Gryzemuis on 17/1/2010 at 16:47

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What worries me, are the words "of the past". Indeed it seems fewer and fewer people worry about privacy. Is it a culture thing ? Is it related to age ? It sure seems to me that younger people don't care that all information about them is open on the streets.

I've been told that Apple's Iphone has an applet that uses the GPS inside the Iphone to keep track where the user is. And it broadcasts that information to all "friends" of that user. So people can see, when they are shopping, if their friends are close or not. So people can see who is at home, and who is at work. Or in the pub. Or at their mistress. Why in earth want people to broadcast their location every second of the day ?

Many years ago already, I heard a conversation between a boyfriend and girlfriend. The girl was angry, because the guy had switched off his cellphone the previous night, between 22:00 and 23:00. "Why did you switch off your cellphone ? You never switch off your cellphone. The only explanation is: you must have been with another girl. You cheater !" And now couples can actually really check up on each other through GPS in their phones.

Another small thing. This week World of Warcraft introduced a new feature. They have a website, called The Armory, where you can check people's characters. The gear they have, the stats they have. Since 15 months their is an achievement system, and you can see on the website what players have done. Since this week, there is a new feauture: a "recent activity log". It shows what people have done over the last week. And not only what they've done, but also when. The exact time. See an example here:
(http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Deathwing&cn=Gryzemuis)
There are even RSS feeds to these event logs. So you get notified when certain players do certain things.

Everybody can now check your gaming activities. Were you really sick at home ? How come you were playing at 3:00 AM in the morning, when you had an important presentation at 10:00 AM. Etc, etc. To me, it would seem normal if Blizzard would implement a knob so you could hide your data from the public eye. But there is no such knob.

The weird thing is: when some people asked for such a privacy setting, they get attacked by large amounts of people who say that the knob should not be implemented. They find it useless. And they object to other people hiding. What the fuck ? I know that the majority of WoW players are motards. But this beats everything I've read on those forums. Are these kids ? Is this the new generation of teenagers ? You are forced to share your life online, or else you are the freak ? Requesting privacy is now a perverted thing ? The world upside down.

Gryzemuis on 17/1/2010 at 17:15

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Yes, of course you can not broadcast your location. By not buying/installing that application. (Unlike the tracking in some games). Can you see in Steam the timestamps of the achievements ? Can you see at what dates/times people play ? Can you disable it ?

But I still wonder, why would people wanna publish their location 24/7 ? Even if it is only to their friends ? I'm flabbergasted by the fact that younger generations enjoying exposing everything they can about themselves. I'm slowely starting to believe I'm paranoid.

CCCToad on 17/1/2010 at 23:54

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Which is why very few people in RL know my character/account names.

edit: also, that guy has some pretty sweet loot.




Exactly. With Facebook, I can check up on them and laugh at how much I've surpassed them without having to go through the displeasure of meeting them in person. Heck, All the grand things they predicted the people in High School would do? They didn't do em. What they told me I wasn't good enough to do? I did it.

june gloom on 18/1/2010 at 01:34

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i love you renzatic

you can have my CDs when i die

CCCToad on 18/1/2010 at 02:39

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When did I ever claim to be an IT professional? Granted, I've earned a minor in CS, but I don't have much functional knowledge except for how to set up a database.