Big Brother and SBO
- Thread starter rgranger
- Start date
So say you. To be dethroned, not disgruntled, and then he tries to sell us this load of "admin-bots"?All those bots are doing is indexing site content, so they're fairly innocent.
So, there are 20 posts per page and over night we've added a half page. Can reach page 8 by lunch time?
What do you think?
What do you think?
jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 21,991
Well I decided the Beer app would not meet my needs. Who needs an app to tell me what to drink and how much to drink to get sh%% faced. I figured that out all on my own back in college.
But what about this SBO and the bots and this I just read in a Canadian paper....
Conspiracy... or Not... It is a brave new world out here in the Matrix.....
Ps... just in case... You know we all love you Phil
But what about this SBO and the bots and this I just read in a Canadian paper....
Stalked within your own home': Woman says abusive ex used smart home technology against her. https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/tech-abuse-domestic-abuse-technology-marketplace-1.4864443
This is a crazy story. I remember a movie from several years ago where the manager of an apartment building was using the tech to watch and interact with the tenants. This story takes it to a new level. Doesn’t Bill Gates have a Total Home System? Is that what @Phil Herring can do with the bots here on SBO. Turn on our computer cameras and chart our every move.
Conspiracy... or Not... It is a brave new world out here in the Matrix.....
Ps... just in case
... You know we all love you PhilA few years back we added a Nest thermostat and smoke detector. Both work well and the smoke detector will send me a text if there is smoke.
My wife has a tendency to cook something on the stove and not turn on the exhaust fan until it is too late. I'll be at the boat or somewhere and I get a text that the smoke detector alarm has been activated. So I text her and ask what she is cooking for dinner.
My wife has a tendency to cook something on the stove and not turn on the exhaust fan until it is too late. I'll be at the boat or somewhere and I get a text that the smoke detector alarm has been activated. So I text her and ask what she is cooking for dinner.
The fact that people expect privacy while using google products is absurd. Their primary source of income is through targeted ads. The concept of "The more tailored the ads are, the more effective they are" is quite strong. Google has released many free products in hopes to gather such info. If you take a look at the scripts this site relies on (using no-script or viewing the source) you'll find that ajax.googleapis.com is listed along with sailboatowners.com. While simply blocking their code helps, their systems still know that your computer or a computer on your network has made a connection with their servers and what site their code was used for hence they start to get a glimpse of your browsing history. Android is absolutely horrible when it comes to privacy. The microphone is always on and listening to your conversations. I've received ads many times within 1-24 hours based on a conversation I've had or a place I've visited. When guests use your wifi this can also affect your data. Your data may be mixed with theirs after a while. This is both good and bad. In one sense it throws systems off by mixing everyones data together. On the other hand it now knows who your friends are. Android has also been known to scan for other wifi and bluetooth devices in your immediate area. My roommate installed a new access point. A few days later I received ads for that exact brand. Either the AP or my phone was scanning our network. I knew what medical condition my girlfriend was researching a few weeks ago based on the ads I was receiving. Sure enough, when I asked her she confirmed. Google is not the only evil empire out there but they are one of the most well known. For the record this website works quite well without javascript enabled
In my new life-after-SBO I do a fair amount of work as a copywriter and much of that is for private detective agencies. I can tell you that smart phones and home automation have vulnerabilities to worry about. Digital forensics people say that Android phones are quite easy to hack, iOS more difficult. But if someone has your phone for 5 minutes they can download all sort of bad stuff to spy on you. This happens most often is child custody cases where one party wants dirt on the other.
Once into a phone you can not only find email, texts, and photos, but also past GPS locations.
Home automation may even be worse, not only for surveillance but pranks. Imagine turning someone's furnace up to 85 right after they leave for work, or chilling it down to a nice toasty 50 degrees.
Of course, these guys are paid to be paranoid. That said... sleep well!
Once into a phone you can not only find email, texts, and photos, but also past GPS locations.
Home automation may even be worse, not only for surveillance but pranks. Imagine turning someone's furnace up to 85 right after they leave for work, or chilling it down to a nice toasty 50 degrees.
Of course, these guys are paid to be paranoid. That said... sleep well!
That is, if one allows the device to control their very existence. If someone hacked into my Android, they was be sorely disappointed. I do nothing but chat with my wife, use Waze for traffic updates, and GPS just because I am curious. Oh... and knowing when Solar Noon occurs. Sorely disappointed.In my new life-after-SBO I do a fair amount of work as a copywriter and much of that is for private detective agencies. I can tell you that smart phones and home automation have vulnerabilities to worry about. Digital forensics people say that Android phones are quite easy to hack, iOS more difficult. But if someone has your phone for 5 minutes they can download all sort of bad stuff to spy on you. This happens most often is child custody cases where one party wants dirt on the other.
Once into a phone you can not only find email, texts, and photos, but also past GPS locations.
Home automation may even be worse, not only for surveillance but pranks. Imagine turning someone's furnace up to 85 right after they leave for work, or chilling it down to a nice toasty 50 degrees.
Of course, these guys are paid to be paranoid. That said... sleep well!
I think we have to be careful to not conflate the various vulnerabilities of our devices. Yeah, google, yahoo and dozens of other companies track our online behavior to send targeted advertising our way. It is annoying at times and blocking ads would make life easier, but then again much of what we do online is paid for by those ads.
Then there are the real security issues through which bad actors try to get our personal data for some nefarious reason. This is an entirely different problem from the ad trackers.
I think the greater vulnerability is not hacking our individual devices, rather it is the attacks on large databases like banks, stores, and government where all the data is aggregated in one database. Let's face it, crooks are lazy. They want the biggest payoff for the least amount of work. The return on hacking individual computers and accounts just isn't there. Hack Chase bank and you have millions of account numbers, SS numbers, names and addresses all linked. How much time would it take to hack the same number of account on individual computers where critical information may or may not be present and it is not linked together? I don't believe the payoff is there.
That's not to say there aren't people sitting in Starbucks trying to access your computer or that there are hijacked Wifi hot spots, but those are small scale and fairly easily defended against. The bad guys and gals are looking for either data that monetary value or access to computing power for other purposes like email for phishing attacks or denial of service attacks.
The biggest personal threat that we can defend against are phishing attacks where we voluntarily provide our personal data and/or allow access to our computer by responding to the attack. Again these are fairly easy to defend against, don't respond to phishing emails and have a decent firewall to block random attacks.
To paraphrase Hill St Blues, "we need to be careful out there" but we don't need to be fearful and paranoid.
Then there are the real security issues through which bad actors try to get our personal data for some nefarious reason. This is an entirely different problem from the ad trackers.
I think the greater vulnerability is not hacking our individual devices, rather it is the attacks on large databases like banks, stores, and government where all the data is aggregated in one database. Let's face it, crooks are lazy. They want the biggest payoff for the least amount of work. The return on hacking individual computers and accounts just isn't there. Hack Chase bank and you have millions of account numbers, SS numbers, names and addresses all linked. How much time would it take to hack the same number of account on individual computers where critical information may or may not be present and it is not linked together? I don't believe the payoff is there.
That's not to say there aren't people sitting in Starbucks trying to access your computer or that there are hijacked Wifi hot spots, but those are small scale and fairly easily defended against. The bad guys and gals are looking for either data that monetary value or access to computing power for other purposes like email for phishing attacks or denial of service attacks.
The biggest personal threat that we can defend against are phishing attacks where we voluntarily provide our personal data and/or allow access to our computer by responding to the attack. Again these are fairly easy to defend against, don't respond to phishing emails and have a decent firewall to block random attacks.
To paraphrase Hill St Blues, "we need to be careful out there" but we don't need to be fearful and paranoid.