Unfortunately, this can only remain true for a short while.
The United States government has effectively unlimited money and they can continue throwing more hardware at the problem until they've effectively brute-forced surveillance. This occurs even if we ignore the advancement in capabilities of the hardware they'll be buying.
We've turned down a dark road and the powers that be seem poised over the accelerator.
It really is one hell of a business model. They use us as essentially unpaid employees, and we continue to use their services every day. Our use of their services, our very existence, provides them with valuable and necessary data to continue with their business plan/model.
This is effectively a mutualist symbiotic relationship - both parties are benefiting greatly from this, the only difference between this one and the ones we commonly see in the animal kingdom is that the anemone us clown fish live in protects almost the entire population of clown fish simultaneously, while allowing all individual clown fish access to any information generated by groups of the others, in addition to any populations living outside the anemone.
I don't see a problem here. The uproar over privacy starts anytime Google is mentioned but really, people are more than willing to provide the Internet - anyone who wants it - with their close personal information.
For now, Google is still doing us a favor.
Slashdot Mirror
Somehow, we didn't have the resources available
Unfortunately, this can only remain true for a short while.
The United States government has effectively unlimited money and they can continue throwing more hardware at the problem until they've effectively brute-forced surveillance. This occurs even if we ignore the advancement in capabilities of the hardware they'll be buying.
We've turned down a dark road and the powers that be seem poised over the accelerator.
Is the "online service" Oracle?
Nothing's stopping them, now that the iPhone killed their 3G network.
It really is one hell of a business model. They use us as essentially unpaid employees, and we continue to use their services every day. Our use of their services, our very existence, provides them with valuable and necessary data to continue with their business plan/model. This is effectively a mutualist symbiotic relationship - both parties are benefiting greatly from this, the only difference between this one and the ones we commonly see in the animal kingdom is that the anemone us clown fish live in protects almost the entire population of clown fish simultaneously, while allowing all individual clown fish access to any information generated by groups of the others, in addition to any populations living outside the anemone. I don't see a problem here. The uproar over privacy starts anytime Google is mentioned but really, people are more than willing to provide the Internet - anyone who wants it - with their close personal information. For now, Google is still doing us a favor.
Now I get to pay for the privilege of using their platform to give them my money.
Is this why I get angry when I haven't eaten?