It's not just for the NSA anymore! - As Seen On TV... Your Privacy Now Sold In Stores!

Coming to a retailer near you... It's so hot they can't keep it on the shelves, your privacy, or what you think is private, is now something seldom found. Remember those days when we were all up in arms over the NSA snooping our emails and our internet traffic, and how Google and Facebook takes your info and your every move to stalk you at every turn, so they can make untold millions more by selling everything about you to some 3rd party industry?

Well... I'm sorry to say folks, but that was just the start.

Today:

Private firms selling mass surveillance systems around world, documents show

Private firms are selling spying tools and mass surveillance technologies to developing countries with promises that "off the shelf" equipment will allow them to snoop on millions of emails, text messages and phone calls, according to a cache of documents published on Monday.

I figured it was only a matter of time before the government's actions would trickle down to private firms and eventually to stores near you. Like anything else in the government cache, it tends to open up to public use after some time. I just didn't think it would come this fast. This is more or less a new arms race for all countries and companies alike. So, I guess, the only way we will have privacy is by locking ourselves up in our homes, throwing away our self tracking cellphones, boarding up our windows, throwing our the smart tv, and never step foot outside again.

I wonder is this is what our forefathers meant about our liberty and privacy? I'm thinking not!

This is really sick on many levels, though!

One firm says its "massive passive monitoring" equipment can "capture up to 1bn intercepts a day". Some offer cameras hidden in cola cans, bricks or children's carseats, while one manufacturer turns cars or vans into surveillance control centres.

There is nothing illegal about selling such equipment, and the companies say the new technologies are there to help governments defeat terrorism and crime.

It's a sad day when I buy a loaf of bread and unknowingly signed over my rights to privacy when I paid for it at the supermarket. Now I can have the luxury of my bedroom TV watch me and my gal knock it our of the park. And just think, all those times we had conspiracies about TVs watching us as a two way viewer. Today... It just might be true.

"There is a culture of impunity permeating across the private surveillance market, given that there are no strict export controls on the sale of this technology, as there are on the sale of conventional weapons," said Matthew Rice, research consultant with Privacy International.

"This market profits off the suffering of people around the world, yet it lacks any sort of effective oversight or accountability.

Boy you can say that again....

So, I wonder why government has not stopped this snooping when it started? Must be money in the pockets syndrome. I bet it is! We the people need to stand up to these big industries, companies and firms and say HELL NO! It's stime to stop. Hell, it never should have started!

Every day that goes by, I want to round all of these guys up in one big pile... uhhh. Yeah.

What do you think ATS?

No big deal here, aren't most of us already giving up our privacy for free?

(the facebook herd, twitter, etc...)

A lot of this has been around for a fairly long time. I think what's new is that people are now aware of and worried about it.

It's not like key logging scripts have been particularly difficult to make. It isn't as if ISPs only just recently started being able to monitor traffic. Small cameras aren't new. People are just suddenly aware of it, and have suddenly realized that the people behind those scripts and toys are just flesh and blood like the rest of us.

In one way I embrace the future when anyone can build a drone with a camera on it and fly it around. If anything governments want you to complain about this so they can regulate that technology like they do everything else. In my country, for example, I need to prove I have a purpose before purchasing a stab vest which I feel is silly.

Question, do we think more laws and regulations will stop the government doing it? I think the answer is no. It will only result in the public being restricted once more.

reply to post by StallionDuck


When in public you have no right to privacy.

When on someone elses property in plain view you have no right to privacy.

The only place you have a right to privacy are places like home, phone booth or bathroom.

So if a store wants to track you in their store they can.

There is no invasion of privacy issue here. You are in public in plain view of everyone else.

reply to post by grey580


Not true. Read the story closer. It's invasive as it pulls data in the same ways the NSA does. It accesses internet data streams via fiber. i.e. emails and phone/txt.

reply to post by StallionDuck


I agree it raises privacy issues if used unethically.

However this is not a bad thing.

It all depends on how it's used.
Finding a missing person or kidnapped child with this technology would be a good use for it.

I don't mind it being used to a certain point. It's the misuse of this tech that's the real issue here.

reply to post by grey580


Potential unethical use like this?

In one embodiment, a risk assessment score for a customer associated with a retail facility is retrieved. The risk assessment score is analyzed to determine whether the customer is a desirable customer or an undesirable customer. In response to the risk assessment score indicating that the customer is an undesirable customer, aggressive marketing disincentives targeted to the undesirable customer are generated. If the risk assessment score indicates the customer is a desirable customer, marketing incentives targeted to the desirable customer are generated.

So identifying a customer within a store based on a "risk assessment score". What are the "aggressive marketing disincentives" for all those "undesirables"?

Set of speakers are used to create an ambiance in retail facility 202 by performing acts such as, without limitation, playing subliminal messages over a sound system, wherein the subliminal messages encourage the undesirable customer to leave the retail facility, playing music over a sound system to encourage the undesirable customer to leave, playing music designed to soothe or relax a customer, or other actions.

Hmm, now I thought that subliminal messaging wasn't supposed to work. This patent must be the work of a couple of crazy dudes who don't know that it doesn't work.

Robert Angell: www.linkedin.com...
James Kraemer: www.linkedin.com...

Those two actually have a whole slew of security related patents. Scratch the crazy dude idea.

What else does it do?

informing a set of employees associated with the retail facility that the customer is an undesirable customer and directing the set of employees to avoid offering assistance unless assistance is requested by the customer.

Okay, so customer walks in and gets pegged as "undesirable". Gets something blasted at them while in the store over the speakers and not a single employee is going to offer assistance. Kind of petty, especially if the customer hasn't done anything wrong in the store and this is just based off of the "credit score" portion of the risk assessment.

displaying disincentive marketing messages to the customer, wherein a disincentive marketing message comprises uncompetitive product pricing and undesirable product offers.

Uncompetitive product pricing? Are they going to change the price for the undesirable customer? If that's the case then well, I do believe that is against the law in the UCC.

The computer implemented method of claim 9 wherein creating a negative ambiance further comprises shining harsh or bright lights in an area of the retail facility occupied by the customer.

Okies....so the "undesirable" is getting hit by negative subliminal messaging on the audio level but is also going to get hit by harsh/bright lights, too? Uhhh....That's getting more than a little, I don't know...creepy straight from creepytown?

creating a negative ambiance further comprises playing subliminal messages over a sound system, wherein the subliminal messages encourage the customer to leave the retail facility.

Those subliminals that don't work again. They must work after all.

wherein creating a negative ambiance further comprises playing music over a sound system, wherein the music is designed to encourage the customer to feel uncomfortable.

Hmmm...how do they know this? Are they going to play Rebecca Black or Barney?

wherein creating a negative ambiance further comprises adjusting a temperature in an area of the retail facility to an uncomfortable temperature, wherein an uncomfortable temperature is at least one of a temperature that is colder than a predetermined temperature, higher than a predetermined comfortable temperature, and a humidity that is higher than a predetermined comfortable humidity level.

So, bright lights, sound bombardment with music, mucking with the temperature--that sounds kind of familiar. Oh yeah, we used the same thing to torture Iraqis.

en.wikipedia.org...

Now I'm sure that it's not going to be quite as bad as what we did to interrogate Iraqis but at the end of the day, they'll still be using similar psychological operations used in the interrogation and torture of prisoners of wars on a customer to drive them out of the store. Is that ethical? And do note that this patent was filed in 2007.
www.google.com...