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Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
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If you have a passport then the Government already has your face and are already using it. If you've traveled internationally recently you'll know that the facial recognition is a required part of the process to get back into the country. I was in the Dominican Republic recently and facial photograph was a required part of the process to gain entry.
I agree. Unfortunately it's difficult to oppose without reducing your own freedom. Don't have a driving license. Don't have a passport. Don't have a mobile phone. Don't use a computer. Like going back to the middle ages.
I certainly agree. There is a forward march in the direction of more use of our personal data, including our faces and other aspects of our identity, and there is not much that can be done about it, at least as an individual. Also, there's the usual question of "If you haven't done anything wrong, why are you worried?"
I don't see how we can go back in time to the age of paper documents in filing cabinets, and the basic unavailability of this kind of data. I don't even want to go back. I just want it to be hard for it to be used in ways that no one has agreed to, and that is not overseen by any effective regulation or the protection of laws.
In the meantime, we'll need to go along, since we do need driver's licenses and passports, and we can hope that things end up being done well, in the long run.
Google is investigating how 1,000 conversations recorded by one of its smart speakers were leaked.
Belgian broadcaster VRT exposed the recordings made by Google Home devices in Belgium and the Netherlands.
The search giant said the recordings came from one of the human reviewers who helps to refine Home's linguistic abilities.
It said it took steps to protect the privacy of people whose recordings its reviewers sampled.
Critical review
VRT said the majority of the recordings it reviewed were short clips logged by the Google Home devices as owners used them.
However, it said, 153 were "conversations that should never have been recorded" because the wake phrase of "OK Google" was not given.
These unintentionally recorded exchanges included:
blazing rows
bedroom chatter
parents talking to their children
phone calls exposing confidential information
It said it believed the devices logged these conversations because users said a word or phrase that sounded similar to "OK Google" that triggered the device.
Responding in its blog to the VRT expose, Google said it shared recordings with experts who "understand the nuances and accents" of specific languages to make its speaker more accurate.
"This is a critical part of the process of building speech technology," it said, adding that the storing of recordings is turned off by default when people start using its Home devices.
It added that it was probing how one of its contractors had been able to give VRT access to the database of recorded chatter.
"Our security and privacy response teams have been activated on this issue, are investigating, and we will take action," it wrote.
I do think it is cool to be able to talk to machines, since talking is the most natural way for humans to communicate.
However, I want other people to be the early adopters of this kind of new technology. I'll follow along later, once there are controls in place to make sure that the smart speaker (or facial recognition software, or whatever) is not going to be used in ways that I wouldn't want, if I knew what it was doing.
Trading: The one I'm creating in the present....Index Futures mini/micro, ZF
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Don’t worry Bob I’ve got you covered. We have 8 of these devices scattered all over the place.....
I must say I love them and I could care less if someone is listening. I’m sure they would learn something if they were....lol....but nothing to hide here. They would be bored to tears most probably.
The problem was that I was using a browser that blocked cookies and Washington Post wouldn't let me in.
So to read an article about privacy I've had to let washingtonpost.com have access to my cookies. The irony....
The issues described in the article were first brought to light at the beginning of this thread, when I warned people that a service that purported itself to vet good and bad websites was actually in the business of selling the data of whom would use it.
That's not to say the article isn't shocking.
These extensions prey on the fact that almost nobody reads their lengthy and confusing terms, but there's abuse as well as this article explained very well.
I stopped using browsers extensions altogether, with the exception of NoScript.