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Sixty-seven percent of smartphone users rely on Google Maps to help them get to where they are going quickly and efficiently.
A major of[sic] feature of Google Maps is its ability to predict how long different navigation routes will take. That's possible because the mobile phone of each person using Google Maps sends data about its location and speed back to Google's servers, where it is analyzed to generate new data about traffic conditions.Information like this is useful for navigation. But the exact same data that is used to predict traffic patterns can also be used to predict other kinds of information – information people might not be comfortable with revealing.
For example, data about a mobile phone's past location and movement patterns can be used to predict where a person lives, who their employer is, where they attend religious services and the age range of their children based on where they drop them off for school.
Perhaps we can carefully craft our data patterns to tell advertisers, "Take a hike!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @10:05PM (21 children)
They can't predict shit. They can interpret existing data, such as the location where one starts navigation being a luser's home or place of employment, but they can't predict that today I may just want to stop by the supermarket before going to work.
Just as I can't predict whether Google's navigation will route me the best way, or on a path that is suboptimal for me, but generates traffic congestion data for them.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @10:10PM (5 children)
We hear your concerns. That's why we're announcing the new GooBook Brain Implant, allowing us to provide relevant information to you as soon you need it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday February 11 2019, @10:26PM (4 children)
They also recently introduced their new scholarship (don't click it at work) for females called GooGirls. [googirls.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @11:17PM
That's a nice one of your mom and sister.
Got any others?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @11:27PM (2 children)
Oh come on! Where's the fun in adding a warning label? I wanted to see half a dozen posts from
victimspeople who clicked the link without looking at it or the user who posted it.Killjoy.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday February 12 2019, @12:10AM
Might be showing my age here, but after getting a real job that kind of shit stops being funny. Hell, I got a net-nanny warning from clicking a link on Drudge Report without checking the URL. It went to Infowars, which I like personally but nowadays in some circles is considered almost as bad as Wikileaks.
Sites like Drudge and Zerohedge could easily provide links to Wikileaks and if you don't check before you click you could be in a world of shit.
Though some would argue that a "real job" wouldn't give you any shit for accidentally clicking a link like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:48AM
It's got a nice SFW front page. Stop freaking out.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday February 11 2019, @10:10PM (4 children)
Most people are creatures of habit.
And the companies did read that message you got to pick up some milk on the way home. Since you buy ice cream every other week, they know you'll be headed back right after, without stopping at the bar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @11:48PM (3 children)
Damn, shouldn't have stopped by the strip club on the way home.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:40AM
Funny: I originally typed "strip club", and decided to change it to "bar".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:50AM (1 child)
Who else is going to pick up your daughter after "work"
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:36AM
Nah, was picking up my wife and my girlfriend.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Monday February 11 2019, @11:09PM (1 child)
They may not be able to predict if you need to pick up milk and/or diapers for the kid on the way home.
However, they will be able to predict how much money you make based on where you work, valuations/appraisals of houses where you live, and based on what type of store you shop at.
Walmart, Aldi, Goodwill will *tend* to be lower income...
Target, Kroger will tend to be middle income
while Whole Food and Saks will be higher income.
Note that these are not 100% accurate, but the stores you go to combined with you home/work location will combine to make everything more accurate overall. This is before they start adding in data from your web searches and websites you go to reported back by Google Analytics. Of course did you stop for dinner at the exclusive restaurant, or chuck e cheese?
Then how is your health? Did you stop at the local VD clinic or a dialysis center? Is that your 5th day in a row you ate at Mc Donalds or Hardees for lunch? or do you only eat vegan? If you work in a city, do you ever walk for a few blocks or get in a cab all the time?
And this is just the tip of the iceberg... they are constantly analyzing the data to find even more trends.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:31AM
Such predictions have some reliability. Google can predict, based on past data, that on Wednesday, you will probably stop at the store for milk. And, they will probably be right most of the time. Depending on how much data they have on you, they may be far less reliable at predicting what bar you're going to get smashed at this weekend. Unless, of course, you plan the weekend with a friend or six, via Gmail. As mentioned by others, people are creatures of habit. Actions taken on a regular basis makes you very predictable - like, you drink an 8 ounce glass of milk every morning. And, Google can probably predict pretty accurately that you'll spend Friday and Saturday night at a bar, but since you don't always go to the same bar, they can't predict which bar you'll be at.
The Navy has a history of "predicting" things. I've mentioned that I was in supply department. When a ship gets underway, it is expected to carry everything it needs for an extended deployment of 120 days. That includes groceries, of course.
Now, how can you predict that you will need X tons of ground beef, when people don't always eat the same? Simple - you average things. And, the Navy has a couple centuries of experience to draw on. (The army has similar experience, but their needs are somewhat different from the Navy.) So, it doesn't matter that Tom is sick on Monday, and doesn't eat well, or Bill is trying to lose weight. Both are just insignificant blips in the averages. What they don't eat, someone else will. More, you can expect that both will make up for it next Tuesday, when they are assigned to a working party carrying ammunition during an Unrep.
Harri Seldon, in Asimov's Foundation had it right. As individuals, people are only somewhat predictable. En masse, people are very predictable. Additionally, if people KNOW that you're predicting their actions, many of them will poison your data, and ruin your predictions. I am one of those many. I enjoy poisoning data bases.
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday February 11 2019, @11:31PM (4 children)
Actually, that's completely wrong. In fact, such data can determine, with significant precision [wikipedia.org] when you'll be home, when you're at work, where you like to go when you're not at those places. What's more, by using additional information including web searches, businesses/residences near your locations and a huge array of other data that's not specific to you, can determine if you have an illness, are having an affair, use "illegal" substances and a whole raft of other information about you.
This has been shown repeatedly in studies done with just partial data. If you're not trolling, you're kidding yourself and/or don't understand statistical analysis and human behavior.
If those who collect such data just want to show you ads, that's annoying, but not incredibly harmful. However, such data in the hands of someone who wishes to do you harm (physically or economically), can provide all the insight into your life and activities to destroy you. And since data breaches will eventually happen (and/or information sold to bad actors), you are, in fact, at risk.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:49AM
Yep. It never ceases to amaze me how the average public thinks it's impossible. Yet, Topological Data Analysis, Advanced Data Mining, and Game Theory don't give a shit if you don't believe in them. It's kinda like Quantum-anything, in that the average person will never understand the How, but they do see the Result very clearly. While you may still doubt a Quantum based approach to getting an answer, those answers are being provided, and they're matching up with reality in useful ways.
Big Data is the same situation. Crazy fucking huge datasets that no average person would believe could be analyzed to provide anything useful in a viable time frame, continually yield surprisingly accurate predictions about future data. I'm sure AC wants to be secure in the knowledge that Big Corporate cannot predict he will go the grocery store today at 6pm, yet if AC is a normal grid-connected citizen, they're leaking information like a colander holding water. Information like the last time they visited the store, what they bought when they were there, what their IoT fridge says about itself, social media postings consumed about a recipe and then re-shared, last time AC ate anywhere and used an electronic form of payment and/or Instagramm'd their food, cellular GPS information showing typical behavior, which stores next to them are currently open, is their vehicle having issues, the likelihood of going 20 miles out of your way that night so they look at grocery stores where you will be, have you been sick lately, how does the medications you are currently on affect your behavior, etc.
Not only does the average public not know what can be predicted, they also don't know what information is really being stored. That's the real shocker to me. Not what they can predict with advanced tech, but just what the fuck they've been storing on all of us on a daily basis. I fight it hard as hell with Bayesian Poisoning, but realistically I know they can still predict a great deal about me because of how much information is constantly being collected, including my "shadow", or my interference pattern with others.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:59AM
Yeah.
I want more tools to poison the well. If they turn the hoover on high, you'll get more mileage by throwing rocks in than trying to keep the vacuum from getting anything.
Now I want a rooted phone app that inserts fake trips.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:57PM (1 child)
You put too much faith in the results. When surveillance capitalism spies on you, they can try to reconstruct facts about you. Such as where you live and where you work. They can try to prompt you to go out and buy the proverbial batteries after you just bought some on Amazon. They can try to link sources of information, like me getting ads that target my parents lifestyle (possibly because I gave them some iTunes music files I had downloaded). I don't have to act on their prompts, and it will in fact make me do something different. It is reactive, not predictive, yet I agree your insurance company will use your past data to set your rates. That is because they make money on the aggregate of their customers, not the actual behavior of one person.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday February 12 2019, @05:35PM
You're confusing your *reaction* to the "targeted" marketing of which you are aware with the variety of tools available to predict what you will do, with whom and when.
Given the voluminous data you provide. including location data from your smartphones, usage activity on your "smart" TVs, web searches, smart watches, credit card balances/activity, home/auto debt, social media interactions, services and apps usage data, etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseam isn't being collated and coordinated by data brokers who gather information from both the usual suspects as well as corporations you've never heard of that get regular updates on esoteric aspects of your life and behavior.
And no, the folks involved in surveillance capitalism [wikipedia.org] aren't making money from seling you stuff. They sell (or give away) stuff to you in order to increase their insight into your interests, desires and activities. They then sell access to both the data collected and the insights derived from their analyses.
As I said in the post to which you replied:
Given even a fraction of the data you're giving away, I could do many things:
1. Rob your house while you're at work;
2. Get you fired from your job;
3. Blackmail you about that cute little piece of ass you meet at that hotel twice a week. I'm sure your wife would want me to tell her. And I would, if you don't pay;
4. Track your location to somewhere quiet and murder you;
5. Build and execute spear phishing attacks against you with extreme accuracy and sophistication;
With a tiny fraction of the data folks have on you, I could do all of those things without too much work.
But that's just the tip of the iceberg. As more corporations (whether it's auto manufacturers, TV manufacturers, IOT manufacturers, software manufacturers and on and on -- and corporations in all of those industries speak openly about exploiting/selling the data they collect from you).
This is a threat to liberty and privacy. When you know that you're constantly being watched, you will change your behaviors. When all your data are belong to us, you no longer have privacy. Getting annoying ads isn't the problem -- that's easy to block.
You are woefully uninformed as to the scope and and depth of the surveillance to which you are being subjected.
But don't believe me. Go take a look for yourself at who is collecting your data. You'll have to look hard, as all of this is *designed* to be hidden from you. Or don't.
You can choose to remain ignorant, or you can choose to attempt to understand the issues addressed in TFA as well as in numerous studies, books and articles. It's no skin off my nose either way.
Have a good day!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:20AM
I think if you reliably carry your phone with you everywhere then yes, they could calculate a probability that you will stop at the store on any given day, have a fairly accurate time window of when you would do it, and how long it would take. If they have access to your credit card transaction history and/or your "shopper card" for the supermarket, then they could make fairly accurate probability predictions on what you would buy and how much.
Moreover, they could slot you into a lifestyle category, predict what you would most likely be interested in, generally speaking, 5 years from now, make a fairly accurate guess if you had a life partner and what sex they are, assign you a "sociability score" based on your movement and activities, and predict most of your major life events as probabilities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @11:58AM
You belong to the American majority you naive fuck.
Do some reading https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1418680112 [pnas.org]
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Wednesday February 13 2019, @05:31AM
My favorite story is a coworker who thought google tracking him and suggesting departure times to arrive places on time given current traffic was a great thing.
Then one thursday he got an alert that he usually goes to a given pub every week at 5 and due to traffic he should leave a little early if he wants to be there on time. He wasn't sure what was more uncomfortable. That his phone figured out that he had a weekly drinking habit or that it was trying to help him keep up with it.