I actually thing this will be better.. much better.
There once was a time, when a company would see a website, think "hey, a lot of my potential customers probably use this site", then contact and arrange advertising. I think this worked better than the current algorithms with all their user data.
More importantly, users of that site would see the same hand-targetted ads, for days or weeks on end. Ads are more effective in my opinion over time. The few web ads I've actually gone for have been ads that I saw over and over, until curiosity finally got me.
There's not even a chance that this law will be found Constitutional by the SCC or acceptable by the privacy comissionner.
I really hope you are right.
While I don't think our system here in Canada is perfect, it does seem to have an ok track record of squashing these insane laws before they become a reality.
I'm amazed it hasn't happened yet.. but the eventual step is to criminalize those very tools. Won't even be hard, under the guise that they "enable child pornographers and organized crime".. because well.. they actually do (create a system for transfering data anonymously and some people are going to use it for bad things, impossible to have selective total privacy, etc..).
Indeed. Seems to be the case in all their products.
Sony used to be a name to be reckoned with. They were like DeWalt or Bose.. you could probably get the same quality for less if you knew what you were doing, but Sony was a safe choice and worth the extra money to know you were getting something decent.
Now, they are just on par with everyone else.. and as you said.. people have noticed.
Been my experience (as an unfortunate PS3 owner) that most games are built assuming network connectivity. Most can be played fine without it, but in a lot of cases you miss out on features, (important) updates, and downloadable content (which I actually have no problem with.. if they wern't using piss-poor security when dealing with the customer data).
I do totally agree on the whole "I just want a game console" thing though. Luckily most of that cruft is easy to ignore.
May be fine if you have lots of experience and they have specifically saught you out...
For the rest of the world, people are usually just happy to have snagged a job.. the last thing they are gonna do is start making waves before they even get their first pay cheque. Most "negotiations" regarding this kind of boilerplate "everyone signs it" agreement is along the lines of "your employment is conditional on your signing this, if you'd prefer not to, be sure to turn in your card on the way out!"
Or, as the proctor, spend your time trolling the "do my homework for me" sites looking for test questions, and supplying hilariously wrong answers.
That might hurt legitimate users of the site (there are probably a few!).
I think the first idea was right. Record the entire session.. and review when marking the test. Maybe skim most, and go through a randomly (or not) selected set with a fine tooth comb.
Sounds overcomplicated and probably more work than preparing an equation sheet.
Personally I think the best answer is monitoring. Record the screen throughout the test.. review it when you review the completed test. Shouldn't be too hard to see cheating just by skimming through. Even if you just randomly select a few and thoughoutly go through them I think it would work..
I hope they are keeping in mind how low the bar is when studying YouTube comments.
Behind every terrifying comment on a youtube video is a member of the youtube audience. The very same audience this rating system is supposed to speak to. I’ll accept that youtube comment section has such a bad rap that a lot of people who would make intelligent comments don’t bother, but I think in general youtube reminds us that there are a huge number of very unintelligent people out there and they probably make up the bulk of youtube viewership!
Thing is, when you explain that to them the next question is almost always: "ok, so they know what exactly makes me tick.. how does that hurt me? Are they gonna market me to death?". Most answers involve a future dystopian world where their twitter comments are used as evidence in summary execution trials. This is about where most normal people say "ok then" and wander off.
I imagine like any data gathering exercise, the fact that a percentage of people are going to game the system has been factored in. Some people are gonna use multiple aliases to try and get multiple rewards. Some people are going to install the software and never use it.. hell that will happen unintentionally (computers break/are replaced).
Personally I don't think it's worth the effort for $25.
Life has risks. Given the large number of facebook users and the small number of cases where people are hurt in this manner, I'd equate this style of thinking to saying that people shouldn't drive cars because you hear about people dying in accidents all the time (for that matter, you car is also a pretty damn good indicator of whether you are home.. wouldn't take a criminal mastermind too much effort to figure out that my house is empty Monday to Friday for about 9 hours a day).
Again, this is coming down to priorities. I suspect that even being fully aware of the risks, most people enjoy the whole social networking thing to a degree where they would do so anyway. I see no problem with this. It's a calculated risk decision.
(That's not to say there arn't some exceptionally dumb people out there using facebook and such in a way that's blatantly self destructive and clearly no thought given to the implications of sharing their info).
I actually replied to someone else in this thread that I don't think this opinion is wrong or "stupid".
Some (maybe most) people have chosen a lifestyle where privacy is not the big thing to protect at all costs. Stuff like this where as you said they aren't doing anything sneaky... I also have no problem with.
I wasn't trying to imply that this was somehow worse than filling out a survey.. I meant that some view it at the same level of "I'm giving up X to get Y".
And yet we still hear stupid people complain about how facebook shared their data in a way they don't approve of.
I actually don't see this happening. Not saying it hasn't, I've just never really seen it. Occasionally I'll hear one of my non-geek friends state "ya know, facebook owns everything you put there".. but it's stated in more of an "interesting trivia" manner than a outraged "stop using facebook" manner (for the record, I'm the stubourn friend without the facebook/twitter/etc in my social circles).
The only people I hear complaining about facebooks no-privacy privacy policy are like minded geeks who know better and as you said, if they sign up anyway, they have no right to complain.
I don’t equate it to stupidity. It’s not that people don’t understand the implications of this. It’s made fairly clear.. “every site you visit will be known to us”. It comes down to having different priorities.
The Slashdot crowd is privacy sensitive. It’s important to us. The fact that it’s not important to others is something we have to learn to accept. We can’t always write it off as “well, they are just stupid.. if only we could explain it to them in the right way..” because they have a valid opinion. They’ve chosen to live a certain way, and privacy is not a priority to them.
This is one of those statements we need to hear from time to time to shock is into realizing that the vast majority of people out there do not value online privacy to the degree that the Slashdot crowd generally does.
The vast majority of people out there probably rank "letting a company mine my browsing history" somewhere around "filling out a survey".
I think any profit that could come from this kind of behaviour would be eaten up by the process of somehow hand picking the defective drives to send to.. in some cases.. very large customers.
Either way, lots of cases where this is the situation... in most cases there are special support arrangements in place (usually involving sending some token piece of the hardware back.. like the casing).
In fact, I imagine this could be a good tool to make therapy accessible to people with those sort of problems. Face to face sessions after patient gets comfortable could be a goal in the process?
I'm not talking about people who can't physically get to a therapists office... but people for whom doing so is a psychological hurtle.
I’ve never had the need to see a therapist, but I imagine if the situation ever did come up, this would be a lot more palatable to me that going in person. Can’t really explain why it just seems like a much smaller leap to me.
There have always been issues with police. The police are human, make mistakes, take things too far, and of course some of them do it consistently and have no business being in that position. In general though I'd agree and say they do a good job and are improving.
What has changed is the visibility. I think there is the same amount of abuse we've always had.. it's just much more visible to the public thanks to just about everyone having a camera and the ability to instantly share stuff on them at all times. This too I think is a good thing!
I guess my point is that I don't think things are getting any worse.. I just think we are learning more about how things have always been!
I actually sometimes wonder about the individual people involved in big media.
I mean we like to personify the RIAA and friends.. talking about it as some kind of big bad pure evil entity, but it's actually a huge collection of people all doing their individual (evil) parts. I wonder if these guys actually take these attitudes home with them, or if they just play the part at work/in public.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes! Please yes!
I actually choked on my coffee a bit when I read this!
I actually thing this will be better.. much better.
There once was a time, when a company would see a website, think "hey, a lot of my potential customers probably use this site", then contact and arrange advertising. I think this worked better than the current algorithms with all their user data.
More importantly, users of that site would see the same hand-targetted ads, for days or weeks on end. Ads are more effective in my opinion over time. The few web ads I've actually gone for have been ads that I saw over and over, until curiosity finally got me.
There's not even a chance that this law will be found Constitutional by the SCC or acceptable by the privacy comissionner.
I really hope you are right.
While I don't think our system here in Canada is perfect, it does seem to have an ok track record of squashing these insane laws before they become a reality.
I'm amazed it hasn't happened yet.. but the eventual step is to criminalize those very tools. Won't even be hard, under the guise that they "enable child pornographers and organized crime" .. because well.. they actually do (create a system for transfering data anonymously and some people are going to use it for bad things, impossible to have selective total privacy, etc..).
That's depressing. I've been looking to replace some of my workshop equiptment. :(
Indeed. Seems to be the case in all their products.
Sony used to be a name to be reckoned with. They were like DeWalt or Bose .. you could probably get the same quality for less if you knew what you were doing, but Sony was a safe choice and worth the extra money to know you were getting something decent.
Now, they are just on par with everyone else.. and as you said.. people have noticed.
Been my experience (as an unfortunate PS3 owner) that most games are built assuming network connectivity. Most can be played fine without it, but in a lot of cases you miss out on features, (important) updates, and downloadable content (which I actually have no problem with.. if they wern't using piss-poor security when dealing with the customer data).
I do totally agree on the whole "I just want a game console" thing though. Luckily most of that cruft is easy to ignore.
May be fine if you have lots of experience and they have specifically saught you out...
For the rest of the world, people are usually just happy to have snagged a job.. the last thing they are gonna do is start making waves before they even get their first pay cheque. Most "negotiations" regarding this kind of boilerplate "everyone signs it" agreement is along the lines of "your employment is conditional on your signing this, if you'd prefer not to, be sure to turn in your card on the way out!"
Or, as the proctor, spend your time trolling the "do my homework for me" sites looking for test questions, and supplying hilariously wrong answers.
That might hurt legitimate users of the site (there are probably a few!).
I think the first idea was right. Record the entire session.. and review when marking the test. Maybe skim most, and go through a randomly (or not) selected set with a fine tooth comb.
Sounds overcomplicated and probably more work than preparing an equation sheet.
Personally I think the best answer is monitoring. Record the screen throughout the test.. review it when you review the completed test. Shouldn't be too hard to see cheating just by skimming through. Even if you just randomly select a few and thoughoutly go through them I think it would work..
I hope they are keeping in mind how low the bar is when studying YouTube comments.
Behind every terrifying comment on a youtube video is a member of the youtube audience. The very same audience this rating system is supposed to speak to.
I’ll accept that youtube comment section has such a bad rap that a lot of people who would make intelligent comments don’t bother, but I think in general youtube reminds us that there are a huge number of very unintelligent people out there and they probably make up the bulk of youtube viewership!
Thing is, when you explain that to them the next question is almost always: "ok, so they know what exactly makes me tick.. how does that hurt me? Are they gonna market me to death?". Most answers involve a future dystopian world where their twitter comments are used as evidence in summary execution trials. This is about where most normal people say "ok then" and wander off.
just by demonstrating their flaws
I imagine like any data gathering exercise, the fact that a percentage of people are going to game the system has been factored in. Some people are gonna use multiple aliases to try and get multiple rewards. Some people are going to install the software and never use it.. hell that will happen unintentionally (computers break/are replaced).
Personally I don't think it's worth the effort for $25.
Life has risks. Given the large number of facebook users and the small number of cases where people are hurt in this manner, I'd equate this style of thinking to saying that people shouldn't drive cars because you hear about people dying in accidents all the time (for that matter, you car is also a pretty damn good indicator of whether you are home.. wouldn't take a criminal mastermind too much effort to figure out that my house is empty Monday to Friday for about 9 hours a day).
Again, this is coming down to priorities. I suspect that even being fully aware of the risks, most people enjoy the whole social networking thing to a degree where they would do so anyway. I see no problem with this. It's a calculated risk decision.
(That's not to say there arn't some exceptionally dumb people out there using facebook and such in a way that's blatantly self destructive and clearly no thought given to the implications of sharing their info).
I actually replied to someone else in this thread that I don't think this opinion is wrong or "stupid".
Some (maybe most) people have chosen a lifestyle where privacy is not the big thing to protect at all costs. Stuff like this where as you said they aren't doing anything sneaky... I also have no problem with.
I wasn't trying to imply that this was somehow worse than filling out a survey .. I meant that some view it at the same level of "I'm giving up X to get Y".
And yet we still hear stupid people complain about how facebook shared their data in a way they don't approve of.
I actually don't see this happening. Not saying it hasn't, I've just never really seen it. Occasionally I'll hear one of my non-geek friends state "ya know, facebook owns everything you put there" .. but it's stated in more of an "interesting trivia" manner than a outraged "stop using facebook" manner (for the record, I'm the stubourn friend without the facebook/twitter/etc in my social circles).
The only people I hear complaining about facebooks no-privacy privacy policy are like minded geeks who know better and as you said, if they sign up anyway, they have no right to complain.
I don’t equate it to stupidity. It’s not that people don’t understand the implications of this. It’s made fairly clear.. “every site you visit will be known to us”. It comes down to having different priorities.
The Slashdot crowd is privacy sensitive. It’s important to us. The fact that it’s not important to others is something we have to learn to accept. We can’t always write it off as “well, they are just stupid.. if only we could explain it to them in the right way..” because they have a valid opinion. They’ve chosen to live a certain way, and privacy is not a priority to them.
This is one of those statements we need to hear from time to time to shock is into realizing that the vast majority of people out there do not value online privacy to the degree that the Slashdot crowd generally does.
The vast majority of people out there probably rank "letting a company mine my browsing history" somewhere around "filling out a survey".
I think any profit that could come from this kind of behaviour would be eaten up by the process of somehow hand picking the defective drives to send to.. in some cases.. very large customers.
Either way, lots of cases where this is the situation... in most cases there are special support arrangements in place (usually involving sending some token piece of the hardware back.. like the casing).
Gotta start somewhere...
In fact, I imagine this could be a good tool to make therapy accessible to people with those sort of problems. Face to face sessions after patient gets comfortable could be a goal in the process?
I think it makes up for it in accessibility.
I'm not talking about people who can't physically get to a therapists office... but people for whom doing so is a psychological hurtle.
I’ve never had the need to see a therapist, but I imagine if the situation ever did come up, this would be a lot more palatable to me that going in person. Can’t really explain why it just seems like a much smaller leap to me.
Man, I remember when long distance plans dominated TV advertising. I remember _George Carlin_ actually doing ads for some calling plan! It was crazy.
I think this is yet another reason full disk encryption should just become the norm for people storing sensitive data.
There have always been issues with police. The police are human, make mistakes, take things too far, and of course some of them do it consistently and have no business being in that position. In general though I'd agree and say they do a good job and are improving.
What has changed is the visibility. I think there is the same amount of abuse we've always had.. it's just much more visible to the public thanks to just about everyone having a camera and the ability to instantly share stuff on them at all times. This too I think is a good thing!
I guess my point is that I don't think things are getting any worse.. I just think we are learning more about how things have always been!
I actually sometimes wonder about the individual people involved in big media.
I mean we like to personify the RIAA and friends.. talking about it as some kind of big bad pure evil entity, but it's actually a huge collection of people all doing their individual (evil) parts. I wonder if these guys actually take these attitudes home with them, or if they just play the part at work/in public.