Several companies already do what is mentioned in this article. http://www.sentryds.com/ would be an example of how this is already being done. http://www.businessweek.com/ad... (and the marketing swag).

Years ago, I was an Air Force enlisted programmer AFSC 511/491. Sure, I was in the military but I didn't have a combat rating. I haven't looked at the citation that accompanied my medals, but I wouldn't be surprised to see obscure programming references like Ada, PL/1, and CP/M. The one sad change is that it was an awesome career path for people to go high school to military and get their computer training on the job. I've never completed my college education, but hold a job as an Enterprise Data Architect. Unfortunately the beltway bandits now do the same job I was payed less than $1500 a month to perform. And they only gouge the tax payers low-mid six figures to perform the same task (SAIC,GE,SAP,Oracle,etc..). The day's of the low paid high performing enlisted programmer are part of history. Congress and the DOD will never willing cut off a funding source and perpetual wealth through the revolving contractor door.

I have to agree. They are going to need to be prepared for civil/criminal prosecutions of the SWAT team members if they are claiming to be a corporation and not a law enforcement entity. Do they have all the requisite permits, local tax, zoning, etc... did they get a variance for explosive storage ... I believe not only in equal protection under the law, but equal prosecution under the law.

Today during an architectural review.... (Architect) Where is the performance data? (Developer) I planned on doing that during a later sprint. (Architect) Can you guarantee that it will get done? (Developer) We can just roll this to production, it's not used anywhere. (Architect) facepalm, facepalm, facepalm....

We can lump this in with climate science and prove that mankind has no impact on the environment. /* snark snark */

Mix this with the previous article http://it.slashdot.org/story/1...... and voila! You aren't a victim you're a volunteer.

Maybe they haven't quite perfected the "parallel construction" that our intelligence agencies coach US law enforcement on. You need a good cover story that establishes probable cause so that you don't need to rely on illegally gathered intelligence as evidence. Ship them to GITMO I hear there are a couple empty bunks. That will allow you to avoid those pesky civil courts all together.

Amen (translation.... I Believe)

thank you, well said. I see other "good" that can be accomplished with this data. For example it places a copy of payroll information outside the "black box" of the IRS. so, a reasonable query would be "show me a list of people (including gender) who work for 'SOME BIG COMPANY' that have the same job title ordered by salary." I wonder how many class action lawsuits would come out of that :-)

I agree that 35K users are not a statistically significant sample on a national scale. It may be possible that with adequate market segment size of renters in smaller geographic regions the numbers would be telling. (and compelling to a business associate) If you were upfront and explained that the free (included internet) had monitoring, redirection, and limitations included you shouldn't get in trouble. I don't know if you could achieve any economy of scale to compete with Comcast/AT&T, and they may even be one of your installed carriers... These monopolies have invested heavily in "Big Data" collection of their customer base and have their infrastructure installed in millions of homes today. So you could possibly partner with the big fish and provide some supplemental meta data upstream and lower your connection costs. In return if it's structured as a reciprocal agreement these partners may be willing to share their gathered intelligence with your organization.

Do you see our government acting in the interest of the ( individual / corporation ) with regards to mergers of TV & Internet providers?

I've noticed that the more thoughtful posts have involved the realization that once the conversation has been started the survey itself is meaningless. I agree that the visionary or golden questions like "what would you do if bandwidth wasn't an issue?" don't come about until somebody has already stated the obvious.

Don't forget it's not the immediate revenue recognition that drives the bottom line. The real money is the residual value of the demographic and social data being collected on all of their customers.

The one question I've never seen anybody ask. (so, I'll ask it) Do you trust one company to know all of the following: (and who will they share that with? and how much money is that pile of data worth?) 1. What time(s) your TV set(s) are turned on/off 2. What channels you watch (and with multiple sets, your families viewing habits too (each cable box is uniquely identified) 3. How do your viewing habits compare to your neighbors? 4. How do your viewing habits compare to your extended family? 5. How many children are in your home, and what time of day are they there? 6. Based on your street address are you likely to watch (FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Al Jazeera, RFD-TV, BBC)? 7. What is the correlation between your web surfing habits and your TV viewing habits? 8. You have been observed at https://whitehouse.gov/some_sp... on your Safari browser while 1 TV in your home was tuned to the annual State of the Union address. 9. You just watched an advertisement for Viagra on NBC , national news, commercial break 3. You open your web browser on your iPad and start surfing midget porn. The next week you begin receiving spam related to "news junkies who have ED issues resorting to midget porn and there's an app for that". 10. With silly season 2014 almost underway and sillier season 2016 just around the corner, do you really want any political party, special interest group, PAC, or mega company knowing when you wipe and what brand of TP you prefer?

I agree 100%... I will either wear socks, or my running shoes while standing at my workstation. I also remind newbies to occasionally remember to shift their weight onto the balls of their feet. (standing flat footed with your knees locked isn't good)