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.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @10:10PM (1 child)
Whole world is fucked up. There's only one (or two) questions. What are you doing about it? What can one do?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @12:07PM
The answer is obvious, I do anything and everything in my power to oppose the surveillance capitalism. This includes running only free software on your computers, starting from operating systems (Linux, BSD) and applications as well and not using the services of companies, such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple. It also means actively blocking 3rd party content while web browsing, using a whitelist (say uMatrix). And outside of the browser having a hosts file will not hurt you but this is a blacklist, so it's a weak protection against the millions of actively hostile domains out there.
People are so busy they don't even realize they're getting raped in bright daylight. And that they're complicit in fucking their friends, relatives, associates and family members in the process as well. It's a horrible reality we live in today. The totalitarian state is closer than even: KGB, Hoover's FBI and Stasi for example had only a small fraction of the spy powers of the current spy corporations. The whole world indeed is well fucked. But we must try to resist and fix it. Because who if not us? When if not now?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday February 11 2019, @10:24PM (7 children)
A couple years ago, in the mountains, not in a busy city, on a fairly obscure road, Google was able to tell me about a delay ahead. Sure enough when we got there, a line of cars greeted us.
We thought that was amazing how Google could know that in a place not that heavily trafficked normally.
I realized it was the aggregate data of other people's smartphones. (And NOT necessarily using Google Maps either! All google really needs is your phone sending in your location data.) It hit me, all those android devices, even if not using Maps, is how Google realized there was a line of cars right there.
I liked that.
Maybe we could craft laws and societal norms so that individual data cannot be kept. This aggregate data was a good thing -- and it doesn't not even need to be kept for all that long to be useful. It's usefulness wears off and needs updates on something dynamic like Maps.
There is a difference in know that there are 35 cars lined up, instead of, the following cars are lined up: JANE, JOE, FRED, BOB, etc etc
People say (in the same breath): I hate how much google knows about me, . . . hey google, can you recommend a movie I might like?
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday February 11 2019, @10:29PM (3 children)
We have some nice Biden 2020 campaign material for you, or perhaps you would prefer a stale Marvel superhero movie featuring a Black male/White female couple?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @10:46PM (1 child)
Your age is showing, you wrinkled prick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @11:25PM
This may be a crack at last year's "Black Lives Matter The Movie" ; although I don't remember an albino panther in it. Maybe it was just a token.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:47PM
The first few Marvel movies, about a decade ago, were fun. I enjoyed some X-men and Fantastic-4 But they quickly wear thin. I don't even give them a look these days.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @11:10PM (1 child)
So they can't keep an individual's records - so no following you around after the fact.
But how many makes an aggregate? Tow data points? So you and your wife's phones... 3? Add 1 kid. 50? A single school bus...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:51PM
Actually, it can, in some cases, be okay to keep individual data points if they are sufficiently anonymized. Here are 35 android device data location points indicating a line of stopped cars. Little more than 35 GPS coordinates.
If only they could have, or by law have, an attitude of keeping the least amount of useful information for the shortest amount of time it is useful.
Even if it may be possible to reconstruct a history of an anonymous data point, and try to infer other things about it, this would at least significantly raise the bar compared to it being a simple index lookup.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:04AM
Funny thing is, Google, Apple, and Facebook would be the best references for:
So in a way, they may be the best ones to draft such laws and comment on data collection privacy implications for all of them, for themselves, for other players potentially entering the market, and if they were ambitious, for state and local governments. Just depends on who you trust to know enough about it and act truthfully.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday February 11 2019, @10:38PM (12 children)
I expect the Russians and Saudis have already thought of that.
The data could be collected in really subtle ways, such as a game that uses your location data somehow.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Monday February 11 2019, @10:45PM (1 child)
I'm assuming that you want in on that secret too... =)
(not that there is anything wrong with that.)
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:53AM
That’s where I found the hetero swing club I go to
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @11:38PM
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6686877/Women-tracking-app-lets-Saudi-Arabian-men-monitor-wives.html [dailymail.co.uk]
The sauds have an app for that
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:02AM (8 children)
In today's society, if you're ready to stand up and own the fact that you go to gay sex clubs, then that shouldn't be a problem.
If, on the other hand, you do any such thing that you don't want somebody, anybody, to know about - phone powered off before even starting out the door on the way to the place should be your norm, and not powered back on until you're well away from the "dark place," preferably at your next "light" destination. Sealed in a conductive bag, just incase it powers on unexpectedly, probably isn't overkill.
Any thought that you can set your privacy settings in such a way as to be "safe" while still allowing the phone to operate on your account is a delusion.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:15AM (5 children)
I'm not sure you've gone far enough, with just turning the phone off. Remove the battery - oops, can't do that with a lot of phones. Well, leave the damned thing home. The AI thinks that you spent a peaceful night at home, all alone, that way.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:57PM (3 children)
Suppose you have a burner phone that is used only when going to the gay sex club.
Better be careful when you turn the burner phone on.
Imagine:
1. turn off regular phone, put it in faraday bag
2. turn on burner phone.
(possibly interchange previous two steps)
3. depart for gay sex club
4. return home
5. turn off burner phone
6. resume use of regular phone.
(possibly interchange previous two steps)
It would be possible, looking at location data, to connect the pattern of the two phones use together.
So maybe don't turn on the burner phone until you arrive at the gay sex club.
But it still become possible to recognize a pattern of this phone on vs that other phone on, always at mutually exclusive times.
I'm not sure what my next step would be to prevent google and other church members from knowing that I was going to a gay sex club.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:29PM (1 child)
1) burner phone off, battery out
2) normal phone on, at home
3) travel with no phone on
4) turn on burner, if needed
5) when leaving turn off burner, battery out
6) arrive home, pocket normal phone
There you go, there isn't a pattern there to discern, at least is you normally leave your phone on the night stand at those times (accelerometer data).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @07:37PM
I had a phone years ago now that I dropped on accident and the battery popped right out. Picked up the phone and was surprised to see it still on. Pulling your battery is not a guarantee these days, there may still be a backup battery that pumps out occasional bursts to keep that sweet sweet location data flowing.
(Score: 2) by TheFool on Tuesday February 12 2019, @08:28PM
Just leave the regular (and burner) phone at home. You can almost certainly do without them for a few hours.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by MindEscapes on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:21PM
Only if you don't drive your own vehicle. Few these days without their own built in tracking.
Need a break? mindescapes.net may be for you!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday February 12 2019, @10:21AM
Consider that Vlad Putin is a former KGB Agent. I expect Vlad knows from Signals Intelligence.
Now imagine the former KGB - the FSB now I think - planting a "May I Use Your Location?" App on Cheeto's phone shortly after he announced his candidacy for 2016.
Hilarity really _did_ Ensue.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:04PM
Even in a liberal society it can be a problem. Because there are non liberal people who would judge or worse.
On one hand, I am not concerned that someone may not want other church members finding out they go to a gay sex club.
On the other hand, I admit I would tend to sympathize with it being easy to discover that the 3rd grade teacher goes to the pedophile club.
Even turning your phone off can be a problem. See other post under yours that I wrote.
I would also point out another incident from last year. A sex worker wants to keep that part of her life private from her otherwise professional life. She has a separate burner phone and is extremely careful. But good ol' Facebook connects her sex work to her real life. Because Facebook sees a photo or several of her at the same locations as the sex work client. FB then connects her photo to her real identity, and asks her (on her non burner phone): Do you know this person?
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @10:40PM (2 children)
For some reason my organization uses outlook for their email. This means if I buy plane tickets Microsoft reads my email and puts it on some a calendar I have never seen nor want they made for me. I don't want Microsoft to read my emails but do want to keep using that address.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:38AM
Encrypt message contents before sending
Set this as a standard within your organization
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:10PM
My organization also uses outlook for email. Despite my horrible opinion of Microsoft, I think the reason is quite clear. It pains me to admit it but Outlook / Exchange managed by a competent staff is pretty good enterprise software, for mail, calendars, scheduling things, including resources like meeting rooms or projectors, etc. central corporate directories etc. Especially for thousands of people.
That said, Google does the same thing you describe. When I exchange travel info over Gmail, Google gives my phone alerts about leaving for the airport, if my flight will have any delays, etc. If my spouse shared travel plans with me, and I need to go pick her up at the airport from the return trip, I get android alerts reminding me that I will need to leave for the airport soon, the flight is on time, what gate it arrives at, etc.
I find this to be terribly convenient. So I'm not sure I would complain if Microsoft did it. I just don't use any Microsoft products outside work, so I would never have noticed any kind of Microsoft calendar you speak of.
People say in the same breath: I hate how much google knows about me, hey google can you recommend a movie I might like?
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday February 11 2019, @11:42PM
Shoshana Zuboff's [wikipedia.org] book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism [theguardian.com] discusses just how much your data is being (mis)used by an increasingly broad set of corporations in more industries than you might imagine.
You can find an overview of the concepts here [wikipedia.org], and if you don't want to read the book, you can see the author discussing her work here [c-span.org].
Make no mistake, the corporate collection, analysis and dissemination of our personal data is not only big business, it is a threat to our liberty.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 12 2019, @01:10AM (6 children)
I've often wondered how much I, personally, am being profiled as I drive in traffic.
Do I get a rating for what percentile I fall in for progress made along a certain route? I mean, some people consistently choose slower lanes than others - is that data being collected somewhere? If it is, is it perhaps being misused to rate "driver aggressiveness," perhaps for insurance companies?
My morning commute consists of a number of intentional right turns away from busy intersections, passing hundreds of stopped cars as I transfer to a less traveled more open road - that could do incredible things to a metric like: average speed as compared to average speed of all drivers on this piece of road at this time.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12 2019, @02:41AM
If only you could opt in to voluntarily anonymously provide this data without being personally tracked.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:12PM (2 children)
If you use some type of turnpike pre-paid scanned gadget for convenience in order to drive through without stopping to pay the troll, you leave a data trail every time you drive through the turnpike.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:50PM (1 child)
As far as I have experimented in Florida, the Turnpike doesn't care how quickly you get from point A to point B in their system - though back in the days of paper toll tickets I did catch an evil grin from a toll collector when I covered 167 miles in under 2 hours...
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 12 2019, @06:59PM
Just because they don't bother to act on it doesn't mean they don't know.
They could also decide to "know" retroactively at any time.
Then select the subset of people who do not have the correct political thoughts for those currently in power.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:54AM (1 child)
I wonder when our cars will start issuing tickets to drivers for traffic infractions.
Speeding, stop signs, erratic driving, relaying location to law enforcement if they are interested in getting a slice of the fine.
Otherwise, the vehicle simply shuts down and calls the tow truck.
Americans will buy it if marketing spins it right... Especially rich Americans who need to signal their obedience to marketers. You know. The same folk that buy $100 sunglasses.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 13 2019, @03:19AM
Back in the late 70s, the folk who bought $100 sunglasses were the Burt Reynolds Bandit fans who could afford them.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday February 12 2019, @04:25AM (2 children)
I'd just like to say, that with machine learning all kinds of very surprising correlations can be extracted from very large datasets that NO ONE would have guessed. The ML algorithm processes the data and finds the connections. People do not necessarily prescribe beforehand which connections and correlations they would like to find, although you can of course attempt to do that as well. So yes, people in general have no idea what can be predicted from these huge datasets. Not even the people collecting the data and designing the ML algorithms.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 12 2019, @03:13PM (1 child)
People say: robots will create enough wealth to feed the unemployed.
DannyB sez: robots will create enough unemployed to feed the robots.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday February 13 2019, @02:58AM
They already do!
Around here, I see homeless lining up at food banks for rations of food, all made by machine.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]