Within ONE Year: Tens of Millions Will Eagerly And Willingly PAY To Relinquish Their Privacy

reply to post by Tardacus


1. The new generation does not really care or know that much about privacy so buying a game system like this just seems like cool technology.

2. I don't think you have the slightest clue how awesome video games are. There are some things as gamers we pretty much HAVE to play. It's not an addiction it's just a hobby...

It is starting to go to far though and I may not buy into this next generation, but then again, when something like Fallout is realeased for the 720, it will be nigh impossible for me to resist.

Maybe it is an addiction after all.

I don't want to sound rude or anything, but can I please get a TL;DR

Heff, that's a really good and well put together article. Thing is, and that doesn't mean don't bother, most people who use these devices won't be primarialy interested in what its other capabilities are and the big boys know that as you intimated. It seems to me that we are way too late to do anything about it except, of course for those of us in the know and those like me who just don't do gaming.

Somebody mentioned a truck company putting cameras inside the trucks; I can't tell you how I know but in one capital city they use cameras that only the manufacturers and senior purchasing staff know anything about which monitor public transport driver behaviour yet they tell the drivers and their reps that this doesn't occur. If it can happen on that level then God only knows what goes on elsewhere where fewer people know. Their surveillance centre was a really scary thing to see but I kept quiet and took it all in.

Thanks for the heads up and the really good read.

Evolution is always an interesting and passionate topic, especially when ones own butt is on the line. The technological horse has bolted and there in no getting it back in the stables without some kind of near level extinction event taking place. The best we have is trying to hang on and help guide it in the most appropriate way possible, so all these voices of warning and concern help.

Since there is still a year to release I do expect a lot more publicity about these new capabilities to take place with the consumer eventually deciding. Considering how many of these capabilities are already entering the market, its odds on that such capabilities will continue to grow. If there are some large scale abuses of power exposed then there will be a call for more consumer protection, but in the end still fall to those with the capability to implement.

As a basic moral compass I use the premise that 'if I cannot be honest about it I should not do it', so the capture of reality does fit with my principles on a fundamental level. I am also aware that things are not this simple with deception very much part of the human condition. With the rise of secret evidence in the courts and potential for breaches in digital trust a reality, the convoluted back stabbing and setups will become even more sinister and diabolical in nature as new tools and techniques enter the stage.

The thought of getting a fine for some minor transgression that would otherwise go unnoticed if not for technology is a risk, something more appropriate for the more authoritarian cultures but does exist. Then for the more serious crimes, it would suck to be caught for murder because of your own cell phone, not so if it was your partner or child who was killed.

At the core of the issue is the one of trust. With the government implications in 9/11, Monsanto pushing harmful GMO, no arrest or visible reform from the global financial collapse and corruption seen as business as usual in many parts of the world trust is in short supply. It is right for the public to question, raise concern and indicate potential dangers from the social decisions and directions that are made.

On the positive side, there is no single person who owns cyberspace. Those with more resources will have more ability to affect change, dig through the data and find want they want to know. Money is very much a driver and motivator in much of this. Even ATS has gone this way with it ads and tracking to help keep it online, so all these voices of outrage is more about how much grey they are willing to accept, the cost and benefit that technology provided.

On the negative side, the culture of the MSM and power of the corporate ladder has demonstrated just how much control and manipulation has already become the norm. When being part of even more secure industries and just how much control and regulation is placed on the flow on information there are valid grounds of concern. While Wikileaks has shown there is still an opportunity to watch the watches, the repercussions are up there with an act of war.

As an individual my advice is to keep up with the progress or get left behind, evolution waits for no one.

Xbox 720......awesome!!!!!

I can't wait.

reply to post by Hefficide

Hey heff, hows it hanging?

Anyway, have a problem with the way you are viewing this.

The Xbox kinect, in my opinion, is just a novelty. However, people are aware of what they are buying and what it is doing when in use, it is advertised as such. But, as far as i am aware, it is not sending all our recordings to some sort of master database to be logged and viewed. Even if it was, that would be noticed considering the massive amounts of bandwidth that would be used. The kinect it self cant be storing the data, that would require massive amounts of hard drive space, which would also be noticed.


Also, i find it hard to believe that an item you buy, knowing what it is and does, can be violating your rights by doing exactly what you bought it for. Which is to record you movements while you are playing games.

I would say, buy the kinect and don't worry about the "privacy" issue, because there is really none. There is simply no way to record and sift through all the data from the various kinetics, that is, even if the recording were being stored.

Also, the Orwellian references that have come up are totally inappropriate for the situation, at least at the moment. Also, Orwell intended for his books to have the opposite meaning. He didn't mean it as a warning, but as a parody of the unrealistic fears people had at the time. Any sort of critical thought or inquiries into why exactly this all is happening makes the plot of the book fall completely apart. The books are not meant to be deep insights into the control of the rich, but as a showcase of how unrealistic and how much stretching requires such a situation. At least, thats how understand it given the plot structure, Orwells political leanings, and the time they were written in.

Just for fun, which you cant see anyway, I have taken my little bros kinect and totally told it, via flash cards, that will be engagingly in various criminal and anti government activities. I will bet my balls nothing happens. I will bet my penis no one noticed. I will bet my other penis that even if everyone noticed, they wouldn't care.

This brings me to my point. No one cares what you do in your own home. No one cares if you think the government is awful. No one cares if you masturbate to shemale porn while My Little Pony plays faintly in the background. No one cares at all about anything you could possibly be doing in your home.

Even if you might be concerned that someone will care, provided they are, indeed, watching you via the kinect, then turn it off.

I am going to continue to use the kinect. I will buy the new models. The tech to me is just a novelty, but my bro loves it. I will be concerned when the police arrest me for all of that pot i smoke or my xbox starts recommending me my favorite pop tarts. Until then, I feel reasonably secure about the privacy the kinect, as far as i am aware, is not violating.

reply to post by Hefficide
Ummm.....suck it up and quit sniveling.....YOU voted for it. Except it was a snowjob and you got distopia in place of utopia. So Kum-Bay-Yaa to you and all of the rest that prop up the regime, way to go. At least we have you to thank and you can personally pat that man in the mirror on the back for a job well done. How does it feel to be the poster child for this "brave New World"? Now move along dupe, dont make me have to taze your cattle smelling ass into line.

YouSir

Thanks Tsuk.. You summed it up pretty well, and saved me from typing a half page of my own thoughts. I personally have done allot of Illegal activities in front of the kinect. Microsoft could give a # less what you do, as long as you are paying them for the subscription every month, and not modding the system in anyway to steal media from them. I really feel bad for people that are always paranoid about everything.. I see no reason to be paranoid unless you are planning on blowing something up, killing somebody etc... Well I'm going to go back to let the spy's watch me play Call of Duty. Maybe the government will see how well I do and recommend me to the military.

S+f,excellent thread.At times like this,i am So happy that we're too poor to ever afford this,yayyy! Because i have a 6yr old boy,and he knows that some things may as well be on the moon.Like this,thank goodness.He's happy playing games on our pc that does'nt have a webcam anyway.Seriously,even if i could afford this seven times over,id rather spend the money on fun family holidays and outings,making memories,and getting some exercise as a bonus.I find it downright creepy how addicted to gaming such a lot of people are.

Truly a nightmare.....I think it is already terrible and we are just about there....the totalatarianism of fiction from the past is here....You forgot to mention A Clockwork Orange...."Isn't funny how the colors of THE REAL WORLD only seem really real when you VIDDY THEM ON A SCREEN?" Makes me want to puke... HAARP and other brainwave entrainment devices have been in operation for a long time so many screens the masses are already in a trance ...remember 9/11? "Is this the real world or excercise?" "It's like something out of a movie" and so on and so forth.....it wasn't long ago that people would not have even understood what you meant when you said "in the real world" when were you not in the "Real world" prior to the electromagnetic revolution? I think/hope that the world is going to be reset and only those who are not living inauthentic lives are left and all the Arthur C. Clarkes Childhoods End sponge kids go home.......or whatever....

Is it a requirement that you buy the Xbox 720 and whatever Kinnect crap they come out with? Nope, didn't think so. Is there a federal law somewhere that says you have to have a Facebook account? Hmm, interesting that no such law exists. Lets temper the rabid insanity of this premise and its discussion with the fact that Microsoft is famous for over-stating their technological capabilities. Able to track 4 people and read lips? Yeah I'll believe that when it can keep up with me and my roommates half drunk screaming obscenities at kids on Call of Battlefield 71721v2.1 RC3 or whatever the current fad FPS game will be on the Xbox 720.

Since we are all worked up over tracking lets look at everything else that is tracking you right now:

Cellphone
Facebook
Your Car!
Pants
and so on

There is positively no such thing as privacy anymore unless you are prepared to go to great lengths, we any urban area is under audio and video surveillance, there are piles of spy satellites up in space right now which can take pictures well inside any "privacy" fence you put around your property and with the advent of thermal imaging and laser microphones conversations and actions inside your home are easily discoverable through walls and windows. Every packet you send out across the internet passes through any one of several systems to inspect its contents, your text messages fly out across the open airwaves often unprotected, yet people are going to get tweaked over a freaking game system? At this point its like trying to shut the barn door after the horses have all fled and some thieves have stolen all the copper wire out of the walls.

reply to post by TsukiLunar


When an intelligence type of agency finds out something on someone (or even when it is just the DoJ finding out stuff it isn't supposed to know) it sits on that information, using it as a weapon placed at the opportune time.

Look at Petraus for an example of this.

It would take less than 5 Minutes to find out whether Visual / Audio data is transmitted to the WAN instead of being processed internally by the device. ( At least in Single-player Mode, wehere transmitting Audio Data should not be required via the Internet )

So the idea of this thread is absurd. "Big brother" won't be watching the public with the new Xbox thingy any more than with any webcam installed into each and every notebook / PC nowadays.

Also, the option for certain agencies to tap into high value targets phones and above mentioned devices, which has been present since the introduction of said devices, makes the need for some all-new orwellian surveillance device for the masses obsolete.

Basically this thread accomplishes the opposite of what it's suggested aim is. It weighs people into a wrong kind of security, by saying "If you don't get this new xbox thingy you're more safe".

You're not. Not as long as you own a cell phone, a notebook, a PC or any other sort of electronic communication device. Every word you say or type into these things is electronically evaluated, and if it triggers a certain threshold you may be subjected to a manual ( Speak human ) inspection. No Xbox needed at all.

Great post Heff. S&F no doubt.

I am VERY glad I read this at 9:30 am rather than pm, I wouldnt have been able to sleep.

I do not understand how it could be considered a healthy trait to be wary and distrustful of things that, even though we vehemently deny it, frighten us to our very core.

Are you sure you're not over-reacting here, heff?

This is is a video game system you're talking about. Even if a video game could theoretically "project" an alternate reality for the gamer, do you really thing most people are thinking about mind control and Orwell's "1984"?

It has been established, documented, etc, etc that we already live in a surveillance society. Should we have to? Of course not. However, we can choose to disregard this and arm ourselves with a bit of common sense.

I have no fear of the system that aims to control my everyday movements. I have the confidence that I can opt out at any time, at great personal risk to myself and those whom I love and cherish.

Originally posted by Hefficide
The patent also includes the image below.

Kinect 2 can track the pitch and volume of player voices and facial characteristics to measure different emotional states.

Source




-more of a PC gamer myself frankly..but still, VR 0.01 alpha is lookin good.
As far as all the conspiracy and eroding freedom and whatnot, well, I always suggested if you simply put a sign up saying "matrix this way", many would willingly jump in the tubes, so long as we all could be Neo inside...

Do we want to live in a prison with liberty, or in a cave with freedom..not really a clear cut easy to answer question frankly.

reply to post by Socrato


Let's not attack this "new" generation because after all, once they get a taste of reality, they are the people who will make our laws, etc.

Shudder all you want but you're not helping your case by chastising them at this point.

reply to post by Hefficide


A worthy thread, Hefficide. There are people who believe we are already being spied upon thru our digital cable boxes.

Isn't this like having a Star Trek Holodeck inside your house?

In all these years, I have never had the slightest interest in gaming. It has always seemed like such a waste of time. I guess it's the same reason I almost never read fiction. Even though I know some fiction is worth reading.

Most of the shows on TV bore me to death -- so much of it is worthless.

But I'm sure they will find other ways to spy on us, the non-gamers.

I feel so sorry for the young, they are truly sheep led to the slaughter -- they never knew another world.

Most people under the age of 23 do not have clear memories of what the US was like before 9-11.

People under the age of 17 have no meaningful memories of what the US was like before 9-11.

Originally posted by Tardacus
no one in my family plays video games so i`m not too worried about it but seriously, anyone who is that addicted to video games, that they will give up their right to privacy just to play the games,might want to get some mental health help.

Gaming is addictive. Its a book, its a epic novel, its all those forms of entertainment from days gone by and to modern society, but unlike them, you are not an observer, you are not watching the life of someone unfold, you are actively participating...

Whats not to be addicted to. Gaming (can be) an art form. It also gives (false) accomplishments to people whom otherwise would never achieve such accomplishments in RL no matter what. (I am commander of a interstellar space faring vessel whom single handedly stopped a war between two galactic civilizations, have a team of humans and aliens, and have mastered biotic powers.)

Not all addictions are equal though..better to be addicted to gaming (interactive and proven to increase IQ over time) than television (sit and disengage brain as you are programmed to consume).

You should consider getting some video games..it will keep your mind sharp, keep you connected to todays (sub?)culture of gaming, give you a hobby, etc. I recommend this to everyone though, gamers are generally sharp people (older gamers that is). Also, the Wii has direct health benefits and help out people whom otherwise can't be bothered to exercise.

-gaming addict, no desire for help-

There are far more of us than them and looking through history,most empires turn into a tyrannical dictatorship that are usurped in the end by a swaying mob of the downtrodden.Or they naturally dissolve by giving the people more rights as they see the threat of the masses coming.
But the thing they never had in the past was the technology to control a rampant pitch fork bearing population hell bent on change.
The biggest threat as i see it is a CASHLESS SOCIETY.And the mark of the beast(RFID chip)to store your credit.If you annoy the wrong people then it's Adios Muchacho.And the definition of annoy is very broad.You could perhaps write a blog that gets under someones skin and then" no soup for you!"
You can see how whistle blowers are treated in general by the authorities.Detained in isolation awaiting ludicrous charges and massive attacks on their characters that usually end in suicide(nudge nudge wink wink)
The illusion is in western society that we are governed by caring authorities and there is no corruption nor freedom of rights violations.That is one hell of a fantasy i must say.The difference is countries like China do not pretend to be something they are not.