5 ms·

Questions like this one from the article are also very common on /r/AskReddit: > Without naming the state you are from, what is it famous for? Hard to tell if

• akersten 5y ago
  That kind of thing is a gold mine for data harvesting. Automatically: for each comment from a certain state, go through their commenting history to map opinions on whatever you care to search for on a state-by-state level. Way cheaper and faster than phone surveys, and also gives a radically higher value slice of the population (than those who would pick up the phone to answer a survey). And that's probably the least nefarious thing someone could do with that data.
  • giantrobot 5y ago
    Or just look them up on SnoopSnoo, it'll pull in those things and give you a decent estimate of their personal details.
• cratermoon 5y ago
  The generic "without directly revealing PII, provide some detail which ML algorithms can use to determine the PII with a high degree of accuracy" is pretty clearly a product of intentional data gathering. The fact that is might get copied and organically spread is just a bonus. This also goes for "the first letter of your last name plus the date of your mother's birthday are your <pop culture tag>". Oh and all the cutesy little image processing tools like "what would you look like older/younger/as a different gender/if you were a cartoon" are there to train facial recognition algorithms. Yet even supposedly sophisticated people fall for these.
  • cinntaile 5y ago
    Do you have any actual proof that this is used for data mining and not because it's an engaging, fun question?
    • decremental 5y ago
      I think this misses the point. Even if what he said has never happened, your mind should be trained to never engage with things like that to begin with. The very first thing that should occur to you is "I'm about to upload a picture of my face on the internet. That's not a good idea. I won't do that." Same with entering personal information.
      • _jal 5y ago
        There are multiple "the point"s. Yes, teach your kid to be careful with their data. But also, how many outfits are actually doing this, or is this currently a theoretic concern? If people are doing this, what are their goals? Are they meeting them? Are there less obvious examples of the same thing? I'm sure you can keep going with more points.
        • decremental 5y ago
          If you just don't ever engage then even if the concern is not over a theoretical threat, you'll never have to worry either way. This isn't a "citation needed" kind of issue. "Do you have a source for it not being a good idea to provide personal information to strangers?" Bizarre.
          • deleted 5y ago
            [deleted]
          • deleted 5y ago
            [deleted]
      • handoflixue 5y ago
        Why should I care, though? "What state are you from" seems like pretty innocuous information. I'll readily mention that I'm from Seattle if it's relevant to the conversation or asked directly, and I tend to think of myself as being on the more paranoid / pro-privacy side of things. All the big players already have my address because I gave it to them, and a stalker should be able to work that information out pretty easily because I post in the Seattle sub-reddit and otherwise engage a lot with Seattle topics.
  • jackson1442 5y ago
    Taken to any extreme, this could easily be extended to "don't ever engage with anyone or anything for any reason whatsoever." Is there concrete evidence any of this is happening? If not, this just reads like a recipe for paranoia. What we've seen of ML really _isn't that good-_ my phone has full access to anything I've ever typed and its predictive keyboard rarely actually predicts what I'm going to say.
    • mandmandam 5y ago
      > "don't ever engage with anyone or anything for any reason whatsoever." On Facebook. Yeah probably a good idea and not really paranoid considering Fuckerberg's history. > What we've seen of ML really _isn't that good-_ ... Yet. And, after Brexit and Trump we've seen the difference a few percentage points can make. Add another point every couple years as the tech improves and you're mad not to be paranoid.
    • Pokepokalypse 5y ago
      >s there concrete evidence any of this is happening? Cambridge Analytica? Doesn't even matter if there's any truth behind the science. If the personality profiling works, they can apply their MODEL from the 270k responses they DID get, against every single other user's public profile information, and get a high-likelihood result. Does that mean they can tell exactly what MY personality type is? (as much as that may or may not be a valid "thing") - - I doubt it. But can they locate a region on a map where around 180,000 of 200,000 residents fit into a particular personality type, and then target ads to that region with a degree of better accuracy than "random"? Absolutely. Index that against voting records; (which is what the "fake election audits are for" why else do you think they started with Arizona which blew in an unexpected direction for them? Also Kobach's efforts in 2017 were probably actually a data-collection operation for the GOP) - and you have a good map for how to target campaign spending in the next election. I also assume the Census data is abused in this way, (by whichever party is in-power at the time). "dont ever engage with anyone or anything for any reason whatsoever" is fine and dandy. And it's like a Zombie Apocalypse: you can protect yourself from being bitten. But you can't protect yourself from the consequences of everyone else being bitten and turning into zombies and coming after you in such great numbers, that you don't have enough ammunition stockpiled for all the headshots you'll need. (That's my analogy for "people infected with racist (and etc) disinformation are gonna vote a certain way, whether you take in that disinformation or not.")
• 0x4d464d48 5y ago
  Fuck zodiac signs. Tell me what kind of car you plan to buy next!
  • platz 5y ago
    A hovercraft
  • sprkwd 5y ago
    A tank