Data question

downtheroad wrote:

ChopperBill wrote:
...surely someone can find a use of this wasted data. .

Lots of outfits out there that will "recycle" your data for you...

They want more then you can pay for new data.

Seriously I ain't kidding and no tongue in cheek. I would recycle my unused data so the folks can download their movies in a camp site. Just leave me enough to forward my Obama jokes.

I do have a somewhat serious question in answer to this obvious tongue in cheek thread. What stops all the cellular and other metered data plans from saying you used X amount of data? At least with cellular phone minutes you had a basic idea of how long you talked on the phone. If they said you ran up 2000 minutes in a month and you know you only were on the phone a couple of hours max, you had at least a starting point to argue. Plus they had a detail of the calls made and if it showed 6 hours on a call to a number you never heard of, you could dispute it. If they tell you that you used 4 gigs of data on your 2 gig data plan and you owe them $200.00, how can you even begin to know if it is correct or not? It's not like data comes evenly over time. For example, I have seen Microsoft security updates that are less than 100 megabytes and others that are similarly named that are 10 times larger. I would think this would be a real easy way for an unscrupulous data provider (I know, there is nothing more trustworthy or efficient than a phone company (***Alert***Sarcasm***) to reach deep into your pocket with you having no recourse.

I know you're kidding with us.

I have 1 terabyte of data I have no use for. It is up for sale for anyone thats short of data. Most of it is ex-girl friends phone numbers and wife says I have to let it go at fire sale prices.

ChopperBill wrote:
...surely someone can find a use of this wasted data. .

Lots of outfits out there that will "recycle" your data for you...

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

No help, made my head spin. LOL

Some good explanations. But, I have my data turned off on my phone. Tracfone, and it keeps building up. Dumb question I know, but what happens to it? I know it doesn't spoil or melt, but why can't unused dated be sold back like solar and wind energy? Everyone apparently pays for it but there has to be gobs of unused data going to waste. If it's so expensive and it is limited in camp ground wifi surely someone can find a use of this wasted data. I'm sort of computer savvy but this stuff stumps me.

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.

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.

I'm safe. I have my tin foil hat to protect me. :B

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

Over time, the use of a computer will tell more about you than your wife could ever know. Not even YOUR memory is much of a match for compiled data.