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posted by martyb on Saturday August 29 2015, @01:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-wonder-if-they-track-sales-of-tin-foil? dept.

http://www.cio.com/article/2977027/intel-reveals-big-datas-dirty-little-secret.html

The article is entitled "Intel reveals big data's dirty little secret" but I read it a little bit differently.

From the article: "Companies are spending billions on tools and engineering to analyse big data, though many are hampered by one little problem: they still don't know what to do with all the data they collect."

This means that, of all the egregious breaches of personal privacy that companies regularly perform (the Target-knows-you're-pregnant-when-your-parents-don't story comes to mind), they have still only scratched the surface of making sense of your information, and using it effectively. Which means that, as Big Data gets people who actually know what they're doing, the more frightening the possibilities become, which is probably only a matter of time.

How would you feel about getting a bunch of targeted spam from divorce lawyers because your wife/husband's personal details were in the big Ashley Madison data leak, before you even heard about it? What if you were the guy who got drunk and put a profile up one time after a big fight but never followed up on it? This is why I don't have a Facebook account.


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  • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday August 30 2015, @02:40AM

    by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Sunday August 30 2015, @02:40AM (#229667)

    Your "vision" contradicts history. Power corrupts, and all this data will be used against us. To say otherwise is to ignore history, which is foolish.

    Furthermore, any future where my privacy is constantly violated to supposedly give me a "higher quality of life" isn't a future worth living in. We should all fight against that possibility; have some principles.

    I'm not advocating not being skeptical, instead I'm suggesting that skepticism unleavened by creative optimism weighs heavy on the stomach.

    I have a better plan: Use your brain. Read up on history and all the abuses that corporations and governments committed, and then come back and tell me that this "vision" of yours is even remotely probable.

    Let's have some freakin vision.

    I'd rather not be a propaganda-spreading tool for giant corporations.

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