The Great Hack

[Art Blade]

interesting, and plausible. And horrifying

[PZ]

I use applications like facebook because many of my family use the platform, but I give fb useless background information, for example where they ask my education institution, I put "The School of Hard Knocks". It is the same for any of the other "personal information" I am asked. I always use a VPN so my IP address is never seen, and non of my data can be intercepted by a hacker, and all data is encrypted so even my ISP cannot see what I am doing. I use a dedicated PC for anything financial, and as I write, I could throw this PC into the trash if it ever became compromised and suffer no loss (other than the PC itself  ). I always use browser mods that eliminate any kind of fb advertisement.

It is all about knowing how to use the Internet, and if one is a bit careful, then it is a bit safer to use the Internet.

Sure, I know it is no guarantee that I will not suffer some kind of targeted advertisement or hack of some kind, but it protects me as much as it can without having to unplug my Internet connection.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I would love to have a refrigerator like Mandru mentioned, that keeps track of what I have, and what's been used up, and orders from a list of food I like to replace it, and I just go pick it up, say on a pre-determined day. So on my way home from w0#k on Tuesday, I know that's the day I've set up to pick up groceries, so I swing by, the market knows about when I'll get there, and has the order ready. It's already been paid for, I just put the bags in the car and be on my way. That would be so convenient, and would save me tons of time and effort.

But I'll never use it, or have anything like that installed in my house. Again, too much of a possibility (probability) [certainty] that it will be misused in any and every form. Too bad, I'd really like to have that option.

[fragger]

I too refuse to have any talking black cylinders in my house, or smart TVs, or anything "smart". The only smart things I want in the house are me and the dog (and the jury is still out over which of us is smarter).

Maybe I'm paranoid and silly, but I find things like Siri and Alexa distinctly unnerving. Fine for sci-fi shows maybe, but I don't want them in my life. If I had one of those talking ornaments, I just know one day it would pipe up and say, "I'm sorry fragger - this mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it" and would immediately lock all the doors and suck all the air out of the house.

[Art Blade]

that would be bit harsh, wouldn't it, vacuuming you in your own house.. what a crazy thought

Thinking about the technical possibilities, it would be easy and great to have a "smart" household, you can actually already do most of what has been described. If only the companies thought of how to design things that helped their customers, by that creating a fan base of sorts and becoming popular or even famous, making money based on superior but affordable design (including usefulness, software, user interface and all that stuff) and boy, we'd love it.

Unfortunately they only think about how to increase their profit by exploiting their customers. That's not a good policy but apparently almost everyone in the business is trying to ride on the gravy train. And apparently almost every customer is just too lazy to do anything about it, they willingly buy the *bleep*, get exploited, get deprived of privacy and whatever other human rights lol, and help those shady companies grow and become rich beyond imagination.

It is worrying to see how lazy and stupid most people are when it comes to those things.

[mandru]

I had read this but can not verify it.

Someone asked their iPhone "Siri, what do you think of Alexa?" and Siri answered "I like Alexa's blue light."

From across the room without being prompted their Alexa responded "Thank you."


That aside I don't remember the specifics but one of the voice command assistants (I believe Alexa) will lock you out of usage if you use sexually abusive speach towards it.  At the time it struck me as odd but more over recently after learning that there are living agents monitoring the in home conversations this decision was made to protect their employees from suffering through coarse language.

[Art Blade]

A colleague of mine once demonstrated that, he somehow had something like that as an app on his phone and when he called his phone (or the "female" app) a bitch, "she" would respond kind of angrily. He said it was new, that they had updated the app in a way that you can't rename "her" nor using explicit language and stuff.

I don't care about people's feelings monitoring my private life. If I had such an app or one of those spying cylinders at home, I would do whatever pleases me. It is my undisputed right within my own home. We're obviously not talking murder, just normal every day's life.

Calling apps and cylinders names, being "abusive" (the sheer thought amuses me, it is a bloody THING, it's HARD and SOFT WARE for crying out loud, nothing intelligent and much less alive) or even being physically abusive by smashing that *bleep* to pieces, it's MY property and MY private life and I can bloody well do as I please without anyone having any right to feel offended while spying on me.

Imagine buying one of those things and reading in the contract that you're not allowed to swear nor to abuse that thing. WHAT?

Then again.. it's actually not "spying" on anyone. Just read the fine print. You know, that paragraph on page 432, middle of the page..

[fragger]

I just know one day it would pipe up and say, "I'm sorry fragger - this mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it" and would immediately lock all the doors and suck all the air out of the house.

that would be bit harsh, wouldn't it, vacuuming you in your own house.. what a crazy thought

The line in quotes is a paraphrased bit of dialogue from 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL9000 says that to Dave Bowman after stranding Dave in his pod outside the Discovery after he has killed the people on board who were still in hibernation (and depressurized the ship). I was wondering if anyone would recognize the dialogue or not

[Art Blade]

Although I didn't think of 2001, that line seemed strangely familiar. Now I know why I didn't make a connection because of the context even though "sucking air out" reminded me of air locks within some space craft. Well, I'm very glad that no one is going to seal your home and sucking the air out of it

[BinnZ]

Speaking of Cambridge Analytica, what about these 'fine gentlemen'?

Revealed: Johnson ally's firm secretly ran Facebook propaganda network

[Art Blade]

I think the idea alone, of making it a business to create manipulative content for preferably shady paying customers, is worth condemning. Actually doing it is essentially a criminal endeavour. Keeping a close friendship with those people who actually run such businesses is at least as bad if not worse than actually running such businesses oneself. Making use of such services is probably the worst thing to do. And it certainly doesn't make Boris Johnson look any better knowing about said businesses run by Sir Lynton Crosby and his close relationship to him.

[fragger]

These practices are abominable, of course Companies like Cambridge Analytica and CTF are like the heads of a Hydra - chop one off and two more grow back in its place. This sort of thing is bound to persist, it's far too effective a tool for the pollies to dispense with, and now that they have seen what can be done with it, there is no way they will ever want to give it up.

This has always been the classic power-monger's dream - to be able to control peoples' behaviour and dictate their thinking. With the internet and social-media platforms with lax personal security safeguards like FB, they are now able to do just that, to an unprecedented degree - far more so than with print media, radio, film and television, which have long been the classic tools of the propaganda trade in the modern era. Previously, they could only apply their methodologies to large, indistinct flocks of people and hope to at least sway some of them. But now they can direct personally-targeted triggers tailored to individuals in the flock based on their harvested data and resultant personal profiles.

The insidiousness often begins with some kind of online survey posted on a platform like FB, seeded with questions which are specifically designed by the "analytical" company to detect those people known in the biz as "The Persuadables" - the ones who they believe are most susceptible to suggestion. These are the folks they then target and bombard with careful chosen ads, videos (made by the company), slogans and other manufactured or cherry-picked trigger material, all designed to channel the thoughts of the "persuadable" into the paths the company's client wants. They don't need to target every single individual on the platform - just enough persuadables to sway the result of, say, an election, to the client's favour. This is the purpose of the initial survey, to more readily make the persuadables stand out for targeting.

It has been pointed out that data has surpassed oil as the world's most valuable and sought-after resource. Sought after by the worst people on Earth, of course, and for all the worst reasons.