5 ms·

It's a start, but the real problem is that the data exists in the first place. Modern "surveillance capitalism" is the underlying cancer, and warrantless gover

It's a start, but the real problem is that the data exists in the first place. Modern "surveillance capitalism" is the underlying cancer, and warrantless government snooping and targeted ads are just symptoms.

Aloha 9y ago
Is it? There are valid reasons why cellular provider would create that information in the first place - largely to do with automated network repair stuff (you can find malconfigured neighbor lists in CDMA systems for example), or automated network metrics. The issue isn't creating this kind of data, its excessive retention, warrantless government use of it, and using it as another revenue stream to tell it to third parties - but the generation itself on the surface seems perfectly valid.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  As a foreigner i have found it highly annoying how US companies, particular Amazon, simply store my credit card data without any clear prompting or similar. If i want to trade there, i am perfectly capable of inputting the various digits and such each time, thank you very much.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    It's harder for folks to make impulse purchases if they have to take time to locate their credit card and enter the digits every time. This behavior you have observed is by design.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      In other words, the US consumer economy is a massive hamster wheel...
      - CamTin 9y ago
        That may be true, but I'm not sure how you glean it just from the observation that smart companies try to make it as easy as possible for customers to spend money with them. Every smart businessman since the stone age has tried to do the same thing.
        Anticapitalist 9y ago
        > Every smart businessman since the stone age has tried to do the same thing. [Citation Needed]
        tjoff 9y ago
        Making something easy is one thing. Forcing users to use the "easy" thing while risking customer funds, security and privacy is maleficent.
        CamTin 9y ago
        Sure, it's business pocketing benefits and shirking costs. I'm not saying it's not bad, just that I'm not sure how this relates to "the US consumer economy [being] a massive hamster wheel". It was either a non-sequitor or I don't see the logical connection, if there is one.
        coding123 9y ago
        Finally someone addressed digi_owl's point that it wasn't about making it easy but that Amazon didn't clearly state the number would be recorded and saved in a database. Most other non-Amazon shopping carts have checkboxes like "Store this credit card for future purchases" but I imagine we could make better payment solutions by pushing all risk to a QR code (instead of NF) + Apple/Android Pay + payment agreement button on the phone.
        CamperBob2 9y ago
        In the US, our funds aren't at risk. If someone hacks my Amazon account and steals my credit card info, the credit card company will cover any losses (and presumably go after Amazon to recover them.) The incentives of the various parties are actually pretty rationally aligned here. So I'll thank you for not making it more of a pain in the neck to buy stuff online than it already is.
  - mixmastamyk 9y ago
    As soon as you input and use it once, it is recorded roughly forever. There is nothing to be gained from typing it every time.
- username223 9y ago
  > The issue isn't creating this kind of data, its excessive retention,... Exactly. As Maciej Ceglowski (@idlewords) has put it, companies should view data as nuclear waste: http://idlewords.com/talks/haunted_by_data.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/haunted_by_data.htm I would say it's more like human waste: it's necessary, and you can do useful things with it, but you don't want to keep it around.
- dfox 9y ago
  Even for TDMA networks you need some surprisingly precise idea of where the user is (more precise than which is used for call routing) for the radio interface to actually work. This has to do with the need to compensate for speed of light to retain synchronisation of the radio interface framing (for GSM-like TDMA this is mostly relevant for rural areas and gets you precision of ~250m, but it has to be significantly more precise for CDMA) and with planing of handovers. Storing some of this stuff might be valid for diagnostics and network planning, but it is mostly stored as part of government required (meta)data retention policies. Whether telcos really have to store this kind of data is somewhat questionable and certainly jurisdiction-specific, but usually they just dump all signalisation traffic somewhere and are done with it with the expectation that it is simpler and cheaper to store all of it than to design (which involves legal analysis) and implement some kind of filtering mechanism.

Aloha 9y ago

Is it? There are valid reasons why cellular provider would create that information in the first place - largely to do with automated network repair stuff (you can find malconfigured neighbor lists in CDMA systems for example), or automated network metrics. The issue isn't creating this kind of data, its excessive retention, warrantless government use of it, and using it as another revenue stream to tell it to third parties - but the generation itself on the surface seems perfectly valid.

digi_owl 9y ago
As a foreigner i have found it highly annoying how US companies, particular Amazon, simply store my credit card data without any clear prompting or similar. If i want to trade there, i am perfectly capable of inputting the various digits and such each time, thank you very much.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  It's harder for folks to make impulse purchases if they have to take time to locate their credit card and enter the digits every time. This behavior you have observed is by design.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    In other words, the US consumer economy is a massive hamster wheel...
    - CamTin 9y ago
      That may be true, but I'm not sure how you glean it just from the observation that smart companies try to make it as easy as possible for customers to spend money with them. Every smart businessman since the stone age has tried to do the same thing.
      - Anticapitalist 9y ago
        > Every smart businessman since the stone age has tried to do the same thing. [Citation Needed]
      - tjoff 9y ago
        Making something easy is one thing. Forcing users to use the "easy" thing while risking customer funds, security and privacy is maleficent.
        CamTin 9y ago
        Sure, it's business pocketing benefits and shirking costs. I'm not saying it's not bad, just that I'm not sure how this relates to "the US consumer economy [being] a massive hamster wheel". It was either a non-sequitor or I don't see the logical connection, if there is one.
        coding123 9y ago
        Finally someone addressed digi_owl's point that it wasn't about making it easy but that Amazon didn't clearly state the number would be recorded and saved in a database. Most other non-Amazon shopping carts have checkboxes like "Store this credit card for future purchases" but I imagine we could make better payment solutions by pushing all risk to a QR code (instead of NF) + Apple/Android Pay + payment agreement button on the phone.
        CamperBob2 9y ago
        In the US, our funds aren't at risk. If someone hacks my Amazon account and steals my credit card info, the credit card company will cover any losses (and presumably go after Amazon to recover them.) The incentives of the various parties are actually pretty rationally aligned here. So I'll thank you for not making it more of a pain in the neck to buy stuff online than it already is.
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  As soon as you input and use it once, it is recorded roughly forever. There is nothing to be gained from typing it every time.
username223 9y ago
> The issue isn't creating this kind of data, its excessive retention,... Exactly. As Maciej Ceglowski (@idlewords) has put it, companies should view data as nuclear waste: http://idlewords.com/talks/haunted_by_data.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/haunted_by_data.htm I would say it's more like human waste: it's necessary, and you can do useful things with it, but you don't want to keep it around.
dfox 9y ago
Even for TDMA networks you need some surprisingly precise idea of where the user is (more precise than which is used for call routing) for the radio interface to actually work. This has to do with the need to compensate for speed of light to retain synchronisation of the radio interface framing (for GSM-like TDMA this is mostly relevant for rural areas and gets you precision of ~250m, but it has to be significantly more precise for CDMA) and with planing of handovers. Storing some of this stuff might be valid for diagnostics and network planning, but it is mostly stored as part of government required (meta)data retention policies. Whether telcos really have to store this kind of data is somewhat questionable and certainly jurisdiction-specific, but usually they just dump all signalisation traffic somewhere and are done with it with the expectation that it is simpler and cheaper to store all of it than to design (which involves legal analysis) and implement some kind of filtering mechanism.