Not paranoid about technology yet? Listen to this podcast.

[Aggie]

Too much CBC in my diet lately.  

Here's the Spark blog page with a listenable podcast that's definitely worth a listen if you want the heebie-jeebies about the future:
http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2011/09/spark-157/

You can stream segments or download the entire podcast there.

The bit I found most interesting/scary is Alessandro Acquisti's research project that included developing a smartphone app that was able to take a photo of a person on the street and correctly suss out their Social Security Number in real-time 27% of the time using publicly available Facebook data.


_{by the way, some of his funding came from a US U.S. Army Research Office grant...}  

[Opsa]

Eeksville!

[Griffin NoName]

Another reason not to join Facebook.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Disturbing yes, but they already have face recognition software running in public places like airports and train stations.

Time to buy a Guy Fawkes mask.

[Sibling DavidH]

Disturbing yes, but they already have face recognition software running in public places like airports and train stations.

And in supermarkets, too.  They have cameras in the entrance, and their software instantly picks up people who have been banned.  I've seen it happen.

[Roland Deschain]

This is sickeningly scary. For a nation that harps on constantly about freedom, it sure loves constantly invading and violating those freedoms to ever lower depths. I can see the US becoming worse than China in the not-so-distant future. Time to up sticks and move to South America, my US Sibling sistren and brethren.

[Griffin NoName]

Disturbing yes, but they already have face recognition software running in public places like airports and train stations.

And in supermarkets, too.  They have cameras in the entrance, and their software instantly picks up people who have been banned.  I've seen it happen.

In the UK?

I hate supermarkets. If I was to wander into one by mistake I might be quite pleased to be reminded I don't want to go there

[Aggie]

Time to up sticks and moved to South America, my US Sibling sistren and brethren.

North of America might be a temporary refuge, mostly because we don't have the population base to afford too many gizmos (I think we spent it all on crappy old UK subs and shiny new US fighter jets ). At least in the smaller towns, I think it'll take a while to trickle down.

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I the USA, our .. ahem... "government" has been scanning both cell phone conversations and e-mails since Bushya-the-destroyer (of freedom) was pres'dint.  He got the powers to do this during the paranoid time after 9/11 (further encouraging the silly idea that his office was behind it) and they passed the Homeland [in]Security act.

I had hoped that the new guy would dump that horrid pogram but, alas... it was Not To Be... NSA warrantless surveillance.

With modern powerful computers?  They can easily use electronic voice recognition to "listen" to conversations for key words and phrases--- no doubt triggering a flag for a human to listen to the recording at need.

Same goes for E-mail, and I've no doubt at all, Facebook and other social sites-- even easier to program word/phrase triggers into software monitors.   Heck, I could write one myself in a few minutes, that searches out programmable words and/or phrases within a given body of text.

We live in a world of no-privacy, and it's only going to get worse, not better....

[Roland Deschain]

Well, considering that the FBI and NSA were illegally monitoring and wire-tapping for years before the public found out, I wouldn't be surprised if a law forbidding it is ignored. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that beneath all the rhetoric on privacy from companies such as Google and Facebook, there is a certain amount of surveillance being done all the time, and that it has been done for a number of years now.

Don't you just love fascism committed in the name of freedom?

[Aggie]

Don't you just love fascism committed in the name of freedom?

Freedom? Are they still trotting out that old saw? I though it was unambiguously about Mammon by now - we are invading your privacy so we can make you buy more crap more easily.  For the corporate, not government interests, anyways.

The government interests parallel the conversation in the Last Post thread (re: witch trials)...  if you're innocent, you have nothing to worry about, so if you complain about us monitoring you, you must be guilty.


Oh, this is in Open Water, by the way.  Wave and smile for Big Brother! 

Hooray for Freedom!  USA! USA!

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

[pieces o nine]

Here's a little lapel pin to give your posts that certain ... je ne sais quoi.   

[Roland Deschain]

Here's a little lapel pin to give your posts that certain ... je ne sais quoi.   

Iz you taking the mickey? You iz not a true 'Murkin!

Lol, Aggie. I trade in black market Dodo meat. There's no flies on me!

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Here's a little lapel pin to give your posts that certain ... je ne sais quoi.   

I wonder if I could get some pagan symbols with the Murican Flag motif.... or?  How abouts a Navajo Swastika* with Murican-Flag?    That'd really confuzzle 'em good.



* ironically, identical to the Nazi one, 'cept that the Navajos used it first, so...

[Swatopluk]

There is a Star of David US flag pin
http://holylandshopping.com/images/DSCF1733.jpg

I can find some US and Israel flags with swastikas but not as pins

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Why am I not surprised...

[Griffin NoName]

There is a Star of David US flag pin
http://holylandshopping.com/images/DSCF1733.jpg

That is quite disgusting.

In fact, most everything on that site is pretty ugly. And there's no real estate for sale - what if I want to buy a chunk of Mount Sinai?

Reminds me, thank you, that I must get on with buying a Dreidl - only 7 months til Chanukah and I promised to send one to Canada for my grandson. I am very slow at posting stuff, unless of course I let amazon.ca do the work.

Edit: just typed Dredl into amazon and got all the Judge Dredd books. Then I realised I'd mispelled it......   Then I found Dr Dreidel.........

[pieces o nine]

I wonder if I could get some pagan symbols with the Murican Flag motif.... or?  How abouts a Navajo Swastika* with Murican-Flag?    That'd really confuzzle 'em good.

Considering the deeply held beliefs of certain uber-conservatives, the confusion might work both ways.  To borrow a phrase from the Oracle: if you really want to bake their noodle, a crescent moon & star with the stars and stripes superimposed would more than do the trick...   

[Roland Deschain]

^ Or a hammer and sickle, or is that too out-of-date now?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Love it!