Consumer Events:
• 100B DailyEvents
• 20+ data integrations
• Clickstream
• App usage
• Ecommerce sales
• Cash register sales
• Precise Location
Context Data:
• User
• Device
• Location
• URL
• IP
• 200 Million Devices Daily
Universal DataStore
• 50 Trillion Record Consumer History
That's about 150,000 datapoints on everyone in the U.S. For a small company. In 2017.
[1] https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/6212008/ScaledML%20Media%20Ar...
But it doesn't need to be marketed in such a sinister fashion. In 2012 when Google Maps informed me of delays along my usual commute, complete with a GPS trace of my route home, completely unprompted, I started turning off location history (lol, yeah right). I didn't even know they were collecting that data, much less analysing it that hard.
These days, that would be considered a feature - not a dystopian hellhole, and you would be a Luddite for turning off this new smartphone augmented brain. The product will make you happy. [0]
Welcome, to City 17. You have chosen, or been chosen, to relocate to one of our finest remaining urban centers. It's safer here.
Now, it seems like someone would need to do that for capital hill .. and then make sure politicians are not voting a law that only exempts them from meta data collection and usage.
OP had it slightly wrong though: it's not tavern records but membership lists of colonial Boston organizations, and the author is a sociology professor (Kieran Healy), not from Princeton or Harvard.
He uses basic social network analysis on historical membership data to identify Paul Revere as the key figure among 254 colonists using nothing but "metadata." The whole thing is written as a satirical report by a British intelligence analyst in the 1770s, which makes it a pretty effective commentary on the "it's just metadata" argument from the NSA debates.
Link: https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...
If that's the type of things they say publicly at conferences we can only imagine what a more sensitive comment would look like. How anyone can underestimate the importance of that is beyond me.
"Hey...why is this guy suddenly deviating from his normal routine? License plate readers show him 100 miles out of his normal area. Why did he leave his phone at home?"
Just like social media. Not participating is considered suspicious.
Anyone with Govt. level access (or billionaire level access) can very easily put all this data together.
The detail I failed to understand at the time was just how much money there is in data collection and brokerage.
I actually would be fine with the authorities having the ability to process this data to solve crime and stuff, but only as long as there were checks and balances and it was happening according to the constitution, which it is not right now
Does it? An 18th-century tavern owner could keep tabs on the comings and goings of their customers. It would have just prompted pushback when they started sharing that list.
Possession isn’t the problem. Sharing is.
The local or federal government do not have the right, or need to know the whereabouts of the average law abiding citizen. There is no "free" information, all information has a cost, whether it be acquisition or storage. Currently the people are taxed to oppress themselves. There is no choice not to be taxed, there is no consent.
The government, does not own the country, it's not "their bar".
Never mentioned the government. If I shop at a store and the store owner starts selling my information to everyone under the sun, I'm going to keep an eye out for alternatives. I don't mind them collating it. I do when they share it.
And even if they do, they don't automatically consent to all actions performed in their name.
Which was trivially not covered by the 4th amendment [1].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act
One does not violate the 4th and the other does (though they do it anyway).
The tavern owner is not the government. The bill of rights is about restricting the powers of the government, not of tavern owners.
Also, "monopoly on violence" is deputised in a lot of ways, including "Stand Your Ground" laws, and "Castle doctrine" (which may or may not include a workplace), and what's allowed for trespass and if trespass includes not leaving when told to.
(And even when it's more of a first amendment issue than a fourth, there's also occasional news stories about people getting sued for leaving negative reviews of a business because the business snuck in a no-disparagement clause into the terms and conditions).
"We and our 474 partners store and access personal data, like browsing data or unique identifiers, on your device."
474!!!
While we in the US argue about politics, we ignore what's happening behind the curtain.
[1] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/706321/means-of-con...
1. Theoretically speaking, my (data) privacy is of a high value to me! -- Then you should stop using a smart phone. -- Well...
2. I don't want anyone to create a profile of my habits because it's none of their business! -- Hi, do you have a Walmart+ card? -- Sure, here you go!
And I actually like the concept of reward cards (although I don't use them) because it is pretty much the only way how you can make money off your data.
"Violations of your constitutional rights have been going on for decades now, so it's time to shut up about them" is certainly a take.
You were free to drink lead-free water the entire time, you just didn't care enough to do so.
If only those lazy 1950s layabouts carries oxygen tanks instead of complaining about cancers.
There are basic ways to act, not just talk, to support resistance to this path. And people, even some people reading this very comment, are unwilling to take those basic actions while also whining loudly and/or downvoting in angst.
They might simply be tired of listening to armchair protestors who don’t take even the most basic actions to backup their words.
They offered nothing to counteract the idea that we should just shut up and accept it. Then they closed with "And I actually like the concept of reward cards (although I don't use them) because it is pretty much the only way how you can make money off your data." - which sounds like they have given up opposition, and are now considering ways to profit from the situation rather than fight it.
I quite recently found that the "CRED" app works by requesting permission to access the user's WHOLE INBOX and reading their mails. The users apparently have no problems giving access to their all mails to some app that they don't have control or ability to scrutinize.
Forget that!
I remarked how curious it is that wondrous AI should be the technology people need to experience before they can imagine the dangers of Data Brokers and the Mother Of All Databases (MOAD).
I've said this ad nauseam, but their TOS says they sell to 3rd parties including law enforcement and insurance companies.
Nobody cares though. Main point. Like 80% of the public have no idea or interest knowing what connected services does. If you tell them. They still don't care (my parents).
Example 2019 article https://www.lawfareblog.com/facebook-encryption-and-dangers-...
In reality nothing new.
Governments betray the people. That is by definition betrayal.
In this context "age verification" must be seen as an extension of betrayal. Why does a government want to sniff after user data suddenly and make it a law?
And dozens of comments underneath, as you might have thought. The company - one 19 year old kid running a node frontend on vercel. First comment - from a marketing manager at some FAANG. If this is not a sign that we are cooked, I don't know what is.
People keep sharing everything they do online, rely on cloud based llms which clearly collect their information. And everyone and their dog understands that AI companies operate at huge losses and promises they will never be able to fulfill. Sooner or later the investors will start asking questions. Governments are in this bizarre place where they are part of this on two fronts. At large because governments are lead by people in their 60's and 70's and have no goddamn clue what AI is beyond magic that can do anything (or so they are made to believe). So they are pouring money into AI companies to do some ridiculous tasks for them, while also pouring money into collecting data. To their minds, it's probably "we have the data and we have access to the all-seeing and all-knowing ai". And while that is happening, sloppers ask that same AI to write their code, where to buy dinner, use it as a therapist, relationship consultant and all that, adding more highly personal data into the bag of data that should remain personal. Forget how bad corporations have been at preventing data leaks. When the investors start knocking on the door, asking for their money and a government asking for a JSON containing your medical records, private information and whatnot, guess who won't think twice about it and happily take the briefcase full of cash.
Ultimately, Idiocracy was supposed to be a comedy, not a documentary but here we are.
Now There is point saying that we should use better alternative forms of social medias like mastodon etc. perhaps hackernews and that can be a worthy discussion but I have thought about it and I do feel like your musician friend is right in the sense that it might require some presence in social medias for some purposes.
Thinking about it, one of the largest pieces of advice I feel like is getting converged is that the best place to become entrepreneur is being in the space where you might sell your product. So if I wish to sell tech related products, I am fine with only using hackernews for the most part.
In a similar fashion to that, to gain visibility, These musician go to these platforms and many do hit and many don't and sometimes its a matter of both hard work and luck.
Now that being said, every message that you wrote about your friend feels a bit bad-mouthed.
Admittedly, I don't think HN is a good place to promote your product either. It used to be a place where innovation and doing something complex was appreciated. These days it's all about people praising slop.
As for my friend - I've said it to his face multiple times but as they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
I do sort of agree with that, I mean I literally saw within another thread related to music (Misfits) where this guy https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=hustleracer is clearly using AI and just joined
I am seeing lots of people use AI within hackernews now. I have flagged them for what its worth but yes, I do sort of agree with that hackernews has decreased a little bit in value.
But I used to hear the same thing a year ago as well, I would still be considered relatively new to the forum but I heard stories of how one day PG would just decide about elixir and have front page all about elixir/erlang and people sometime ago reminisced that, which happened many years ago.
But even with all of this, I feel like hackernews is a place where sanity is still intact for the most part and there is still some authenticity more than other places but that's just my 2 cents.
I do agree that musicians struggle with making money sometimes. Its definitely a winner takes all market from my viewpoint and median musician doesn't make much but the mean is skewed because of the billions racked in by famous people.
I am not exactly sure how to preserve Music,Art though. One of my closest friend said to me that her sister wasn't studying well and now my friend is 99 percentile kind of fellow, but to me that moment, Man it felt like that poor girl was put into expectation by her brother and her family and sometimes feeling too. So I said to him that hey if she wants to pursue music/art/anything, then let her do that and my friend basically told me again about the struggling economy of that.
I am not sure what can be done with all of this. Universal Basic Income seems to be the solution. I think Ireland passed UBI for artists sometime ago, maybe that might help preserving music/art.
An answer I feel like is happening is that atleast for my generation, it feels like a lack of culture. I am not quite satisfied by how the social algorithms can promote brain rot but not show music and just, like, I feel like our generation and next generations to come have lost something more meaningful for these algorithms to catch the money trail and the people to make such brain-rot.
My point is, Music/Art has some incredible contribution to the society but society doesn't reward them enough or fairly and then we have the other part of society turning attention into a commodity and churning out content like a factory. All in all, feels like a cultural degradation as time passes from one generation to another.
Now I don't have all that much on my shoulders anymore or rather it's very much under control but once everything is truly sorted, I have thought about it many times: I am truly exhausted and on a personal level a less demanding and less busy job does sound appealing in a way even for less money. And this is the catch: not everyone is greedy and many people are capable of saying "you know what, I have enough, let's take it easy". Which would become a huge problem on a large scale when the balance shifts. You have over 3 generations now (alpha, z, millenials and x to a very large degree) who have been bombarded for decades by social media and feel no desire to try or learn something new as opposed to just relying on slop. And it was bad enough as it was even before that - I haven't seen nor do I wish to see a large chunk of my family but to give you an idea, my cousin(at the time around 10 years old) did not know how to eat with a fork and knife or tie his shoes or button up his shirt. Not because of a mental disability but because his parents had a child instead of getting a small dog to take for a walk two times a day.
Imagine when you have tens of millions of those that would gladly scroll through tiktok all day long and rely on UBI without batting an eyelash.
I genuinely don't have a solution but UBI does not sound like it. I agree that for most of history, humanity has been pushed by a very small fraction of individuals but currently I don't see people that are doing it, given that we are currently living in a bullshitter economy: "within the next year we will have {x}".
I don't know of a single instance in humanity where someone has made a big leap, granted that all the basics are provided to them in the same way no one has gotten out of poverty through charity.
If I had to base everything off of my own experience(and those around me), my view is that a certain critical mass of unfortunate circumstances are required in order to get someone to reach their potential.
Additionally, we expect the government to respect any laws or acts when the current administration seems to be ignoring most of it? Literally why do people even think the government needs to "BUY" data??? They can get it regardless and nobody is really there to stop them until things change.