I know a "data pattern" or "design pattern" which will fail... (Explosively)

Companies collect messages ... massage the data ... compute eligibility ... claim a discount (based on eligibility) ... and repeat... (almost as easy as printing money)

Now... the world after January 1st

Companies collect messages ... massage the data ... FAIL to compute/check eligibility (because people requested anonymity/data removal) ... accumulate a liability because previous discounts no longer apply ( ie., eligibility required a person with First Name, Last Name, and Date of Birth... ) ... and repeat ... (digging hole deeper)

These same companies are now audited because they don't have the "data" to prove they matched people to products and are eligible for the "discounts" which had been claimed.

I would love to see some people in Jail, but the real world scenario is that they will take what money they can and disappear.

warm, sunny and windy at the beach...

Now all we would need is an independent FBI and Justice Department to investigate News Corp....

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(me rolling on floor laughing)

Another record high temperature day by the Beach

The insidious part is that Netflix and Hulu will be able to horse trade with your ISP.
    -- ninthbit Just channel surfed from channel 5 to channel 10 (hey .. watchers.. .0003 cents for this information)
        -- Public Utility ... we noticed that his smart power meter registered a 25 watt increase in power usage (maybe a refrigerator light came on)
        -- ISP ... we see an increase in encrypted traffic from (IPv6 address for home access point) to known VPN
        -- Telco Carrier .. Ring Indicator transmitted via last known cell tower for ....

If you take enough disparate data sources, but have a unique key that ties it together... You are owned

Don't forget that your computer has fingerprints.

1. Operating System
2. Browser
3. Browser Plugins
(versions and possibly installation dates of above)
4. Cookies
5. Tracking Files (1x1 invisible image isn't just to fill in a small hole in the picture)

Mix all of that together, and add in the IP addresses these fingerprints are observed at and you are very well known. It doesn't matter if you use a VPN or not... The one time that you forget to login to the VPN, you've just left a calling card. On top of that, most people don't realize that their ISP has been quietly rolling out IPv6. Nothing to see here, except a permanent IP address for your home, and every IPv6 compatible device that happens to use the internet via your connection. No worries about running out of address space here. Each mac address that's "found" connecting to your network is remembered.

So, go ahead. Waste time/money on a VPN.. it's only a minor speed bump to the big-data-monster

Breezy and Warm by the Beach

Amen... I shared some of these ideas in a small group last night. The audience was mostly 55+, and most didn't even know that their "devices" could make connections out to the larger internet. Many blank stares...

Gorgeous by the Beach

Agree, outbound firewalls are at times more important than inbound. A little bit of common sense injected between the compromised device and the internet at large would have prevented this.

Sorry, but I don't play "bot". It's fairly simple to configure an outbound firewall... why the ISP's don't build that into their devices and block the flood on the edges is beyond me. We have aspiring AI that loves patterns, why not turn "WATSON" (or similar) loose teach him/her what to look for and provide a control channel that can be used to tune each edge device?

Mostly cloudy by the Beach

It will be bad for Verizon if they knew about these "security choices" and still went ahead with the acquisition. (which may play out in the courts) Airing this type of soiled linens just about erases any residual or liquidation value that Yahoo may have had.

Beautiful day by the Beach

Loved that phone... (still have it, not on a plan at the moment) Ran it through the wash a couple times... Still works... It would work as a tethered USB modem too!

It's Raining by the Beach

Several years ago I went to a presentation at Oracle Open World, where they were gushing about the ability to integrate real-time public internet data into a system that could be used by police to keep ahead of protests (where/when/who).

My point was that these police and intelligence agencies would be blind without a functioning internet. The budget cutting and "small government" liars have created a system with a single point of failure, that's the real issue here. There are very few dedicated circuits that are in use that don't traverse the public internet at some point.

Getting warmer by the Beach, and my lawn isn't going to mow itself...

I hope everybody is as cynical as me. The worlds spies rely on the internet more than the worlds activists. Lets be honest. Where did the FBI get a list of people to "visit" prior to the upcoming GOP convention. Would that list have existed without an active internet to mine?

It's a sunny and too warm holiday weekend by the Beach

https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

Sign the petition, lets turn the FBI and the Intelligence apparatus into a tool to really make our country safe. There is no reason to waste billions of dollars on "intelligence" when we can't even spot a crazy with a gun in our own back yard. If you want to own a gun, fine. Just assume that everything that you say and do will be scrutinized if you decide to exercise that 2nd amendment right to keep and bare arms.

Remember the good old days when you could drop a bundle of fiberoptic cables into the ocean and assume it was "secure".

The transmission media/devices will always be the weakest link. Physical Plant and user devices are where taps are installed, if you have access to the media anything can be compromised. Even if we had a global wireless mesh the only security could possibly come from a connectionless node that was truly an impenetrable black box. Maybe if we created an AI that would manage the mesh and it's connections, each node would distribute the AI (black box) and manage directory, identity, and location data.

Skynet and me hanging out by the Beach.

LOL...lol...LOL

I hadn't thought about that angle...

Too warm by the Beach

We have been creating Intelligences running on organic processors for all of human history. The two I helped to create have some bugs, but I blame the team programming effort with the wife. (we still argue about who introduced which bugs, and if a patch would ever be effective).

A newborn is simply a set of default starter programs that interact with an increasing number of inputs over time.

Partly cloudy and warm by the Beach