They want the casino to know how much they are playing, because they know that the more they spend, the more rewards they will get. They want the casino to know how they are playing - most casinos will offer better comps to people who play for big money on table games, even if the people who play all day on the nickel slots are spending just as much.
The promotional material for these cards is designed to give the impression that if you're a better gambler (from the house's perspective) then you could be entitled to better comps. They even go so far as to tell you what sort of behaviour they're looking for, in the hope that you will become a better customer :)
That pretty much says "We're watching you, and tracking your gaming habits, in return for these rewards."
The casinos are not trying to hide the fact that they do this. That's why they were so open about it in the article, even bragging about how well they can judge a gambler by the information they collect.
If they didn't want people to know that they were being tracked, then you would have seen a very different article here. Most likely, they would have had a lot of "No comment" quotes from casino executives.
Well, seeing as this story is about physical casinos, here's how it actually works:
If you are a regular casino customer, you can apply for, and receive, a loyalty card (you don't even have to be a regular, all you have to do is apply. It doesn't even cost anything.)
Every time you use this card, the casino gathers data on what you are doing, and for how long (how much you are spending - or winning). They do this because this information is valuable to them, and you do it because they are willing to pay (comps) for that information.
Everybody using a card like this knows that the casino is tracking them, collecting information about their habits. That's why they use the card. If they didn't think that the casino was watching, then why would they use it in the first place?
If you care more about your privacy, then your path is fairly clear - don't apply for one of these cards! If you've already got one, then just stop using it. The casino is perfectly happy to let you walk in off of the street and lose as much money as you want - in cash if you prefer it that way!
This is about as opt-in a system as you could ever ask for. Not only that, but it's a fair trade - you actually get something valuable in return for your information. And, as the article says, they generally don't even sell your information, as most companies would.
This seems like the most responsible use of private information that I've ever seen.
Of course, if you're worried about privacy in casinos in the first place, then maybe you should just avoid them altogether. There're more cameras per square foot in those places than just about any public place on the planet...
AM I the only one who tired of people calling porn , pr0n. when I see pron, I think of seafood ,as in the little shrimp-like things.
For a good time, check out www.prawnography.net :)
No, but that sounds like a great idea for a new Web-based company!
I'm gonna stay up all night writing a business plan!