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“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door.
by al2o3cr 11y ago
“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,”
he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight.
“What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t
have to pay you.”
“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed
when you bought this conapt.”
In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it
necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his
door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.
From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with
it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s
money-gulping door.
“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.
Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”
― Philip K. Dick, Ubik
In addition to the above, I'd point out that there's already a massive literature of ways to take supposedly anonymous metadata and derive a probable identity from it - and the system described in the article would have vastly more information at its disposal than any of the intelligence agencies could DREAM of currently...
- notliketherest 11y agoWhat the hell was that ? (From mobile)
- kristianp 11y agoThat code-formatted excerpt is hard to read on mobile due to the narrower page. Here it is without the spaces at the start of each line: “The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.” “I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.” In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. “You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door. “I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.” ― Philip K. Dick, Ubik
- V-2 11y agoThen again, if there was a demand for that, I could imagine people using AI-driven "persona obfuscators" : ) Applications generating behavioral noise around you so as to confuse the tracking systems as much as possible, and protect some degree of privacy. If you can't keep your information private, get them to choke on an abundance of garbage information The point is, it's always a permanent race between sword and shield