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Terrorism, web sites, games and privacy (anonymity)

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kat:
Looks like other outlets are starting to take the whole "XBox One/Kinect watches you" thing seriously (cf. above)  -  Although the XBox One's camera has been upgraded to 1080p and there only appears to be that single camera on the XBox itself, the device is reported as requiring the Kinect addon for it to work (or at least achieve its full operation potential). Kinect takes the "watching you" to a whole 'nother level, some of which is discussed in the press with quite the innocent geeky aplomb (here for example- "... the real revelation of the facial software is that it recognizes you when you turn it on and loads your personal profile. If you and your significant other both have personalized profiles, the new Kinect will recognize which one of you is ready to play"). Given the extent to which it can 'analyse' it's surroundings, right down to the users pulse, you'll either find this really cool, or really creepy,

kat:
Is "gamification" worth the amount of 'intrusion' required to facilitate a system that can "monitor" users whilst engaged in "gamified" activities? DailyMail writes that Microsoft recently submitted a Patent (not yet granted?) with respect to how users of their systems would be constantly monitored in order to 'reward them' for particular activities. Whilst this sort of thing seems to cause concern for some, it doesn't appear to register with a vast majority of people buying into the platform as record pre-orders are being touted in certain quarters (no numbers given, just hyperbole at present).

ratty redemption [RIP]:
this reminds me of google mails "helpful" importance ranking:


--- Quote ---Gmail analyzes your new incoming messages to predict what's important, considering things like how you've treated similar messages in the past, how directly the message is addressed to you, and many other factors.

To predict which of your incoming messages are important, Gmail automatically takes into account a number of signals, including:

-Who you email: If you email Bob a lot, it’s likely that messages from Bob are important.

-Which messages you open: Messages you open are likely to be more important than those you skip over.

-What keywords spark your interest: If you always read messages about soccer, a new message that contains those same soccer words is more likely to be important.

-Which messages you reply to: If you always reply to messages from your mom, messages she sends are likely to be important.

-Your recent use of stars, archive and delete: Messages you star are probably more important than messages you archive without opening.
--- End quote ---

so if say, i was a terrorist and my fellow terrorists were planning to do something illegal, gmail could help us better organize our plans? on behave of all terrorists thank you google.

disclaimer: of course i'm not a terrorist, and if i was i certainly wouldn't use gmail.

kat:
lol... double irony with Google's motto being "Don't be Evil!".

And yes, if you add the above to the way our communications (comms) are 'scanned' for content delivery purposes with respect to advertising it all adds up to some very 'deep-packet' analysis - this is the one things that many don't understand - just how deep that rabbit hole actually is; whilst an individual services 'scanning' may not seem much cause for concern, added to other systems such as comms sorting, ISP records, search data, time spend and where it's spent, a *very* detailed over-view of your activities are just a few data-mining clicks away from those able to take advantage of that.. it's one of the very reasons why Google and other 'data handlers' want to get their sticky mitts into such seemingly disconnected, but broad reaching areas of our lives, the more they have, the more they believe they can monetise and control what we see and therefore purchase. This means filtering search results based on their perception of your interests to such an extent that you really are only shown the results that fit the generated profile that's built up around you (it's why you can be in the same room with more than one person and each of you will return different results using the same search terms). There's a technical word for this it's called the "Google Bubble" - or more ominously "the world according to Google".

"In the beginning there was only darkness and ignorance.
Then Google brought the light and showed the lost people the way.
That way was good, for it was the 'Google Way', all other ways were evil.
And people doth sayeth from that time forward-eth...
'Don't be Evil'."

ratty redemption [RIP]:
he he, agreed to all that. and i will continue to use gmail, just i don't believe for one moment that google have my best interests at heart with all their "cool" new features and apps they are adding.

also how secure is all this personal data on us? if the marketing agencies and authorities can be granted access, then surely that means hackers, including actual terrorists, can use this tech to help them become more efficient. and as rabbit was saying the other day to me, it doesn't stop people, face to face, in real life from planning criminal activities.

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