Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Muz]

I just attended a presentation by one of the top men of [very famous high-tech company] that does a lot of information research, manufactures electronics, computers, etc. Now there's been all these conspiracy theories about the government tracking us through health services, reading our emails, tracing every form and credit card transaction we make.

What's scary is that the real thing is much worse. There's a lot of research in high-tech industries about utilizing technology in our every day lives. What the presenter did was that he rigs his home with infrared sensors to switch off the lights when there's no movement, as well as checking the water levels in his house and electricity usage. Any engineer knows that this helps in reducing wastage.

A funny result of all this was that if he used more than one sensor, he could calculate how many people are in a room. And using electricity/water patterns, he could tell when the kettle is on, dishwasher, or when someone is using a heater, or even when someone opens the fridge. All this from invisible sensors. It's apparently very useful for, in his words, "seeing whether the laundry is piling up", but I'm sure that he could use it to sense whether there's two adults in the bedroom

I'm sure this has nothing to do with you guys, since people aren't reading your electricity/water/burglar alarm patterns

So, here's something more interesting. One of their jobs is to do market research for other companies. [Food giant] has hired them to find alternate uses for [very popular product]. Instead of doing focus groups, they stalked Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, forums, and blogs, and noted down every mention of [very popular product]. They then filtered out the worthless data, found out what people loved and hated about the product, and even came out with [product v.2] that caters to [market segment]. They even found out that some popular chef somewhere used their product extensively, and decided to aim at his country as their market.

The interesting thing is that every technology used this days can track you and what you're doing. Your mobile phone, credit card, and laptop lets people track you down very accurately. In fact, every thing you type on the Internet could reach the ears of some corporate giant. They try to keep you anonymous, unless it's really beneficial for them not to.

So, what do you guys think about all this stalking?

[Emperor_Jonathan]

I'm not doing anything illegal.

[Rooster]

I heard that checking your friends on facebook can determine whether you're gay or not.
It worked on a 100 people experiment. That's really not cool cause I'd rather not tell anybody I know IRL about my sexuality

[sneakey pete]

I can't see how this is bad. I mean, it means the companies know no to send a sales rep around when there's 2 adults in the bedroom...

[Neruz]

The more you enter into a 'hive' like networked society that the Internet caters to, the less privacy you have. That's just how it works.

The more you communicate with people, the less privacy you have from them, as privacy is, by it's very definition, the lack of communication.


Also "Oooh noooes! The governmanment can track my EVERY MOVE! Wait, why would they want to?"

[Cheeetar]

I don't think I'm important enough to have my every move watched, at any time now or in the future.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

I don't think I'm important enough to have my every move watched, at any time now or in the future.

I think I'll do.

So do Toady. If he is famous enough in the hardcore simulation niche, and even attracts people OUT of the niche... Then...

Indie game with highly extensive playerbase? And free? Have a working ideology? Do it for fun, not for profit?

THREAT! THREAT!

[TheNewerMartianEmperor]

Obviously we need some kind of hackers-on-steroids defensive force to protect him!

[Gunner-Chan]

Honestly, a corporation would have no use for Toady. They'd want someone that could crank out the newest version of the sims or madden in a month or two, not someone that slowly but surely makes something unique and interesting.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Honestly, a corporation would have no use for Toady. They'd want someone that could crank out the newest version of the sims or madden in a month or two, not someone that slowly but surely makes something unique and interesting.

Yeah, it's a threat to the current 'bastardised' game model!

THREAT! THREAT! KILL THE THREAT!

[Neruz]

Not really, Toady is one in a million and far too small scale to be of any concern whatsoever to a major company.


Look at how big the Demoscene had to get before a major company noticed it, those guys have been going for decades and it took Will Wright to give a damn, and so far he's apparantly the only one.

[Cthulhu]

Honestly, a corporation would have no use for Toady. They'd want someone that could crank out the newest version of the sims or madden in a month or two, not someone that slowly but surely makes something unique and interesting.

Yeah, it's a threat to the current 'bastardised' game model!

THREAT! THREAT! KILL THE THREAT!

Sure is bizarre psycho alarmism in here.

[Duke 2.0]

 The thing you must understand is that the big brother you describe can only happen with information already made public. And if it is available to the public then nothing about privacy applies. Facebook is fair game.

 As for IR sensors, note not only can one easily foil them(Depending on how it is configured) but it only tracks movement. Ther eis no way the system can identify what the person is or what action they could be doing. Two adults going into a bedroom looks exactly the same as two little girls sneaking into their parents bedroom to play with their mothers makeup. Again this depends on the configuration of the system, but as it stands people can only spy with information you make public.

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

LOL, I design, install, and program those invisible sensors in peoples home to do exactly what you describe.  There are allready ways to know if you are in bed, a chair, showering, if the dog is in a room, when the last time you did the laundry etc......  Scarily, nearly every one of these apps comes with a web program so you can check the status of your house when away (Did i leave that damn coffee pot on the stove?  Have the neighbors broke in and started an orgy?).  Yes, a hacker could easily gain control of the house, access all the camera's, record everything going on and make a list of everyroom you visit and an educated guessas to why.  then he can start doing evil evil things like.....reprogramming the system to screw with you (why are my bedroom lights flashing at me a 3 am everynight?  Why do my sprinklers turn on only when i am outside by the pool?  Why is there a voice saying "GET OUT" coming from my speakers? (yes, you can download personal wave files for automated playback based on a trigger - ie, invisi sensor thingy goes off)  Why does my heater keep turning on in the summer, and why do the police show up every day for a false alarm?) 
Luckily, a good systems sits behind multiple firewalls and networks, but not every installer knows about that sort of thing sooooooooooooo.  Also, each on of these things has an Iphone app you can get, which is a problem because http://www.gormogons.com/2009/09/two-fer-tuesday.html apple sucks ballz (ohh, ima gonna get it for that one i bet).

[Rashilul]

"I'm so glad I live in a primitive house."