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The degree to which home surveillance is being embraced for the sake of convenience is beyond parody. If you'd have read this in a Sci-Fi novel 10 years ago, it would've seemed comedic
A flying home security camera drone, a "smart screen for kids" and a rolling facial recognition surveillance robot - All perfectly normal things for a tech company to sell to the public in 2021
I saw that, it can get in the sea. I won't even have Alexa or similar I find it creepy af.
Well there's two things going on here. It might be sinister, and it might not. These devices are fun and quite useful, to a lot of people. Maybe not you, but to others. So it would be strange for them to say no, sorry you cannot have this cool thing because other people don't like it.
The only issue I can see is that of trusting them to only do what they say they are going to do with the data. I don't mind if Amazon know what I've bought so they can advertise to me; but I might mind if they do other stuff. And that is what we could perhaps work on.
All the best product managers these days are basically reading old sci-if books from the 60’s-90’s and pitching the ideas 😂
but I might mind if they do other stuff
So, for instance if you plug in that flying camera drone, and the first thing it does is fly around your home "to get its bearings"... and Amazon now can see what your house layout is, and what you've got in it. That's not OK with you? Or how about the authorities getting access to it, or requiring it's installation for virtual social care visits?
The more I think "oh, it'll be OK" the more often I'm proved hopelessly naïve and wrong.
Ignoring the Amazon element for a moment, the 15" wall mounted tablet to show an aggregation of the households' calendar, plus also the meal plan and shopping list would be really handy - especially as it could show the recipe whilst cooking.
The Astro looks great fun, would love something like that from a more privacy-focused company! (slight tangent, Apple are starting to make use of the ML chips in their newer stuff by processing some of the voice-assistant stuff locally now, which is encouraging!)
I'm gonna keep an eye on the hobby groups & see if someone comes up with an open-source version! You could easily repurpose a robot hoover as the main robot chassis.
easily DIY-able with the open-source Home Assistant, but does require a bit of technical ability to tie it all togetherIgnoring the Amazon element for a moment, the 15″ wall mounted tablet to show an aggregation of the households’ calendar, plus also the meal plan and shopping list would be really handy – especially as it could show the recipe whilst cooking.
Also worth re-stating the adage "if you're not paying for the service with money, you're paying for it with something else"?
It might be sinister, and it might not.
Disagree. The ability itself - the mere existence of the tech - is sinister. That it is being brought to market by Amazon, whose service is awash with dark patterns just emphasises that, for me.
Amazon now can see what your house layout is, and what you’ve got in it. That’s not OK with you? Or how about the authorities getting access to it, or requiring it’s installation for virtual social care visits?
I honestly don't care if Amazon see what's in my house. I might care if the authorities did it and then became hostile to me somehow. And that's my point about trust. TBH if you get to the point where the authorities want to know what's in your house then you/we are in a bit of trouble anyway because it's their desire to do so that's the problem, and they will make life shitty somehow or other with or without smart speakers because they are the authorities.
the mere existence of the tech – is sinister
Microphones and recording devices have existed for a long time. These smart devices aren't really any big innovation, they are just a mass market use for it. I don't find it sinister because if I want privacy I can just unplug it. People are drawing parallels with 1984 of course but in that you HAD to have the telescreen on all the time and you were prohibited from concealing yourself from Big Brother. You can still opt out of Amazon. If it gets to the point where you can't, then I'll start worrying.
The ability itself – the mere existence of the tech – is sinister.
Yep. The Chinese have cameras on motorways, and they take pictures of every car that goes past to track where they're going, and the rate their citizens on a social mobile app that allow them "privileges" like foreign (and even domestic) travel and we rightly call it a corrosively intrusive surveillance state.
Amazon do the same thing, and it's a handy screen to see the families calendar in one place or check who's at the door. The double standards are, like I say, beyond parody
I honestly don’t care if Amazon see what’s in my house. I might care if the authorities did it and then became hostile to me somehow.
How about if there's a data breach at Amazon and your info goes up for sale on the web? Or GCHQ hack Amazon for info about some bad guys, because it's only ever the bad guys and there's never over reach, is there? Or "the state" subpoenas your info and Amazon give it up?
You seem to believe in the "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" fallacy, but I don't.
How about if there’s a data breach at Amazon and your info goes up for sale on the web? Or GCHQ hack Amazon for info about some bad guys, because it’s only ever the bad guys and there’s never over reach, is there? Or “the state” subpoenas your info and Amazon give it up?
then some bad guys would know I live a pretty boring life and have few things worth stealing inside my house. The state would know I occationally have a couple more beers than I probably should. I'm ok with all that.
Microphones and recording devices have existed for a long time. These smart devices aren’t really any big innovation, they are just a mass market use for it. I
This is really really daft.
It's like saying nuclear weapons aren't a big deal because people have been throwing pointy rocks for millennia.
Look, you are all bloody paranoid. It is only like the police and government using phone taps and surveillance.
If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.
The only people with that information are the police and the government so there is no danger of corruption, incompetence or both.
😉
Yup and there's simply no chance that someone could hack that information, or it will be leaked through incompetence, or bought illegitimately, or that they will use it for stuff they aren't allowed to.
Microphones and recording devices have existed for a long time. These smart devices aren’t really any big innovation, they are just a mass market use for it. I don’t find it sinister because if I want privacy I can just unplug it. People are drawing parallels with 1984 of course but in that you HAD to have the telescreen on all the time and you were prohibited from concealing yourself from Big Brother. You can still opt out of Amazon. If it gets to the point where you can’t, then I’ll start worrying.
At the point where you can't opt out, you might as well STOP worrying, because it's too late to do anything about it.
And yes microphones have existed for a long time, but what hasn't, is the ability to aggregate data and cross reference it, pretty much in real time, against multiple other data points. Which makes this a whole different kettle of fish.
How about if there’s a data breach at Amazon and your info goes up for sale on the web?
This has already happened with Ring doorbells
Or “the state” subpoenas your info and Amazon give it up?
Are Bacofoil on the stock market? I think I might invest.
The Chinese have cameras on motorways, and they take pictures of every car that goes past to track where they’re going
Pretty sure the British do the same thing. Certainly a lot more than the rest of Europe.
We do have some cameras on motorways. We had a missing person's search last year and the police wouldn't tell us where the cameras were, but it seemed to be less than one per junction.
I like tech & consider myself relatively geeky, but maybe I'm actually a luddite or maybe I'm just a bit unimaginative, but I just can't see the point in all this stuff. It just seems a bit more than I can be arsed with.
We've got a couple of Google smart speakers around the house. All they get used for is listening to music/podcasts and setting timers in the kitchen. Very rarely we might ask Google a question but it's normally nothing particularly important.
The drone thing? Eh, what?
The robot helper thing. Oh, it can bring you a beer. Wow. Just get up & go to the fridge. It can check whether the gas is on. Woooo! How have we coped without a periscope camera robot....?
Oh look, Granny is chasing little Trixibelle around the living room again......MUMMMMMMYYY, SHE'S SCARING ME.......!!
But having someone go through my Wife's car a few months ago when she left it unlocked, I have been looking at 'smart camera doorbells' so maybe some of this stuff is useful.
and Amazon now can see
I'd be interested to know: What does this actually mean, in your head?
Pretty sure the British do the same thing
There are something like 8000 PNC enabled cameras, most are on the motorway and A road network and some filling stations. You can search for a number plate. Off that network, it doesn't work, and you can't see where a car goes regardless. China has a camera on every m-way and road system junction and actively photos every car passing with enough resolution to see the driver and passenger and can actively track the car and can (if needed) check against journey time, and arrival/departure times...It's slightly different
Are Bacofoil on the stock market? I think I might invest.
How is it a conspiracy theory to not want to give Amazon even more data to help their ridiculous dominance and mass flogging of unsustainable shite?
Amazon (Ring doorbells) and US Law Enforcement https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-03/amazon-s-ring-will-ask-police-to-publicly-request-user-videos
The technology, it’s application and potential for misuse / abuse is only in its infancy.
What does this actually mean, in your head?
Well, *in my head*, it means Amazon creating vast spreadsheets with which to feed their various learning and analytics programs. Yes my data is just one cell on a sheet of millions, 'anonymised' to some extent (although probably not to the extent they'd have us believe) ... but the point is, it's *my* data not theirs. If they want to use it to generate profit, at least give me a share of that profit 🙂 (Isn't this part of of what Inrupt does?)
It also means me giving up my privacy to feed Amazon's profits, and giving it up to capitalism in general, which I am not happy about as it goes.
What if a political party (one you don't support, say) assigned a person to follow you whenever you left the house, to track and take note of every place you visited and every person you met, and what you did with them, and never told you how that data would be used, only that it would be used whenever and however it suited them?
Would you be happy with that?
And then, what if that person started coming indoors with you, to document everything you did at home, when, how and why ... would you be happy with that (in your head)?
I know that some banks are already playing with the idea of hiding certain products and information from certain people, based on the bank's infant AI's profiling of visitors.
It should be illegal.
It should be illegal.
It is illegal under the GDPR - unless you blindly click on 'accept all'
What does this actually mean, in your head?
Amazon would like to sell me their stuff, as Grum points out at the very least that's unsustainable and the interests of a few (mostly) middle aged white men who're getting ludicrously and obscenely wealthy. For the rest of us, it's unnecessary, wasteful and as it turns out massively damaging to the one place we have to live. So on that basis alone, these shouldn't be on sale.
In my wilder flights of fancy (that invariably turn out to be underestimates of what they have in mind) I see a system that actively monitors what I'm watching, listening to, and what they might think I might want to buy from them because of the absence of that item. I imagine that the drone camera can not only see things, it can probably ping items connected to my wi-fi and interrogate them for the data they hold and use that to sell me shit I don't need/want. You don't want to get me started on my thoughts about govts getting hold of the data.
Don't get me started on the way companies nudge people to click 'Accept all' cookies instead of 'Reject all' or 'Only those necessary' grrrr.
Don’t get me started on the way companies nudge people to click ‘Accept all’ cookies instead of ‘Reject all’ or ‘Only those necessary’ grrrr.
It's a requirement that the 'reject' button be as easy to find/click as the 'accept all' button. Which almost every site seems to violate by making you click & scroll to 'reject all' (or worse, making you untick about 10 individual boxes). Maddening.
I honestly don’t care if Amazon see what’s in my house. I might care if the authorities did it and then became hostile to me somehow.
Ok so hypothetically amazon looks at everything in your house, matches it to its database then starts using that to market shit to you. Oh he likes red stuff, show the red version first for each thing we list. Oh, that's an old TV he has, show him new TVs. Oh he has an acoustic guitar on the sofa, lets recommend him some music. etc. Some people might even see that as helpful, customising their positioning to suit your needs/taste. BUT they aren't doing that to give YOU an easier life they are doing it either so you buy from THEM or you buy stuff you wouldn't have bought at all...
TBH if you get to the point where the authorities want to know what’s in your house then you/we are in a bit of trouble anyway
Perhaps if they are saying whats in Mr Jones at no 3's house then something is making them suspicious and eventually they may find enough basis for that suspicion to justify a warrant to come and look. But what if they aren't looking for Mr Jones at no 3 - but rather anyone who shouted at their TV when Borris was on, or perhaps people who lie on their sofa for more than 3 hours per day, or people who bought bikes on cycle to work but only use it at the weekends.
I see a system that actively monitors what I’m watching, listening to
I assume amazon already knows that about me as I mostly listen to spotify on thier devices and tv through their devices. If it helps their aweful recommendation services catch up with spotify's (which are excellent) I'm all for it.
BUT they aren’t doing that to give YOU an easier life they are doing it either so you buy from THEM or you buy stuff you wouldn’t have bought at all…
Of course they're not being altruistic, but if they know I like red stuff and show me red stuff first, so I don't have to scroll past blue stuff? great.
I used to read the comic 200AD as a kid. There was a story about a guy who ran a pharmacy with automatic stock ordering linked to the rest of the Megatropolis systems (possibly before the internet was really a thing).
He was surprised one day to receive a load of baby medicines and then later that day the authorities opened a temporary child health screening clinic opposite. That seemed useful he thought.
He then received a load of trauma dressings which worried him just as a train derailed nearby. Apparently the last two maintenance visits and a report of a loose rail had been flagged as delayed on the system. A bit unfortunate but useful.
This kept happening until he received a load of antiradiation suits just as he saw the mushroom rise in the distance and realised the Megatroposis computers had linked with the rival states weapon system computers.
Not sure if this is useful but the thread reminded me of the story.
BTW, did you realise that most smart TVs record all conversation in the room and pipe it back the the manufacturers to harvest?
Of course they’re not being altruistic, but if they know I like red stuff and show me red stuff first, so I don’t have to scroll past blue stuff? great.
Naïve, much?
(They're not doing all this stuff to make your life easier.)
That's also a very simplistic reading of how Amazon uses your data. The truth of it is far more manipulative.
Of course they’re not being altruistic, but if they know I like red stuff and show me red stuff first, so I don’t have to scroll past blue stuff? great.
How about if they see that you have a large collection of whiskey, and then your car insurance premiums (or health insurance) goes up, because the insurance companies are buying that data from Amazon? Or perhaps your N+1 bikes, and your contents insurance is affected (or you get a letter from HMRC about the C2W scheme...)
This info is all valuable to someone, and Amazon won't hesitate to sell it if they can get a couple of £ out of it. There'll be a legal waiver that you accepted on page 381 of the T&Cs.
I’m all for it.
Spoken like only one who's lived a life of privilege can. Perhaps you'd have a different view if you lived somewhere with less freedom and more secret police.
Let's hope it stays that way for everyone's sake, eh?
Amazon do the same thing
No, it's a completely different thing because Amazon is optional and Chinese state surveillance is mandatory. That's the key point. If we learn one day in the future that Amazon are doing something actually nefarious rather than just flogging tat I will simply bin it all, because I can.
If Amazon becomes mandatory then them knowing what's in your living room is the least of your worries I suspect.
I think you should all be much more worried about the actions of the state.
I think you should all be much more worried about the actions of the state.
Like, say, grabbing footage from Amazon devices to clamp down on Black Lives Matter protestors?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/02/lapd-requested-ring-footage-black-lives-matter-protests
I like tech & consider myself relatively geeky, but maybe I’m actually a luddite or maybe I’m just a bit unimaginative, but I just can’t see the point in all this stuff. It just seems a bit more than I can be arsed with.
We’ve got a couple of Google smart speakers around the house. All they get used for is listening to music/podcasts and setting timers in the kitchen. Very rarely we might ask Google a question but it’s normally nothing particularly important.
I think for a lot of people its just a bit of novelty - the majority of people who own one may well speak to a smart speaker for the purpose of choosing music or looking up a recipe or something similarly scintillating - but they'll do that whilst having the technology to do just that in their pocket, without having to include the whole room in the transaction.
I think the really useful outcome is for people with disabilities.
Take blindness for example - not at the top of anyone's list of preferred disabilities - but as we've become more and more of a screen and information based culture the degree of isolation and disadvantage blindness brings has increased. The benefit of having a smart speaker in your house - to society broadly rather than yourself - is you're participating in, and crowd funding, the development of an internet that isn't principally visual and text based.
So there are benefits to the technology its just not really a meaningful benefit to most of the people who've bought into it.
That’s the key point.
Or that of Grum's who quite rightly identified that its all plastic shit that no one really needs in the first place and we should all stop buying it.
Naïve, much?
(They’re not doing all this stuff to make your life easier.)
how is it naive? I acknowledge they're doing this to sell more stuff, by making their site better. That's fine. I use their site a lot. if its better, I'm all for it.
I'm not naive, I just don't care.
Oh he likes red stuff, show the red version first for each thing we list.
I think thats more than a little at odds with how Amazon actually operates their searches 🙂
It seems like the more specific your search the more irrelevant garbage they offer you. I've often given up on amazon looking for something, looked on google instead and get a page of results of exactly what I need... all on amazon. Amazon's rationale seems very much about them driving you towards what they want to sell rather that what you want to buy
(typed by a man currently working in a warehouse... for Amazon)
how is it naive? I acknowledge they’re doing this to sell more stuff, by making their site better. That’s fine. I use their site a lot. if its better, I’m all for it.
It's not just about selling products to you though.
It's also about selling you and your data to third parties. And perhaps the data of anyone else it can get its hands on - for instance other people that visit your home, that the cameras can pick up with facial recognition.
Facebook already got in trouble for violating privacy when it suggested 'people you might know' to patients at the same doctor's - because it noticed they regularly visited the same place. Throw facial recognition into the mix, combined with a network of doorbells that can watch you walk round the city, and who knows what interesting data they'll be able to put together?
It's not for me, I'm usually sat in front of a PC or have smart phone in my pocket anyway.
I can understand it from a convinience point of view, especialy if you live in a flat so you cant have a big sound system set up.
But it's not for me 😀
It’s also about selling you and your data to third parties. And perhaps the data of anyone else it can get its hands on – for instance other people that visit your home, that the cameras can pick up with facial recognition.
Facebook already got in trouble for violating privacy when it suggested ‘people you might know’ to patients at the same doctor’s – because it noticed they regularly visited the same place. Throw facial recognition into the mix, combined with a network of doorbells that can watch you walk round the city, and who knows what interesting data they’ll be able to put together?
I don't care about any of that either. So what if someone knows my buddy is Joey and I go biking with Will? either that may lead to more bike shops in the area (find me places where middle class cyclists live) or they'll throw me an ad for a pub doing a nice pint after an hour of riding. I'm good with that too
I don’t care about any of that either. So what if someone knows my buddy is Joey and I go biking with Will? either that may lead to more bike shops in the area (find me places where middle class cyclists live) or they’ll throw me an ad for a pub doing a nice pint after an hour of riding. I’m good with that too
I totaly get that, but where's your kick back in cash to you for giving them marketable data?
The paranoia on here is brilliant. Nobody is forcing anyone to own any so called smart equipment. It’s all a choice, don’t like it, don’t choose it. The day I’m forced to own an echo dot or equivalent device is the day I’ll panic.
As for suggesting our government could use the data in some nefarious way, don’t make me laugh. Our government can’t even govern FFS. They tried to manage a pandemic in Excel!
Edit - Voice controlled stuff is shite too. I’ve got a few Hue light bulbs and the bridge. Still use the light switches because I don’t live in a mansion so light switches are in easy reach. Novelty of using echo wore off in less than a day. For everything else it’s just as quick to browse phone, Spotify, Netflix etc.
Bacofoil on the stock market?
Off topic, but the British Aluminium Company was taken over in 1958
Amazon’s rationale seems very much about them driving you towards what they want to sell rather that what you want to buy
Pretty much like every company ever. Why do you think companies randomly discount stuff?
I’ve got a few Hue light bulbs and the bridge. Still use the light switches because I don’t live in a mansion so light switches are in easy reach.
There are benefits. My dad used to have to go round the room at night turning half a dozen lamps off, reaching down the back of things for the switches. Now in our house we just say 'Alexa, goodnight'. I can also set the lights to 1% and a cool blue/white like moonlight so the cat can see to amuse herself, and we can see the cat so we don't tread on her. I can turn the desk light off from bed too, that kind of thing. It's useful and also annoying at the same time. Ideally you want smart switches and bulbs so you can turn it off at the door on the way out and then turn it back on from the sofa etc. On the other hand, it's endless electronic junk.
I used to read the comic 200AD as a kid
Dude, is that like a prequel comic and just how old are you?
As for suggesting our government could use the data in some nefarious way, don’t make me laugh. Our government can’t even govern FFS. They tried to manage a pandemic in Excel!
Which makes you wonder how they got to be in power maybe 🙂 Or maybe it doesn't make you wonder anything.
I used to read the comic 200AD as a kid
Dude, is that like a prequel comic and just how old are you?
Sounds dystopian enough for me - I'll ask the newsagent to set a copy aside
The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis (235–284 AD), was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of barbarian invasions and migrations into the Roman territory, civil wars, peasant rebellions, political instability (with multiple usurpers competing for power), Roman reliance on (and growing influence of) barbarian mercenaries known as foederati and commanders nominally working for Rome (but increasingly independent), plague, debasement of currency, and economic depression.
I don’t care about any of that either. So what if someone knows my buddy is Joey and I go biking with Will? either that may lead to more bike shops in the area (find me places where middle class cyclists live) or they’ll throw me an ad for a pub doing a nice pint after an hour of riding. I’m good with that too
... and that's how it happens.
… and that’s how it happens.
Yep, you get a new bikeshop opening near you and the local pub becomes MTB friendly 😉
Personally, for someone who buys a lot of stuff on Amazon, I'm continually amazed about how little they seem to know about me. Their targeted product suggestions are utter rubbish. In books they only offer me books I've already bought from them and in other products it's just completely random shit eg they seem to think we have a baby and keep suggesting a whole range of baby products (we have zero kids and no nappy fetish either).
Amazon creating vast spreadsheets
You are an accountant and ICMFP. Databases for large data-sets not spreadsheets!
Its all way too late to worry about, like climate change the tipping point for not selling yourself to Amazon and many others was a few years back.
they seem to think we have a baby and keep suggesting a whole range of baby products (we have zero kids and no nappy fetish either).
Place a bet your other half is broody and looking...
My old boss made the mistake of looking at a surprise holiday and new suit for hubby when he was awarded OBE. Logged in on browser.
Of course hubby at home, also logged into their shared email address, then saw endless adverts for Canadian holidays and new suits / suit hire and hand an inkling something was afoot...
Which makes you wonder how they got to be in power maybe 🙂 Or maybe it doesn’t make you wonder anything.
Don’t need to wonder, I know. Around half of the popular are utter ****wits and a small number of smart people are apathetic.
Now in our house we just say ‘Alexa, goodnight’. I can also set the lights to 1% and a cool blue/white like moonlight so the cat can see to amuse herself, and we can see the cat so we don’t tread on her. I can turn the desk light off from bed too, that kind of thing. It’s useful and also annoying at the same time.
Doesn’t work here because toddler and small child. They flick a light switch and the smart tech gets befuddled and duplicates the light. “There are multiple items called living room light” 😀
The paranoia on here is brilliant. Nobody is forcing anyone to own any so called smart equipment. It’s all a choice, don’t like it, don’t choose it. The day I’m forced to own an echo dot or equivalent device is the day I’ll panic.
Really? Tried to buy a TV recently that isn’t ’smart’? That is, loaded up with a two year old OS that’ll never get upgraded, and ceases to work properly after a couple of years, that meanwhile is happily monitoring what you say and do, which information you have no idea about, or ultimately where it’s going, especially the sets that are manufactured by Chinese, or Chinese-owned companies.
You want dystopian? The Chinese government has passed laws that make it illegal to criticise China, it’s government, or it’s behaviour, or try to prosecute any Chinese business or it’s staff for anything that might be illegal or unethical. What will happen is nationals from any country attempting to take legal action against a Chinese company will find themselves being arrested and extradited to China to face charges of ‘spying’, or ‘financial irregularities’. The Chinese government has signed reciprocal agreements with around forty other countries, including Portugal.
It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine the huge Chinese surveillance panopticon searching for trigger terms, sending alerts for specific ‘people of interest’, who then find themselves being taken aside at customs when travelling abroad on holiday or business, and who then vanish into China.
Ask the two Canadian businessmen who’ve just been returned after spending two years under arrest in China on ‘spying’ charges, after Canada tried to prosecute a Chinese company member.
I would not, under any circumstances, own an Alexa speaker, or whatever the Amazon thing is called, or anything that uses Alexa; friends have one, I’ve witnessed just how bloody useless it is, repeated requests to play a particular artist or song is met with either silence or something else entirely! What happened that made using a remote control so arduous? Or just using a music player on a phone linked to your audio system.
I’m going to have to replace my elderly Sony Bravia, (bought in a Boxing Day sale in 2007), the screen is clearly degrading, and I don’t want or need a smart tv, I have a Sky Q box and a Mac Mini for that, but I’m going to be forced to buy one, because I don’t have any option.
And don’t suggest getting a big monitor and use that, a 55” monitor will cost two, three or four times what I’m prepared to pay, which is what I paid for the three sets I’ve owned over the last thirty-odd years: around £8-900, £1000 tops. If it lasts another fifteen years, I’d be happy with that.
I have considered an Apple HomeHub or whatever the speaker’s called - I never use Siri, and the sound quality is supposed to be outstanding, so I’d be happy with that, and Apple have better security than Amazon.
If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear.
The ideal motto for any secret police force.
I can relate to both sides here.
As an individual I'm not too concerned about what tech companies know about me. On a societal level I am.
I'm probably ideal fodder for big tech feeling this way.
Bothered but not enough to do anything about it.... and there are many, many like me.
Individually sentient but as a demographic a zombie herd.
Really? Tried to buy a TV recently that isn’t ’smart’?
No, also you could just not connect it to the internet. I have an old smart TV that isn’t connected an just use a Roku for watching what I want through it.
The Chinese government has passed laws that make it illegal to criticise China, it’s government, or it’s behaviour, or try to prosecute any Chinese business or it’s staff for anything that might be illegal or unethical. What will happen is nationals from any country attempting to take legal action against a Chinese company will find themselves being arrested and extradited to China to face charges of ‘spying’,
Looks like you’re getting extradited in 3, 2, 1………
Countzero. Just buy a smart TV and don't plug it into the internet.
Hey presto! Dumb TV.
Freeview for TV through a normal aerial.
Of course they’re not being altruistic, but if they know I like red stuff and show me red stuff first, so I don’t have to scroll past blue stuff? great.
What if they get to the stage offers likes red stuff, he’ll pay more for red stuff, price the red ones £1 higher just for him?
how is it naive? I acknowledge they’re doing this to sell more stuff, by making their site better. That’s fine. I use their site a lot. if its better, I’m all for it.
I’m not naive, I just don’t care.
And I did say lots of people won’t think it’s bad. However, what if better means rather than hesitate during the shopping process you just buy more stuff you don’t need? Or rather than Google to see if the Amazon price is fair you are just asking a speaker to order it and perhaps speaker orders are given higher prices? The question is - is it better for you, or better for them?
One click checkout was a great improvement for users, but Amazon did it to make it less likely you walk away with a half full cart. At the same time they made it more likely I’d place three orders in a week all coming in separate deliveries with their own packaging and fuel costs rather than consolidating into a once a week order. Worse for everyone!
Which makes you wonder how they got to be in power maybe 🙂 Or maybe it doesn’t make you wonder anything.
Yeah, it’s not like anyone tried to use big data to manipulate democracy in the last decade is it!
“Ok - the guy who shouts at the TV when Borris is on has gone out, let’s manipulate the ads his wife sees as she seems to be a bit more sympathetic to brexit.”
“Ok these guys clearly don’t own any bikes so play the transport ads that talk about road tax and ensuring drivers are able to make progress”
“Right they’ve had 17 deliveries this week mostly of tat from the Far East - no point sending them the made locally is great video, or trying to convince them we are saving the high st - let’s emphasize how the gov is kickstarting the economy and brexit makes it easier to get stuff from beyond europe”
And of course that assumes you are lucky enough to be in the position of having always on internet to “benefit” from Alexa - should you be in the underclass the government couldn’t give a shit about who live in such poverty they can’t afford broadband then Amazon don’t want you either because you can’t afford to shop with them.
I’m going to have to replace my elderly Sony Bravia, (bought in a Boxing Day sale in 2007), the screen is clearly degrading, and I don’t want or need a smart tv, I have a Sky Q box and a Mac Mini for that, but I’m going to be forced to buy one, because I don’t have any option.
You could just not connect it to the internet....
You could but many TVs are like any other tech device now and will need updates and will become slow/unusable in a short number of years.
It's also kind of nuts that we just accept the idea that to be able to use the internet then companies will harvest massive amounts of data about us and use it to manipulate us/sell it to other people.
I must admit I've given up in some areas for the sake of convenience. It's fine if you decide you don't care but pretending it isn't an issue is daft.
Apple have better security than Amazon.
that's pretty debatable. Plenty of exlpoits on apple kit, in fact today someone has announced they can hack your iphone to exceed the contactless limit that should exist on locked phones - so not only impacting the apple kit, but also leaving you with no cash in your bank.
You are an accountant and ICMFP. Databases for large data-sets not spreadsheets!
No I'm not an accountant, let's clear that up immediately. 😉
But I nearly forgot I was dealing mainly with literal-minded engineers on this forum, who care about this kind of distinction:
The main technical difference between a spreadsheet and a database comes down to the way they store data. In a spreadsheet, data is stored in a cell, and can be formatted, edited, and manipulated within that cell. In a database, cells contain records that come from external tables.
The day I’m forced to own an echo dot or equivalent device is the day I’ll panic
That is too late - which is why a wise man once said "all that is required for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing"
I don't own an Alexa and never will - unless you lot are so apathetic that the Government mandates every house must have one. In which case I shall get on a plane to the middle of nowhere and simply disappear (with my bike obvs!) :o)
It's clear to anyone who wants to think critically about it for more than 2 minutes that we have now seemingly resigned ourselves to give huge amounts of our personal information to large private profit making organisations that only a few years ago we wouldn't thought needed to be anywhere near the public domain, and can now easily justify that decision to themselves.
The nature of privacy is clearly changing, and it's interesting that those folk who're trying to hang on to what only 20 years ago most folk would have thought uncontroversially private: Your credit worthiness, your shopping habits, your leisure activities, your political persuasions, all now available to organisations with a mind to or enough money to gather it, are being labelled as paranoid or luddites.
And we're doing it with almost no oversight, and no accountability. Just for sake on not having to get off the sofa as often as our parents had to.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee has the answer:
"Users control which entities and apps can access their data."
that’s pretty debatable.
No idea bout Amazon but Apple phones submit a lot less personal data than Android phones. I'm sure they're far from perfect but they do seem better than most.
I have a Chinese spy phone anyway 😂
It’s clear to anyone who wants to think critically about it for more than 2 minutes that we have now seemingly resigned ourselves to give huge amounts of our personal information to large private profit making organisations that only a few years ago we wouldn’t thought needed to be anywhere near the public domain, and can now easily justify that decision to themselves.
Visa, Mastarcard and high street banks have had access to all our financial details for decades, so this isn't something new.....
Visa, Mastarcard and high street banks have had access to all our financial details for decades, so this isn’t something new…..
I doubt the bank knew what your political leanings were 20 years ago, what food you bought, how much alcohol you drank, who much porn you watched, what our inane ramblings on Twitter, Facebook and Insta were...And high street banks are regulated. It isn't the same, not in the depth of information held, how they can link it together with other data about us and the purposes for doing that, and the profile they can build of us both collectively and as individuals.
You might not care, that's fine, but to deny or ignore that it's that is going on, without much public awareness, without any oversight or agreement or discussion is to my mind naïve.
Look, I'm not interested in changing your mind about whether you care or not. I can't do that. But the point I'm making is that we don't know how much data is being gathered, who has access to it, why they want it, and what they're doing with it. who else they're giving it to or sharing it with...We just don't know. That's the point. A few years ago a couple of data analysts revealed that everything we do electronically is being gathered by our own security services all the time, and that hasn't stopped, and in fact it's probably got more sophisticated and more precise.
And amazon want you to buy a flying camera drone...
No idea bout Amazon but Apple phones submit a lot less personal data than Android phones
The issue, surely, is what they do with the data. Simplistically Apple are collecting data to sell you Apple products; I don't really have a problem with that. Amazon are collecting data to sell us all sorts of products; I'm not really fussed about that either, or at least no more than I am about my Tesco Clubcard. Google (and Facebook) are collecting data to sell it; I do have an issue with that so I try to minimise what they get. But whether any of this matters to you is entirely personal.
Edit: oh, and TikTok is probably collecting data for various nefarious purposes for the Chinese government, but no-one seems to care about that either.
Agree 100% with Nickc's posts above.
Doesn't really matter how inept the current face of the government is, they're not the ones we need to worry about.
apparently not so much, as a bit of Googling suggests from multiple different sources. I guess their business model does not rely on it, in the same way Amazon and certainly Google's does. A lot of the data received e.g. on the Apple Pay platform is assigned uniquely generated IDs each time so they cannot link it to afterwards you meaning they're not tracking your purchase history, and cannot sell on that data.The issue, surely, is what they do with the data. Simplistically Apple are collecting data to sell you Apple products
https://www.macworld.com/article/348064/how-apple-collects-data-about-you-and-protects-your-privacy.html
They will happily send you all the data they have on you (which doesn't seem to be a lot!)
https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-data-collection-stored-request/
They do have targeted ads but they are trivial to opt out of!
Personal health data is stored on-device and encrypted when backed up to cloud so they can never access it. They seem to be going to great lengths to ensure everything is privacy focused tbh (recently released Air Tags for example) and often make a point of it in their keynotes.
Simplistically Apple are collecting data to sell you Apple products; I don’t really have a problem with that. Amazon are collecting data to sell us all sorts of products; I’m not really fussed about that either, or at least no more than I am about my Tesco Clubcard.
That's not the whole picture though! From Amazon's privacy page:
Examples of businesses with which we [share your data] include Starbucks, OfficeMax, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T, J&R Electronics, Eddie Bauer and Northern Tool + Equipment.
What data exactly? What's the full list? Your guess is as good as anyone's.
The other issue is data leakage. For instance, before the smartphone, 'location' data wasn't really a thing. Within a decade, apps were making $21 billion a year selling your location to advertisers. Where does it go after that? Who knows. Apple don't sell your data directly, but apps on your iPhone do.
Until even more recently, up to the minute personal health records of heart rate, exercise completed etc, weren't really a thing. Fitbit promised that they'd never sell your data. Well, they're owned by Google now. Who have partnered with some very big American healthcare companies, and had their knuckles rapped in the UK for getting too intimate with NHS data. Who Who knows what that data is getting used for? Selling adverts for Slimfast? Putting up health insurance premiums for people that keep appearing to travel at 30mph round the woods in Cannock Chase?
Alexa brought voice recognition into play, Ring has added visitor info and facial recognition into the mix, this new stuff can track your movements around the house and potentially look at your stuff. In 10 years or so we'll probably know more about where this data is going and why. Maybe. Although as noted, we already know that Ring footage goes to the police, often without consent.
Incidentally I work in marketing at a uni. We've got a new Alexa Skill where a user can request a prospectus and get it emailed to them. Alexa asks if they agree to share their data, they say yes, and 5 seconds later their name and email address has passed through a Google Sheet, Zapier, and my emailing software. All perfectly above board of course.
But the absolute ease of sharing that info does make me wonder how easy it will be for young kids to sign up to sharing pretty much anything with any dubious games developer. "Astro, play Happy Monkey Challenge!" "Do you agree to share your data with Megagames PLC?"
A few years ago a couple of data analysts revealed that everything we do electronically is being gathered by our own security services all the time, and that hasn’t stopped, and in fact it’s probably got more sophisticated and more precise.
More than a few years, that was Snowden in 2013. GCHQ have taps on all the undersea internet pipes in and out of the UK and metadata on everything being sent is hoovered up. That's been known in the public domain for years. Same in the US, there's a huge NSA datacentre in Utah Valley swallowing up pretty much all the USA's internet traffic.
Without changing the law, everything you do online is being hoovered up the security services (or rather meta data is), probably by several different countries as well.
As for why I'm not bothered, with every risk you need to weigh the probability of it happening (eg someone abusing my data they've bought from Amazon) and multiple by the actual cost of that effect on me (as in what damage it does) ie E[p]. Then weigh it up against all of life's other possible risks. Obviously it's all subjective but it doesn't make my top 10, so I'm not going to waste any time worrying about it.
I freely use all the big bad boy's services (Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google) and not one of them has ever impressed me with their ability to use my data and offer anything interesting with it. E.g./ Youtube almost exclusively promotes things I'm not interested in, Amazon can't even work out which books I've bought from them etc. They may have lots of data, but they don't seem able to do much with it.