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Valentina Zarya writes at Fortune Magazine that the top 2016 prediction for David Marcus,Facebook's vice president of messaging products, is the disappearance of the phone number and its replacement by applications like Facebook's Messenger. " You can make video and voice calls while at the same time not needing to know someone's phone number," writes Marcus. "You don't need to have a Facebook account to use Messenger anymore, and it's also a cross platform experience – so you can pick up where you left off whether you're on a desktop computer, a tablet, or your phone."
Jonah Berger, Wharton professor and author of "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" agrees. "For most of us, I think it's really hard to actually remember what someone's phone number actually is. We use our phones so often or we click on a button that has it. But if there was a test where you had to say, do you remember your best friends number or could you type in your best friend's number I think most of us would fail."
But not everyone agrees that Murcus' predictions are objective and disinterested. "It's all very well the company wanting to be the de facto Internet -- especially in places like India. But drier minds and eyes might wonder whether the wish to eradicate phone numbers has something to do with not everyone having yet given Facebook their phone numbers," says Chris Matyszczyk. "It may well be that phone numbers will disappear. Some, though, might wonder how making their disappearance a company theme squares with what Marcus claims is the ultimate goal: 'It's all about delight.' This one's easy. It's all about delighting Facebook."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Thursday January 14 2016, @04:12PM
Here's the other thing that I find astonishing. Not all that long ago the only ways you communicated with anyone other than in person was either phone or snail mail. Any invasion into either of those required a court order. Now people are just fine with communicating via venues where there isn't even an expectation of privacy, let alone any chance of it. Has everyone gone insane?...and yea, I don't facebook either.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday January 14 2016, @07:25PM
You don't have to answer your phone you know. Just put it on silent and check it when you feel like it : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Zz9zZ on Thursday January 14 2016, @10:55PM
People are operating more on a defensive nature. Encryption is only just beginning to enter the public consciousness as something besides SciFI / Military use, and up till recently your data was never guaranteed to be safe since it traveled through so many nodes and could be intercepted at any point and recorded digitally. Phone taps used to be more difficult and there was no simple bulk collection method, so it was never even an issue to the public.
So we have ignorance about the surveillance with some people assuming that only the "bad guys" are being spied upon and cataloged. If everyone knew that profiles are built for EVERY person, and that they become a part of every person's profile that they know... well we'd have some bigger backlashes, but it isn't covered by enough media. Next are those that act defensively because they know it happens but they don't feel there is anything they can do. They are the most guilty, because they accept it and promote the culture of acceptance even if they don't really like it. At the LEAST everyone should have a strong opinion of defiance and outrage.
Third? Hmmm, I guess those are the people that think its just peachy because they are saavy enough to mind their Ps and Qs, and many are participants in such systems. I saw a post by someone involved in financial transactions who said it was scary how much data he gets any time someone even thinks of making a transaction through his service (I guess it does a check before even allowing them to proceed) and THEN he said how "cool" it was. Personally I'd start working on plugging that hole and making everything encrypted and opaque where possible. No admin should be able to see anything beyond what is necessary, but I can't speak to the details and how to handle them. Nerd's with a power-hungry overlord mentality... ugh give me an island to send them to, or at least an ethics class from a reputable institution!
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Friday January 15 2016, @01:20AM
I don't believe that is true though. Most people I deal with have an expectation of privacy using the Internet, more than they do with a phone. The general feeling is that law enforcement have the phones locked down, but that the Internet is too 'advanced' or 'technical' for the government to get a complete handle on.
Snowden has greatly changed the public perception of it, but I still don't believe that people have no expectations of privacy. Instead they've simply resigned themselves to the fact it can't be provided by the typical providers. The more sophisticated understand that this is true for two reasons; National Security interests and business interests, both of which do fantastic jobs at regulatory and political capture.
It's not insanity, but more than likely a sense of defeat combined with apathy. When not that, ignorant cowards who willingly trade away their freedom for security. Although, with that being said, how well are the privacy providers like Whisper or Silent Circle doing? Maybe the growth rate in that industry shows people do wish for an expectation of privacy at least.
What do we really know as citizens anyways?
A) We have a Constitution that allows for our privacy
B) We have a government that refuses to respect it ideologically.
C) We have a government that lies to us about monitoring us without due process, in violation of the aforementioned Constitution governing their actions.
D) We have a government, that when caught lying, punishes nobody guilty of massive transgressions against the citizenry via epic Constitutional violations.
E) We have a government, that after getting caught, apologizes to nobody, incurs zero accountability, and then vehemently argues for ever less civil rights so it can protect us.
F) Finally, we have a government moving beyond the due process of the past (Judicial checking Executive, the Legislative checking the Executive) and towards a new system in which due process occurs after and beyond the methods of surveillance. "Due process" is only required when reading from the system, and the Constitution does *not* apply to the routine operations of the system. Those operations being assumed to be without surveillance itself, and of suitably high security, that illicit readings from this massive information database are simply not possible. Regardless of the fact the government has had all of its military intelligence and assets raped by the Chinese (its over--the USA lost everything), and we can't even secure databases of government employees, much less citizens.
Yes. Everyone has gone insane, or apathetic, or misanthropic. I don't actually know a single person that believes the world will survive, or that we will survive each other anymore. It's pretty much a matter of when the USA implodes under the weight of its tyranny and fundamental inequity of its processes.
As a country couldn't "think" or "vote" ourselves out of a wet paper bag at this point, but then again, an awful lot of people are suffering the delusion that the political process is more or less intact, functional, and the preferred venue for political reform. Talk about wishful thinking :)
The answer I think is closer to the truth, is that the average American knows they live in a totalitarian state run by monied interests, but simply lives in a state of denial and false hope that it might change back. It's easier to find a sixpack, a bong, and a reality TV show to distract us from the fact that America died while we partying it up and enjoying our freedom.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Saturday January 16 2016, @12:38AM
All good points. The real irony here is that this time around, the election actually is that reality TV show...sad stuff.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Friday January 15 2016, @06:52AM
Actually, for many of these methods of communication, the people using them DO have an expectation of privacy. It's the NSA and DHS that have decided that you have no need for privacy when using 'new' methods of communication.
(Score: 2) by khchung on Saturday January 16 2016, @11:28AM
Bingo!
Think about it, all your phone calls go to the phone companies first before the other end, just like email or any chat program, yet GP thought that you have an expectation of privacy with phone calls, why?
Because decades of law and court cases that protects your privacy and forbid both phone companies and law enforcement to listen into your calls without due process.
What the NSA/etc did was to build up opposite law and court cases to strip away your privacy in electronic communications.