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Y'know, we always knew that phone companies could listen in to what we were saying, during calls, but it wasn't a bother, let alone menacing, because they had no real interest (nosiness and giggles at the coffee machine aside) in doing so.
Today is so different.
A vast number of companies exist solely and only to snoop on everything we do and say on the net.
Even I was flabbergasted, after the EU privacy laws came into power, on the sheer number of companies involved (the average site has between 120 and 400 "partner companies") (yes, 400!), who reap data from every click we make.
Oh, and the workaround that they have for being legally blocked from collecting data is that they change domain names, every five minutes, so once you've gone to all the trouble of blocking them, it makes precious little difference, because they're back, a few days later, under a different name.
Are they malicious?
Probably not, mostly.
Avaricious, certainly.
But it's just such a f***ing intrusion!
It's like having hundreds of people standing outside your window, watching every move you make, and you can't close the curtains or tell them (politely or impolitely) to go away.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: It's like having hundreds of people standing outside your window, watching every move you make
and promptly making an offer (product, good/evil things, or even control sequences) you don't want or sell your current state to others of the same kind, all to their advantages not yours
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We have our "alexa" controlling an array of x10 devices about our house via some bridging software. I have a box full of x10 modules so yeah. Anyway we have things called the stuff, the fireplace, the hall light, the kitchen light, my light, k light, corner light and Scentsy (wax Labrador fart covering).
She gets all of them right even if we're mumbling in the morning but continually when we say "Alexa, turn on the Scentsy" 9 out of 10 times She will respond with "Sorry, I did not find a device named Scentsy" - Seriously? This has gone on for about a year till last week I finally made a change in the bridging software to rename it to the wax. Now she finally gets it right. We would scream at it. You dumb hockey puck, I should slap shot you into next week!
So they're not listening to us - yet.
modified 11-Apr-19 21:40pm.
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Only because it doesn't do right what you expected doesn't mean that it didn't send the 30 sec or 1 min audio after saying "Alexa"
Actually it is even worst than usually... you are having all the bad things without having the "benefits"
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I like to think of it as a 21st century high tech elf on a shelf. Maybe I should finally break down and get one, then I would finally have someone in my house that listens to me.
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Well, I will start telling Alexa, "Alexa, will you please tell those elephanters in Amazon to ship me a box of detergent?"
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To help get bugs in front of the right Firefox engineers quickly, we developed BugBug, a machine learning tool that automatically assigns a product and component for each new untriaged bug. Closed: Works as designed (done!)
Or perhaps a random choice between that and "Closed: Duplicate", "Closed: Not enough info", and "Closed: didn't feel like fixing"?
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On Wednesday, researchers disclosed several serious design flaws in WPA3 that shattered that myth and raised troubling new questions about the future of wireless security, particularly among low-cost Internet-of-things devices. Time to switch back to WEP - that way there's no way you think you're secure
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I've never been a big fan of wireless (which is why my entire house is hard-wired with Cat-6). I have a wireless AP, but it's on its own subdomain, and the devices connected to it cannot access the wired subdomain.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Researchers have found that the HTML feature called hyperlink auditing, or pings, is being used to perform DDoS attacks against various sites. How nice that most of the browsers don't let you disable this 'feature'
Edit: fixed link
modified 11-Apr-19 15:33pm.
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I think your hyperlink was edited -- I get a 404.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Buggah. Thanks, fixed.
TTFN - Kent
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Wouldn't it be nice if it were demonstrated to google how this works, hard and often?
It would certainly cause a performance boost, if a thousandth of the data that zooms around the interwebs solely to serve their data-slurping were no longer an advantage to them.
Mind you, they'd only find another method of "information gathering", which would probably burn out even more wires.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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The VAST majority of the "data" zooming around the internet is your favorite pastime (other than posting on CP): PR0N.
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Hey, it's only you who gets deluged with ads for pron -- because all these ad companies have been minutely studying your browsing habits!
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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LOL
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Déjà vu moment... I think it was only a few days ago when a News item was posted and I made a comment about this attribute was an invitation for nefarious purposes.
Maybe the EU or some other powerful regulative entity can augment the GPDR to also require site owners to get permission to use PING-backs as they do for dropping cookies.
Maybe I should just install a copy of NCSA Mosaic to browse the net
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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The idea of using machine learning to teach programs how to automatically write or modify code has always been tempting for computer scientists. Are they starting it with VB, or Pascal?
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The nonprofit was asked to remove archives of all books, TV, cartoons, and more by the EU I don't know - it included links to Grateful Dead stuff. Seems pretty legit.
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It doesn't seem very democratic.
We should have a referendum on which sites to take down, because when a referendum gives a decision, that decision is followed, even if it means turning a first-world country into a third-world country.
One vote here for facebook.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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One vote here for "Mark_Wallace".
#SupportHeForShe
Government can give you nothing but what it takes from somebody else. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you've got, including your freedom.-Ezra Taft Benson
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Young people should not be allowed to be that clever!
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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Unfortunately, young people are the only ones who are that clever. 
Arthur C Clarke considered any physical scientist over 30 :elderly". By that standard, I am superannuated. 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Well, yes, Rimbaud never banged out a decent line of verse past the age of 19 and most of us can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that we haven't done so, either.
Ah, youth! I remember it in parts. It was definitely wasted on me when I was young.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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