Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The revolution will be supervised.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

People are complicated. Love is not.

This fight is for everything.

Republicans in disarray!

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Let’s finish the job.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

You are here: Home / Politics / Media / In US, TV Watches You!

In US, TV Watches You!

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Funny title aside, this is serious:

Here’s the full Federal Trade Commission statement:

What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen

By: Lesley Fair | Feb 6, 2017 11:05AM

TAGS:

Consumers have bought more than 11 million internet-connected Vizio televisions since 2010. But according to a complaint filed by the FTC and the New Jersey Attorney General, consumers didn’t know that while they were watching their TVs, Vizio was watching them. The lawsuit challenges the company’s tracking practices and offers insights into how established consumer protection principles apply to smart technology.

Starting in 2014, Vizio made TVs that automatically tracked what consumers were watching and transmitted that data back to its servers. Vizio even retrofitted older models by installing its tracking software remotely. All of this, the FTC and AG allege, was done without clearly telling consumers or getting their consent.

What did Vizio know about what was going on in the privacy of consumers’ homes? On a second-by-second basis, Vizio collected a selection of pixels on the screen that it matched to a database of TV, movie, and commercial content. What’s more, Vizio identified viewing data from cable or broadband service providers, set-top boxes, streaming devices, DVD players, and over-the-air broadcasts. Add it all up and Vizio captured as many as 100 billion data points each day from millions of TVs.

Vizio then turned that mountain of data into cash by selling consumers’ viewing histories to advertisers and others. And let’s be clear: We’re not talking about summary information about national viewing trends. According to the complaint, Vizio got personal. The company provided consumers’ IP addresses to data aggregators, who then matched the address with an individual consumer or household. Vizio’s contracts with third parties prohibited the re-identification of consumers and households by name, but allowed a host of other personal details – for example, sex, age, income, marital status, household size, education, and home ownership.  And Vizio permitted these companies to track and target its consumers across devices.

That’s what Vizio was up to behind the screen, but what was the company telling consumers? Not much, according to the complaint.

Vizio put its tracking functionality behind a setting called “Smart Interactivity.”  But the FTC and New Jersey AG say that the generic way the company described that feature – for example, “enables program offers and suggestions” – didn’t give consumers the necessary heads-up to know that Vizio was tracking their TV’s every flicker. (Oh, and the “Smart Interactivity” feature didn’t even provide the promised “program offers and suggestions.”)

The complaint alleges that Vizio engaged in unfair trade practices that violated the FTC Act and were unconscionable under New Jersey law. The complaint also alleges that Vizio failed to adequately disclose the nature of its “Smart Interactivity” feature and misled consumers with its generic name and description.

To settle the case, Vizio has agreed to stop unauthorized tracking, to prominently disclose its TV viewing collection practices, and to get consumers’ express consent before collecting and sharing viewing information. In addition, the company must delete most of the data it collected and put a privacy program in place that evaluates Vizio’s practices and its partners. The order also includes a $1.5 million payment to the FTC and an additional civil penalty to New Jersey for a total of $2.2 million.

Here are tips smart companies take from the latest law enforcement action involving smart products, which were also discussed at the FTC’s recent Smart TV workshop.

  • Explain your data collection practices up front.  Tell consumers from the outset about the information you intend to collect. Ditch the tech talk and use easy-to-understand language. Especially when explaining new technologies or data collection people may not expect, transparency can be the key to customer loyalty.
  • Get consumers’ consent before you collect and share highly specific information about their entertainment preferences.  If consumers wouldn’t expect you to be collecting information from them, especially sensitive information, make sure they consent to what you intend to do. The best way to accomplish that is to get their opt-in to the practice – in other words, to express their consent affirmatively.
  • Make it easy for consumers to exercise options.  Would a function called “Smart Interactivity” that “enables program offers and suggestions” clue consumers in that everything they watch is being collected and shared with third parties? We don’t think so. Companies can hardly claim to offer consumers a choice if the tools necessary to exercise that choice are hard to find or hidden behind plain-vanilla descriptors.
  • Established consumer protection principles apply to new technology.  FTC guidance documents like Careful Connections: Building Security in the Internet of Things, .com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising, and Start with Security may not have “Smart TV” in the title, but smart businesses look to them for advice on avoiding deceptive or unfair practices.

Reader Interactions

126Comments

  1. 1.

    MattF

    Just appalling. There’s no question that Vizio was well aware that they were doing a Bad Thing.

  3. 3.

    Gravenstone

    And now everyone knows why Vizio products tend to run cheaper than their competitors. They were relying on the secondary income stream of consumer data sales to offset likely production losses.

  4. 4.

    The Moar You Know

    Gotta ask, why on Earth would you hook up anything to the internet when you don’t know what it does?

    (it’s my job. Literally. And not mentioned in the complaint…those TVs have cameras. Where was THAT data going?)

  6. 6.

    kindness

    I would never buy a Vizio TV because they are SHITTY TV’s. Jesus just look at how crappy they look next to a Samsung, LG or Sony. Vizio’s are cheaper for a reason!

  7. 7.

    Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA

    O/T, but the “open thread” tag is there, so I just want to check in and let everyone know I’m okay, what with the massacre in Atlanta and all.

    (Pro survival tip — if you’re the victim of a terrorist attack, make sure it’s an attack that isn’t real.)

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I am much more concerned about the private sector snooping on people than the government. The government after all has rules about that. The private sector often does not, and they are relentless greedheads who will sell anything they can for more cash.

  15. 15.

    Yarrow

    @Chip Daniels: We don’t. And it’s not just TVs. Think of all the “smart devices” that have come on the market. Had to look for an oven recently and the pricier ones all connect to the internet. And how often is that software updated? And is there any security? Not very often, apparently, because those types of devices are the ones that were used to take out the internet on the east coast last year.

    I’d expect “smart refrigerators” to be sending info back to the manufacturer to sell to supermarket companies. Security companies keeping tabs on when you come and go and sell that about you–do you go out a lot at night or stay in? Even the oven manufacturer to sell someone the info on how often you cook.

    If there are no laws governing this kind of thing, all your devices are going to be selling data about you.

  17. 17.

    Millard Filmore

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Wiretap laws, unless explicitly aimed at private parties, are about the government’s ability to monitor, based on the 4th Amendment.

    Each state has its own laws about notifying parties on recorded phone calls. I ask because almost everywhere Nanny-Cams are allowed to record video but not voice (some states recording voice is a very bad no-no). I guess collecting data on the sly has not gone through the courts yet.

    Vizio is not an ISP. Sucking data or meta-data out of a household is not a natural or required part of using the product.

  18. 18.

    rikyrah

    Greg Sargent Verified account
    ‏@ThePlumLineGS

    Greg Sargent Retweeted Talking Points Memo

    Power of White House bully pulpit may bear down on any private company that decides doing business w/Trump family is not in its interests.

  19. 19.

    Neldob

    And by the by the new FCC chair Ajit Pai plans to end net neutrality, and to reclassify broadband providers as other than a public utility.

  20. 20.

    themann1086

    @Gravenstone: Yep, and it’s why I helped pick a Vizio out for my parents’ new tv, and grabbed one for me, too. Assholes.

    @Bobby D: Oh hey, he’s my new state Senator (I moved, he’s been there for a few years)! I’ll have to drop him a thank you.

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    Greg Sargent Verified account
    ‏@ThePlumLineGS

    Greg Sargent Retweeted Talking Points Memo

    Are Congressional Rs just fine with White House openly saying they will attack private companies that don’t do business with his family?

  23. 23.

    MattF

    @Yarrow: And, within a couple of hours of installation, all your ‘smart’ devices will be gathered into a botnet and controlled by hackers from who-knows-where.

  25. 25.

    Chris

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I am much more concerned about the private sector snooping on people than the government. The government after all has rules about that. The private sector often does not, and they are relentless greedheads who will sell anything they can for more cash.

    The government is accountable to somebody (even if half of them are fuckwads). The private sector is accountable to no one.

  26. 26.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: I wrote an article that was published over a decade about the need for RFID tagging for supply chains to prevent terrorists or organized crime from replacing official goods with tampered items – such as critical airplane parts or tainting food. Part of the discussion was how you instituted this without creating a significant privacy issue. And my conclusion was you can’t. So we either have to assume the risk or accept the invasion of privacy as we couldn’t count on the companies involved to police themselves. Some would, some wouldn’t in an attempt to gain an edge.

  29. 29.

    MomSense

    Wasn’t there a game console/system that was recording conversations even when not in use?

    Also, too my mom’s Alexa freaks me out. I think she is starting to talk to it like it’s a real person.

  31. 31.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: At this point, however, if you’re not doing business with anyone in the Trump family or related to the Administration, there is significant evidence you should avoid doing so for fear of a fit of pique leading to retribution.

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    @Bobby D:“

    Hey @realDonaldTrump I oppose civil asset forfeiture too! Why don’t you try to destroy my career you fascist, loofa-faced, shit-gibbon!”

    See, now that’s just disrespec….BWAH HA HA HAH!

    Can we get this guy a seat at Trumpov’s first State of the Union address? Please??

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MomSense: Your Mom is talking to the Alexa like its a real person or the Alexa is talking to your Mom like she’s a real person? Its unclear from your comment. Thanks!

  34. 34.

    liberal

    The order also includes a $1.5 million payment to the FTC and an additional civil penalty to New Jersey for a total of $2.2 million.

    Yeah, that’ll show ’em.

    In a sane world, they’d be ordered to pay 10 to 100 X the value of the total sales of the data. If that were to bankrupt them, TFB.

  35. 35.

    Jeffro

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I am much more concerned about the private sector snooping on people than the government. The government after all has rules about that. The private sector often does not, and they are relentless greedheads who will sell anything they can for more cash.

    AY-MEN! I have never understood why people fear government more than they fear people who are okay with poisoning water supplies and using substandard building materials (and so on) just to make an extra buck.

  37. 37.

    R.Porrofatto

    I love the tips for smart companies: explain data collection practices up front, get consumers’ consent, blah blah blah.
    Unfortunately, here’s the tip that “smart” companies are really going to count on:
    Wait for the insanely corrupt Trump administration to make all of this illegal crap legal.

  38. 38.

    Tractarian

    Let’s take a deep breath here, people.

    Vizio “made TVs that automatically tracked what consumers were watching and transmitted that data back to its servers”

    Vizio knows what you watched. OK. That is mildly disturbing, at worst.

    In 2017, you’d think we’d learn to save words like “horrifying” and “appalling” for things that truly deserve it.

  39. 39.

    Millard Filmore

    @R.Porrofatto:

    Wait for the insanely corrupt Trump administration to make all of this illegal crap legal.

    Its all part of downsizing the government, private industry has to be allowed to pick up the slack.

  40. 40.

    Tractarian

    @Jeffro:

    That is correct – poisoning water supplies and using substandard building materials, for example, could kill people.

    Tracking your TV-watching habits?

    Watch out for outrage fatigue, is all I’m saying.

  41. 41.

    Millard Filmore

    @Tractarian:

    Vizio “made TVs that automatically tracked what consumers were watching and transmitted that data back to its servers”

    I see. They are stealing my data.

  42. 42.

    Yarrow

    @Tractarian: It’s also kind of stupid to be this freaked out. Does anyone really think AT&T or Comcast or whoever your TV provider is doesn’t know what you’re watching? Same with Netflix or Hulu. They know and track it. Probably sell it that info about you. Maybe if you get your TV over the air without any cable or satellite then it’s harder to track, but if you’ve got any kind of DVR, unless you rigged it yourself, someone is tracking that info and selling it.

  44. 44.

    Peale

    @MattF: I’m actually fine with that. All of my appliances are about 10 years old and not nearing the ends of their lives. I’m actually in favor of a massive attack by a foreign power that causes all of the early adapters to have to run to the store to save their ice cream.

  45. 45.

    The Moar You Know

    If there are no laws governing this kind of thing, all your devices are going to be selling data about you.

    @Yarrow: As I said above, this sort of security is my job. I will simply point out that you don’t need any of these devices. And even if for some reason you think you do, you sure don’t have to give them your wi-fi login and password.

    Also, read Internet Of Shit every day, if this sort of thing either concerns or entertains you. They are on it.

  46. 46.

    greennotGreen

    I had a Vizio TV, but it was stolen and I replaced it with a smaller LG. I hope the thieves appreciate sharing their viewing habits (more likely the viewing habits of whoever bought the TV out of the back of someone’s car) with Vizio.

  47. 47.

    Yarrow

    @Yarrow: I should be clear–I think doing all this tracking is wrong. The info that they are tracking you should be provided up front and it should be made very easy to turn off the tracking. The device shouldn’t bug you about turning on tracking if you’ve turned it off. There should be big penalties for failing to do this.

    But that’s not the world we live in and all the companies want data on you. So it’s happening with everything you do. Your supermarket “loyalty card.” Your TV. Your thermostat. Vizio isn’t alone. They just got caught.

  49. 49.

    Cain

    Sorry off topic: Some state senator in Pennsylvania challenged Trump: “Come at me you shit gibbon” I didn’t realize shitgibbon was used outside of Balloon Juice? source

  51. 51.

    Yarrow

    @The Moar You Know: No, you don’t need them, but as I said above I recently went shopping for ovens. The better ovens were all connected to the internet. Those higher priced features will begin to filter down to basic ovens. People are reporting they can’t use their fridges because the stupid thing has to download an update. At some point it’s going to be almost impossible to have an appliance without it connecting to the internet. What do you do then?

  52. 52.

    Tractarian

    @greennotGreen:

    I hope the thieves appreciate sharing their viewing habits (more likely the viewing habits of whoever bought the TV out of the back of someone’s car) with Vizio.

    This illustrates the utter inanity of all this outrage.

    In a world full of violence, property crime, poverty, denials of civil rights…. imagine the privilege one must be coming from to complain about someone knowing *what TV shows you watch*.

  54. 54.

    Cain

    I have never heard of fridges needing to be connected to the internet? That seems kind of stupid. I’ll go with old school thakns.. plus, I’m not interested in chinese (or I guess now american govt) hackers getting into my businesses and monitoring me through various devices in my house.

  55. 55.

    Roger Moore

    @MattF:

    There’s no question that Vizio was well aware that they were doing a Bad Thing.

    Yep. When they have to lie to you about what they’re doing to get your “consent”, they know they couldn’t get it if they were honest.

  57. 57.

    ruemara

    I have said this before, around the time Snowden was being lauded. I am far more concerned about the amount of data collected on me by corporations, up to and including the innocuous game companies amusing me on my phone, than I am about metadata collection. Because I know the difference between “spying on everyone” and collecting metadata while having no staffing for analysis vs having staffing, bots and no clear oversight on data collection & analysis. Not saying both shouldn’t be something we rein in (HA!) but one was always far more out of control.

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    @The Moar You Know:

    Gotta ask, why on Earth would you hook up anything to the internet when you don’t know what it does?

    Because that’s not all it does. Most smart TVs have things like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video built in, so you can watch on your TV without needing an extra box. That gives you a strong reason to want to connect to the net.

  59. 59.

    ? Martin

    @Gravenstone: That’s not really the reason. Vizio is a local company, and they ran VERY lean. Their business model was to further commoditize the product by doing a minimal amount of design and custom components and then go after highly efficient distribution – their contract with Costco was huge. This allowed them to undercut competitors on both ends. That’s not to say there wasn’t revenue selling data, but they had a viable business model at least for a period without it.

    @Chip Daniels: We know they aren’t. Samsung TVs were recording everything being spoken in the room.

    These thing lead to a new class of problem we’re going to have to come to terms with. We want intelligent devices, but because electronics have perfect retention and transmission, we don’t trust them in situations that we would trust a human. But our cameras don’t just record pictures any longer – they are starting to ‘see’. You can start to ask an electronic device to notify you when a dog enters the room, and it can do that with a good degree of accuracy. I’ve seen tools that can count unique individuals that enter a room and how long they were there, tell you how many men vs women, etc. Autonomous cars will have multiple cameras not only all running all the time, but also recording a fuckton of information and able to understand what it sees. Somewhere on the order of a gigabyte of data per second. And with that also comes microphones that can listen, that know what you are saying and what is going on.

    These systems only work when that data is being shared, but how it’s shared and what it can be used for later is a huge deal. Consider the day when law enforcement is trying to investigate a crime and realizes that any car which travelled through that area almost certainly captured video of the activity. Can law enforcement subpoena any vehicle data that traveled through a given area during a given period and use that to discover which vehicles were there and which weren’t? There’s a case now in Ohio of a man who is suspected of arson having his pacemaker data used as evidence that he wasn’t rushing out of the house as he claimed.

    Sending your data out is unavoidable, but we’re going to need a complete rethink of how data once collected can be used, how to protect it, how to subpoena it, and so on. If the data is inadmissible, is a computer analysis of the data admissible? That’s not even a question we thought to ask before.

  60. 60.

    Tractarian

    @ruemara:

    I am far more concerned about the amount of data collected on me by corporations, up to and including the innocuous game companies amusing me on my phone, than I am about metadata collection.

    Why? Are you afraid they will force you to buy something?

    I’d be more afraid of the entity that has the power to arrest me and bomb my family, but that’s just me.

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    @rikyrah:

    Greg Sargent Retweeted Talking Points Memo

    Power of White House bully pulpit may bear down on any private company that decides doing business w/Trump family is not in its interests.

    Trump: putting the bully in bully pulpit.

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    Techies, what is the best password storage app for the iPhone? I’m tired of accidentally locking myself out of my accounts because I don’t quite remember the password right. TIA!

  68. 68.

    Emma

    @MomSense: My latest laptop comes with Alexa. It’s a major pita as it pops up all of a sudden when I’m working on something important. I want to shoot the…. ahem… unprintable female dog.

  73. 73.

    The Moar You Know

    People are reporting they can’t use their fridges because the stupid thing has to download an update.

    @Yarrow: Again – why the FUCK is anyone buying a fridge with an internet connection?

    At some point it’s going to be almost impossible to have an appliance without it connecting to the internet. What do you do then?

    Buy the cheapest models, which will likely never have a connection, or if needed, buy used. Or do without, if your privacy is that important to you (it should be, but by far the more pressing concern with items that blow out this kind of data is security – they have none and never will have any).

  74. 74.

    Roger Moore

    @Yarrow:
    One of the differences, and I’ll admit that it’s a small one, is that Vizio was apparently selling the raw information about what you watched. That’s unusual. Most companies want to process that information to figure out your interests and then use that information to serve ads; they treat the raw data as critical proprietary information. There is a different level of worry between “Vizio knows what I’ve been watching and uses it to target ads” and “Vizio knows what I’ve been watching and will sell it to anyone with money”.

  75. 75.

    ? Martin

    @Yarrow: But we like the tracking. We don’t like the idea of it, but we like the results. We like it when Amazon anticipates what you are going to buy and makes it easier. We like it when Netflix offers up other shows similar to what you’ve watched in the past – and Netflix pioneered that back in their DVD rental days. That was their whole schtick ahead of Blockbuster, that they could offer up shows that you were likely to want to see to make it easy to put them in your queue. We like it when it shows the weather for where we are now, rather than where we were yesterday. We like it when it knows we’re in Starbucks and offers up your starbucks loyalty card, or whatever. Consumers, really, really like this stuff a lot.

    Now, there are two major camps in how this is done. Google, being a data center driven company, does all of the work that it can in the cloud, uploading your data and analyzing it on their servers and pushing it back. Apple, being a device company, does all of the work that it can on your device, and doesn’t upload. So Apple’s model is to reach into your other apps to build that profile and do that work. It knows what it does about your Starbucks habits by asking the Starbucks app on your phone rather than calling a server somewhere. If you don’t want it to know that, delete the app. You have a bit more control in this model because you can better pick and choose who you trust. It also reduces Apples liability because there’s way less of your data out on a server to be hacked. The benefit for Google is that they can offer up services that extend beyond your device, so their approach tends to be more powerful and allows a greater variety of activities, at the cost of you trusting them more with your data. Other companies typically fall in one camp or the other, but most in Google’s camp.

    One of the reasons why I stick with Apple products is that they don’t have an incentive to sell your data. They make their money on the device and keeping customers means maintaining trust. That’s a virtuous cycle – in exchange for them not selling my data, I buy their expensive phone. Google doesn’t have that. They don’t make any money off the device, they only make money selling access to you, so their incentives are different. They still need to maintain that trust for you to keep an account with you, but they have to shade the line a lot differently than Apple. Apple can straight up lock that data down, Google can’t quite do that. Everyone is a variation on one or the other approach.

  76. 76.

    Patricia Kayden

    Some great advice from Bernice King on how to resist Trump and Republicans in general. Love that she recommends referring to Republicans as a whole when talking about policies instead of just to Trump and thus forcing them to answer for his actions. Whoever runs against Trump in 2020 needs to do this.

  81. 81.

    ? Martin

    @Gin & Tonic: Right. And some companies will step into this market.

    Apple has spent time thinking this through. This is why it insists devices sold as being compatible with HomeKit implement tough security and privacy protections. These include end-to-end encryption, secure chips, and a range of other security measures. Apple wants you to know that when you do use HomeKit kit you are less likely to be attacked, or to see information about you subverted in unexpected ways.

    The benefits of this approach are tangible. Your kettle is unlikely to start emailing you advertising; your fridge probably won’t be distributing fizzy drink and factory-farmed burger discount codes to your children, and hackers won’t be breaking into your bank account or home. Even with Apple, the connected age demands constant vigilance, you need to keep products updated and secure, however, unlike some others in the space, Apple wants to make it easy for you to do so.

    The costs are straightforward – secure devices are more expensive, and somewhat more limiting. Apple isn’t alone in this, but they’re among the most outwardly public about why they are doing it. I wish more companies would take the same approach (or improve upon it).

  82. 82.

    Chris

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I saw that after posting. It’s very sad, but I can hope that the list will be expanded later. “Computer” is adequately Trekkish for now.

    (Other words that need to be added: “JARVIS,” “Ultron,” “Skynet,” “Samaritan,” “Rommie,” and “R2.” For starters).

  83. 83.

    Mnemosyne

    @Tractarian:

    I’d be more afraid of the entity that has the power to arrest me and bomb my family, but that’s just me.

    Never had to deal with a private company dunning you for money you don’t actually owe them, have you?

  84. 84.

    ? Martin

    @Mnemosyne:

    Techies, what is the best password storage app for the iPhone? I’m tired of accidentally locking myself out of my accounts because I don’t quite remember the password right. TIA!

    1Password. It runs on iOS, Mac, Windows, Android. It’s very flexible, integrates well with the various devices, and is in the camp of password apps that encrypts the data locally on the device, rather than uploading it. That means that unlike some other apps, you can’t get to your data with just a web browser, but it means your data is way more secure. They do offer syncing across devices using a variety of services (I use Dropbox because it allows me to have access to my wife and dads password vaults so that I can act on their behalf as needed).

    In addition to passwords, I keep other secure data – kids SS#s, medical data. You can add fields to records to track security questions and things like that. It’s a little expensive, but it’s one of the best apps I own. Thanks to it I never reuse passwords. I have ~400 completely random passwords (30 char), and use 1Password to track them and enter them. It’s life-changing once you get everything in and updated and working.

  85. 85.

    Larkspur

    @Yarrow: Gosh, I only ever watch OPTV (Other People’s Televisions). I’m kind of subversive! There are houses I stay in that only feature Fox News…until I arrive and take over while the people are away. Heh. Rachel Maddow, Sam Bee, Joy Ann Reid. Fun to be skewing the data.

    I have not yet trained a dog to bark whenever Trump shows up on the screen. It’s a fun fantasy, but I will not exploit dogs for my own nefarious purposes.

  87. 87.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Tractarian:

    Why? Are you afraid they will force you to buy something?

    I’d be more afraid of the entity that has the power to arrest me and bomb my family, but that’s just me

    And why wouldn’t the corporation sell that data to a goverment or a goverment’s intelligence service steal that data from the corporation?

  92. 92.

    zhena gogolia

    @MomSense:

    A friend of mine called her ex to work out child care arrangements, and when she heard him make a side remark to “Alexa” she got really pissed because she thought he already had a girlfriend.

  95. 95.

    The Moar You Know

    Reading all this makes me want to go to some mountain top and take sanyas from all things electronic and networked.

    @schrodingers_cat: I do this once a week, all day, usually Saturdays. No phone calls (don’t die on a Saturday) no screens, period. I spend so much time otherwise, and I found that this digital world is far shittier than the real one that involves trees and my dog (a puppy is a wonderful way to get yourself off the internet, because you can’t ignore the puppy, and do puppy and internet at the same time.) So the break is good. And I have promised myself that upon retirement, the first thing to go into the ocean is the cell phone, followed by the laptop.

  96. 96.

    Mike J

    @MomSense:

    Wasn’t there a game console/system that was recording conversations even when not in use?

    Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Google, all have to listen all the time in case you ask them something. I’ve been waiting to see a warrant request to just listen in on the wiretap the suspects paid for themselves. If it’s in a FISA court you’ll probably never hear about it, and I’m sure NSA (who are only allowed to operate outside the US and therefore don’t need warrants) are already working on listening in.

  99. 99.

    Roger Moore

    @? Martin:

    But our cameras don’t just record pictures any longer – they are starting to ‘see’. You can start to ask an electronic device to notify you when a dog enters the room, and it can do that with a good degree of accuracy.

    I was just surprised by something like this the other day. I was looking at my photos on Google Photos, and for once I looked at the “Assistant”. It offered to show me pictures in a number of categories, including categorizing pictures by what was in them. It was surprisingly good. Some of that stuff it might have gotten hints based on date stamps or geotags, but not for things like “arches”. It seems to be a bit too aggressive in categorizing animals- some of my cat pictures showed up as both cats and dogs- but overall it was far better than I would have expected.

  100. 100.

    ? Martin

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: There’s some interesting dynamics showing up in this space. When the WH was considering asking for source code so they could hack devices like iPhone, Apple convinced them that as soon as they gave code to the US government, that every other government would make that a condition to sell devices in their market. The WH might proclaim to be judicious about when they would hack your device, but would we trust the Chinese government to be judicious? Would we trust Russia? And these are large enough markets that pushing Apple out would be devastating to Apple and to that part of the US economy. Their argument was that the only stable arrangement was for nobody to have access to that data. That’s an argument they and the social media companies have all made for similar reasons.

    Now, governments are requiring that data be housed within their borders, so that they have subpoena power. That’s not unreasonable. And these companies have created basically shadow services that can unlock only specific accounts read-only according to what is being subpoenaed. So rather than Facebook printing out your entire account and sending it to LAO, the agency has the ability to log into this service and see only the accounts covered by the subpoena in real-time. They can restrict based on content and agency as well – so if your local police and the FBI both subpoena an account, and different data is covered, they can tailor each agencies view to only show what the warrant covers. It’s all very clever.

  101. 101.

    efgoldman

    @Chris:

    Other words that need to be added: “JARVIS,” “Ultron,” “Skynet,” “Samaritan,” “Rommie,” and “R2.” For starters

    “Fuckhead”
    “Shitgibbon”
    “Dave”

  103. 103.

    Roger Moore

    @Chris:

    Other words that need to be added: “JARVIS,” “Ultron,” “Skynet,” “Samaritan,” “Rommie,” and “R2.”

    I don’t think you want R2, since it would respond in incomprehensible whistles and beeps. Maybe GLADOS…

  106. 106.

    ThresherK

    Well, well, well. Looks like hanging on to my Nipkow-disk Atwater Kent is starting to pay off.

  108. 108.

    Roger Moore

    @Major Major Major Major:
    The “food” category was particularly interesting. It included not just pictures of food on plates (what I was thinking of) but also pictures of people sitting to eat and food being prepared. Some of the categories, like “ruins” needed more work, but overall it was surprisingly good.

  111. 111.

    J R in WV

    @The Moar You Know:

    My laptop, which I use to surf the innertubz, has a “web cam” on it, just above the screen I’m watching. It is covered with a small piece of black electrical tape. On all of the laptops and tablets.

    @ThresherK:

    Nipkow-disk Atwater Kent, indeed! You win the innertubz for the day, good ThresherK, indeed you do!!

  113. 113.

    J R in WV

    @efgoldman:

    “I’m okay, what with the massacre in Atlanta and all. ”

    Another one? Damn them terrists get around.

    I have been in several imaginary terrist attacks so far. I was in bed for all of them so far, and Presinit The Donald was there for at least one of them, around dawn, one day. You know, it was one of those days when he isn’t twit-ing so much that time of day.

    Boom-chacka-whacka-laKa-Boom! [email protected] and then his weave blew off, right in front of the TV camaras. Dammedest thing I ever did seen.

    I don’t know if dreams count, or not?

  116. 116.

    Tazj

    @Jeffro: They fear being persecuted by the government for their conservative beliefs. They fear their guns being confiscated, their land being taken away, their taxes being used to support lazy people. They won’t be able to be “true” Christians anymore. They believe that baking a cake for a gay couple or signing a form which allows the government to provide birth control for women is persecution. These fears are promulgated and reinforced by Fox news and talk radio.
    I’m still surprised by the amount of people who hate people who work for the government at any level. I frequently hear disparaging comments about government workers when I’m out in public or at family gatherings. The deterioration of unions has a contributed to this as government workers still receive decent pay and benefits and many other workers do not.
    Of course, the government is capable of causing great harm and does need to be checked. However, because conservatives have been so successful portraying government as the only entity capable of empowering evil they have allowed ignorant destructive people to be in control of it.

  117. 117.

    J R in WV

    @efgoldman:

    Other words that need to be added: “JARVIS,” “Ultron,” “Skynet,” “Samaritan,” “Rommie,” and “R2.” For starters

    “Fuckhead”
    “Shitgibbon”
    “Dave”

    “Daisy”
    and
    “HAL”

  118. 118.

    J R in WV

    @Chris:

    @J R in WV:

    Amateur. Chris Kyle was in imaginary gunfights, and he won.

    Well, mebbe so, but was he asleep at the time?

  119. 119.

    Larkspur

    @Mnemosyne: OT, but is open thread, yeh? How are you doing on our shared project of being more sensible about food? I have not mastered the commitment to pack lunches or snacks for the day, and I still tend to eat my main (and sometimes only) meal in the evening, but I have stopped buying my favorite chai lattes with almond milk in favor of making my own with Trader Joe’s chai tea bags. So, not a calorie thing, but a money savings. Maybe a calorie thing too, since I usually added a scone or muffin to the chai purchase.

    Also, will we get to see you in your Jane Austen tea dance dress? Or at least the dress itself? When is this shindig again? (Subculture topic; I have not found the right subculture thing yet. A few years ago I signed up for a class at the local community college – they were going to gin up a Javanese or Balinese gamelan group. I was so ready to gong…but it got cancelled due to low enrollment. I think learning to participate in a gamelan orchestra qualifies as genuinely subcultural.)

  120. 120.

    Millard Filmore

    @J R in WV:

    My laptop, which I use to surf the innertubz, has a “web cam” on it, just above the screen I’m watching. It is covered with a small piece of black electrical tape. On all of the laptops and tablets.

    If you ever really want to use those cameras again, be careful about the glue on the tape getting on the lens.

  123. 123.

    Pogonip

    @Yarrow: Buy used?

    We buy the most basic stuff we can find and hang on to the old stuff; the TVs are both 30 years old, for example, and may last for another 30 as we are not big TV watchers.

    I understand that this approach will be difficult if you have teenagers.

  124. 124.

    Pogonip

    @? Martin: Fortunately all this snooping and tracking isn’t infallible. I downloaded a sample of an “urban romance.” Amazon promptly decided I’m black (no one could ever be just curious, right?) and Amazon must sell info to a shitload of merchants because we’ve been inundated with offers, both Internet and catalogs, of products marketed to black women. It’s been quite interesting, so much so that I downloaded samples of gay romances, “paranormal” romances ( vampire or werewolf meets girl), “Christian” (non-denominational Protestant) romances, and biker romances, and am looking forward to the results.

    Everybody confuse the computers! Download like mad!

  125. 125.

    Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire

    Vizio knows that we watch a FUCKTON of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic in our house, then.

  126. 126.

    Gindy51

    @Yarrow: None of my smart devices connect with the internet because they do not know the password to my router. Unless I enter into the device’s computer, they cannot connect.

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