Data question

blangen wrote:
Think of data as a file folder that a company kept long ago. Every interaction with you was referenced in that folder. Now... the existence of computers means that information is collected automatically because, once a programmer writes the program to collect it, it gets collected without further human interaction. Back in the old days, the only info kept was what was important enough to justify the human labor it took to collect and record it. That limitation no longer exists. Now, the only limitation on data is storage... and, generally, any piece of information that can be acquired is worth more than the cost of storage. When you think of hundreds or thousands of data points collected by one company or group of companies, you now know they can build a profile about you. Taken out to the extreme, they know enough about you to market to you in ways that you really haven't thought about. That sounds crazy, I know, but that's what happens when you carry the logical compilation of information out to the extreme. In theory, enough compiled data points may predict what you're going to do before you do it. And because the info is valuable (while the storage is relatively cheap), there is no reason for them not to.

Note: A "data point" is a tidbit of info. Your address is a data point. The fact that you buy blue underwear is a data point. Every little tidbit... thousands of them... can then be shared among "partner" companies and compiled into a fairly exact picture.

Pay with cash and don't use store "valued customer" cards.
DW doesn't even know what I plan to do.

Think of data as a file folder that a company kept long ago. Every interaction with you was referenced in that folder. Now... the existence of computers means that information is collected automatically because, once a programmer writes the program to collect it, it gets collected without further human interaction. Back in the old days, the only info kept was what was important enough to justify the human labor it took to collect and record it. That limitation no longer exists. Now, the only limitation on data is storage... and, generally, any piece of information that can be acquired is worth more than the cost of storage. When you think of hundreds or thousands of data points collected by one company or group of companies, you now know they can build a profile about you. Taken out to the extreme, they know enough about you to market to you in ways that you really haven't thought about. That sounds crazy, I know, but that's what happens when you carry the logical compilation of information out to the extreme. In theory, enough compiled data points may predict what you're going to do before you do it. And because the info is valuable (while the storage is relatively cheap), there is no reason for them not to.

Note: A "data point" is a tidbit of info. Your address is a data point. The fact that you buy blue underwear is a data point. Every little tidbit... thousands of them... can then be shared among "partner" companies and compiled into a fairly exact picture.

Edit added: And that's just the beginning. Add, on top of that, government with unlimited resources because they can, continuously, borrow and spend more than they have... as a layer on top of all of the above. At this point, one would have to be fairly (very?) sophisticated to go off-grid. I'm beginning to think it's no longer possible.

Inside the cable companies are large rooms like this COMCAST regional distribution center google photo shows where regional video, high speed data and voice are piped out to customers all over the country. The companies wireless distribution is only as good as the number of towers it has dispersed over their regions.

The more folks like us down streaming high volume of available data slows down the system big time.



my take on it anyway...

Roy Ken

Here, let me make this simple. This should explain it for you. Hope this helps.

:B