3 ms·

It's scary what was once called "spyware", "malware", "adware" or "other"-ware has become so commonplace and accepted. You type in Windows 10 search and it sen

It's scary what was once called "spyware", "malware", "adware" or "other"-ware has become so commonplace and accepted. You type in Windows 10 search and it sends your keystrokes to Microsoft, you log into Windows 10 OS (and they push hard for this during setup, they actively make it hard to use an "offline" profile) and it records your every interaction with that computer; with "full" telemetry it records every web page you visit, every app you launch, every app that has an error (you can download an app from MS store to see what telemetry W10 is sending to MS, it's quite illuminating) These days, more and more of society expects you to have a smartphone and "apps"; "please can you scan a QR code to enter this restaurant". A supermarket has an app and offers in-store discounts on food, your data subsidizes the cost of what you purchase. Many offers are locked behind a social contract of "you give me data and I'll give you some money off". It's amusing to see how 'cheap' people are and how much data they are willing to freely give away in the name of a very very small discount (the data is worth much more than the savings you are getting). An always online, always connected fully digital society is prone to attacks, hacks and disturbances. We've seen hospitals held to ransom and have paid bitcoins to get critical machines working again, something that shouldn't even be possible, yet one person who opens $phishingEmail.exe can bring down an entire network. Our life is essentially in the hands of crudely built machines, with absolutely no security against basic human errors - and we trust these with the very foundation of society. One day we will witness a truly devastating hack, a disturbance unlike anything we've known previously, and it'll likely be as devastating as the Beirut explosion. It's not an if, but a when. I want to return to a time without cars or computers, even just for a brief period (the lockdown was so nice this year. the hum of the birds and not the thunder of engines was a blessing).

ip26 6y ago
A supermarket has an app and offers in-store discounts on food, your data subsidizes the cost of what you purchase. This isn't new to smartphones. Grocery stores have had discount cards for ages. You might even have one in your wallet.
- aboringusername 6y ago
  A smartphone is much more valuable, it offers richer data and capabilities than a discount card. An app can access tonnes of 'free' information provided by the OS (model, make, package list), as well as logging each and every tap/interaction and accessing personal information (contacts lists, location data, device identifiers you can trace across datasets) You can see which offers people engage with most, how often they open your app, well timed push notifications and a reliance on that app. They can also purchase data from that smartphone and have huge data silos to perform studies on. An App provides access to a human being constantly, whereas a discount card is a stateless entity in a wallet that never gets used; it's unlikely someone loses their smartphone, it's a prized possession. Quite honestly, discount cards are probably quite worthless vs smartphone data and the richness of what you can get. I am surprised they are even still used/offered these days (I know of supermarkets that just have apps now).
- noja 6y ago
  Those discount cards didn't track you round the store.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    I've found that very often the cashier will swipe their own discount card if you tell them you don't have one of your own. You can also, in practice at Safeway at least, ask for a new one each time. I used to collect them just for shits and giggles, I had dozens before I got bored of it. As a tracking mechanism, they rely on the customer cooperating and using the card as intended.
  - EvanAnderson 6y ago
    There are ceiling-mounted facial recognition cameras for that now. Have a Customer who brought in some cameras for "people counting" from Xovis. Their's gear purported capabilities are down right scary. [1] https://www.xovis.com https://www.xovis.com
swiley 6y ago
Maybe they realized I'd flip out if they asked but apparently Verizon now encourages people to "install McAfee on their router." This does exactly what you would expect: terminate SSL connections and only allow web access if you install their CA cert. I only know this because the person in charge of internet at the house my girlfriend currently lives at was convinced by the ISP to set it up and now her machine has malware on it.
blindm 6y ago
> One day we will witness a truly devastating hack, a disturbance unlike anything we've known previously Yeah I recall Mikko Hyppönen in one of his talks describing how malware got encoded into DNA so it could propagate like a true virus. And there was a story recently of malware getting into some biotech lab and changing the genetic code to create mutant pathogens. If any malware authors are reading this: stop being so ruthless and unethical. You have a duty of care when you write code. You need to wield your technical prowess responsibly!
iJohnDoe 6y ago
There is a version of Windows 10 made just for China to remove all the surveillance because China thought Windows 10 was such an invasion of privacy and security risk that they wouldn’t use it otherwise. Think about that when you’re falling asleep at night. Actually, the Microsoft developers should think about that when they are trying to fall asleep at night.

ip26 6y ago

A supermarket has an app and offers in-store discounts on food, your data subsidizes the cost of what you purchase. This isn't new to smartphones. Grocery stores have had discount cards for ages. You might even have one in your wallet.

aboringusername 6y ago
A smartphone is much more valuable, it offers richer data and capabilities than a discount card. An app can access tonnes of 'free' information provided by the OS (model, make, package list), as well as logging each and every tap/interaction and accessing personal information (contacts lists, location data, device identifiers you can trace across datasets) You can see which offers people engage with most, how often they open your app, well timed push notifications and a reliance on that app. They can also purchase data from that smartphone and have huge data silos to perform studies on. An App provides access to a human being constantly, whereas a discount card is a stateless entity in a wallet that never gets used; it's unlikely someone loses their smartphone, it's a prized possession. Quite honestly, discount cards are probably quite worthless vs smartphone data and the richness of what you can get. I am surprised they are even still used/offered these days (I know of supermarkets that just have apps now).
noja 6y ago
Those discount cards didn't track you round the store.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  I've found that very often the cashier will swipe their own discount card if you tell them you don't have one of your own. You can also, in practice at Safeway at least, ask for a new one each time. I used to collect them just for shits and giggles, I had dozens before I got bored of it. As a tracking mechanism, they rely on the customer cooperating and using the card as intended.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  There are ceiling-mounted facial recognition cameras for that now. Have a Customer who brought in some cameras for "people counting" from Xovis. Their's gear purported capabilities are down right scary. [1] https://www.xovis.com https://www.xovis.com

swiley 6y ago

Maybe they realized I'd flip out if they asked but apparently Verizon now encourages people to "install McAfee on their router." This does exactly what you would expect: terminate SSL connections and only allow web access if you install their CA cert. I only know this because the person in charge of internet at the house my girlfriend currently lives at was convinced by the ISP to set it up and now her machine has malware on it.

blindm 6y ago

> One day we will witness a truly devastating hack, a disturbance unlike anything we've known previously Yeah I recall Mikko Hyppönen in one of his talks describing how malware got encoded into DNA so it could propagate like a true virus. And there was a story recently of malware getting into some biotech lab and changing the genetic code to create mutant pathogens. If any malware authors are reading this: stop being so ruthless and unethical. You have a duty of care when you write code. You need to wield your technical prowess responsibly!

iJohnDoe 6y ago

There is a version of Windows 10 made just for China to remove all the surveillance because China thought Windows 10 was such an invasion of privacy and security risk that they wouldn’t use it otherwise. Think about that when you’re falling asleep at night. Actually, the Microsoft developers should think about that when they are trying to fall asleep at night.