And I also know that these guys are assholes who will look for any excuse to claim victory. I am wondering how many of them were actually confused, and how many of them were claiming standard procedure, while clinging to the numbers that gave them the outcome they wanted.
The odds are stacked against an individual who might want to keep certain details of their life private when an organization as large as Google is trying to pry their lives open.
But Google isn't "prying", that's my point. They're collecting information that you have chosen to make available publicly, whether it's by placing it on the public Internet, or broadcasting it over EM waves where anyone nearby can pick it up. If you want privacy, don't announce your information in a public manner, and you will be off Google's radar. Google got blasted for Buzz (and deservedly so) because information that people thought they had selected as "private" was being made available, but that's not the issue here. If you're concerned with your MAC address being recorded, you need to learn how wireless networking works.
This is why I prefer my subway commute to any of my driving commutes; spending a half hour driving is a half hour wasted, but I can read on the subway. I liked my walking commute best of all, but I can't always live within two miles of work. I don't have a problem with cell phones (Note to NYC: Never let anyone wire your subways for cell phones), only morons who need to play their music so loud that even using headphones, it is clearly audible to people at the other end of the car.
Of course, in both cases the problem can be partially solved with earplugs. And for Amtrak, as well as a few other train lines, there is usually a quiet car where cell phone use is prohibited. Man I love those cars.
Or we could just let which company has the best marketing team decide which products we use for this sort of thing... that'll get good results. Not.
Doesn't help in this case. I've had two friends get compromised in the last week. In both cases, since I was in their address book, I got V1agra spam from their accounts. The messages were from legitimate white listed Gmail addresses sent from legitimate Google servers.
Duh! Of course... And I even read TFA! Guess I forgot to connect my eyes to my brain.
I can verify this trend. Several of my aunts have switched to Gmail lately, decreasing the spam I get from Hotmail/Yahoo and being replaced by Gmail-based spam.
I have turned to a whitelist policy when it comes to Gmail. All @gmail.com e-mails go directly into the trash unless I have witelisted that particular address...
The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.
