Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
I had a “cold call” visit few months back at the front door from an Edward Jones representative. I’m very good at giving directions - so didn’t take her long at all to exit my front yard.
I’m more inclined to think the tracking related to my having the TV tuned to financial programming much of the time. DirectTV is now owned by AT&T. And after 20 years with them I’m amazed at their ability to track everything you do. If you don’t know, they frequently force download their latest software onto your old receiver.
I’m at a point where I accept some tracking as a fact of life. As long as it doesn’t relate / result in identity theft or something really sinister, I’m not going to have a **** fit over it.
"They take your name when you call in the Pizza. That itself is enough I think. " I give them Smith. Does it really help to protect my identity? It can't hurt.
The only problem with that is someone named smith might steal my identity. But I'm not really paranoid, yeah?
Which reminds me. Last month I got a message on my cell phone from a midsize Bank asking for last name - let me just say "Smith". I of course ignored. THEN I got message on my home phone - which is unlisted - again asking for Smith. You think I was worried?
While i had deleted my cell phone message, I listened to home voicemal and they said "call this number, I'm Fancy, trying to reach you". So I "researched" the number (yeah exactly 2 times on google") and found out it really belonged to THAT bank.
So I call the bank, ask for Fancy. They said no one by that name here and why was I calling. I told them about 2 Phone calls asking for Smith. I didn't tell them who I was. Then I told them if someone named Smith opens an account at the bank, and uses my phone number...(please use your imagination as to what I exactly said)
Needless to say I still don't know how someone named Smith has both my numbers and what he is doing with it. Is Fancy real? And why did she leave a legit number in the voicemail? Still stumped.
Used a link from Ted, see above. target date funds & got tracked for CD, saving rate in my area ! WOW !! Derf
This is a simpler problem I think. Use Adblock plugin in your browser. This way next time you shop at Jiffy Lube you don't get an email from "Best lube for...". Of course, it does slow down your browsing a bit which was a pain, but I've gotten used to it now.
Now I no longer get Ads on Yahoo, Amazon, eBay when I shop for some thing on either of them. Of course, some people actually want that. I don't.
Already using Adblock Plus here. Remove and clean browser history, run anti-malware and antivirus. I'm happier with cleaner webpages, easier to focus. Except for the f***ing pop-up that tells me: We notice you're using an Ad Blocker. Next time you tell me something, make it NEWS! Turds. All of them. Even Yahoo Mail gives me a f***ing popup telling me that my settings might be slowing down my mail. Go pound sand, you orifice.
The utility companies are making their move with smart meters. To "help" you, of course. After they install them, they'll be just like Santa Claus:
They'll know when you are sleeping (low power usage), They'll know when you're awake (increased usage),
and with a little bit of data mining, they'll know if you've been bad or good ...
They'll let you opt out: for just $10/mo, one can keep the "dumb" meter in place. Or if you've got a smart one, they won't simply deactivate it, they'll yank it out and charge you $100 for their effort, as well as the $10/mo.
Cable TV? I called to see what they'd offer me to stay. In talking about different packages, I was told that "this package has all your 30 most watched channels except X and Y". Aside from the privacy issue, the information wasn't even useful. I wanted to know all the stations that I'd lose - I watch stations 31-60 almost as much as I watch stations 5-30.
Surprised the utility even offers an option to you to keep your old meter. They want to drastically reduce the workforce of meter readers. With most residential home getting the new meters, the variable cost of reading a luddite's meter goes up drastically.
Any offers of a rate plan to charge more for peak usage and less for off-peak usage with the new smart meters?
Damn marketers who work for those utilities as well as everywhere ELSE have all the angles covered, don't they? Which means that you and I are screwed.
There certainly was no "option" with respect to PG&E, for either gas or electricity service. The City of San Francisco followed PG&E with their water meters. No more meter readers in SF!
I have no issue with the utility companies reading their meters remotely to save on monthly billing costs. It's crazy for the utilities to stomp their feet and say that if you don't like them monitoring you minute by minute, you'll be stuck with the old meters and you'll pay extra for that.
As I said above, they could still get the cost savings by "lobotomizing" the smart meters. Leave them smart enough to send periodic readings, dumb enough to not read anything else.
I discovered the meter replacement plan (which will take three years to execute) when some ESCO (energy service company) sales people (I'm being too kind here) came door to door. They said that the utility companies wanted to return money that they had overcharged. And we'd have to accept this today.
Actually they were trying to trick us into switching power suppliers. The only way I could see utilities owing us refunds was if they had misread the meters. Hence my research into plans for meters.
Smart utility boxes have been around for decades. Ma Bell, all the way back when it was Ma Bell, had phone line boxes that could be used for remote testing. Even earlier she was able to tell how many extensions you had connected by checking the load on the line. (The phone company provides power to your phones that is limited in the number of mechanical phone bells it can ring simultaneously.) And the phone company used to charge different rates for calls made at different times of day.
So it's not as though some monitoring by utilities hasn't been going on for half a century or more. Still, the new meters seem somehow more invasive and subject to fewer constraints than were imposed on the former fully regulated phone system.
"Even earlier she was able to tell how many extensions you had connected by checking the load on the line."
@msf: Actually, Telco could check to see how many ringers were attached to the line, not how many extensions. The trick was to disconnect one lead to the bells within all of the "illegitimate" phones. I even went them one better: I disconnected all of the bells and substituted one relay in their place. The relay looked just like one bell set to Telco, and that relay controlled ringing voltage from a local power supply to as many bells as desired. While I was busy doing that Steve Jobs & associates were also busy, designing little "black boxes" which allowed them to make free long-distance phone calls. Those were indeed the fun days.
I subscribed to DirectTV’s “free” home service plan years ago. Sure enough, a lightening strike knocked everything out a few months later. But the fink they sent out to replace the damaged receiver spent an hour crawling around under the house snipping all the wires I’d run to various sets in different rooms and out to the garage! Than installed a blocking device in-line so I could no longer record to my own DVR. Nice guy. I repaired / undid most of the damage, but have never been able to circumvent that blocking device. To add insult to injury, its power’s supplied by an additional AC outlet - and nothing works if it ain’t plugged in. So I’m paying extra (in electricity) to have myself blocked from using my own equipment.
But - Yep, what msf said about measuring line load sounds a lot like what they do now to see if more than one set is connected. Of course, there may be ways to circumvent that - but I’m not at liberty to say.
Amazon's Alexa recorded private conversation and sent it to random contact
"The company, which has insisted its Echo devices aren’t always recording, has confirmed the audio was sent"
"No matter how suspicious it has seemed that Amazon is encouraging us to put listening devices in every room of our homes, the company has always said that its Echo assistants are not listening in on or recording conversations."
"A spokesperson for the company said it had “determined this was an extremely rare occurrence"."
I talked to Alexa last night about this and she assured me (insisted, in tone) that she only records me when I invite her into the conversation. (She was ready for the question and had a rather long winded explanation of how she functions.) Occasionally she interrupts a conversation even when you have not invited her. I guess her recognition of her name is not perfect.
Comments
I’m more inclined to think the tracking related to my having the TV tuned to financial programming much of the time. DirectTV is now owned by AT&T. And after 20 years with them I’m amazed at their ability to track everything you do. If you don’t know, they frequently force download their latest software onto your old receiver.
I’m at a point where I accept some tracking as a fact of life. As long as it doesn’t relate / result in identity theft or something really sinister, I’m not going to have a **** fit over it.
I give them Smith. Does it really help to protect my identity? It can't hurt.
The only problem with that is someone named smith might steal my identity. But I'm not really paranoid, yeah?
Which reminds me. Last month I got a message on my cell phone from a midsize Bank asking for last name - let me just say "Smith". I of course ignored. THEN I got message on my home phone - which is unlisted - again asking for Smith. You think I was worried?
While i had deleted my cell phone message, I listened to home voicemal and they said "call this number, I'm Fancy, trying to reach you". So I "researched" the number (yeah exactly 2 times on google") and found out it really belonged to THAT bank.
So I call the bank, ask for Fancy. They said no one by that name here and why was I calling. I told them about 2 Phone calls asking for Smith. I didn't tell them who I was. Then I told them if someone named Smith opens an account at the bank, and uses my phone number...(please use your imagination as to what I exactly said)
Needless to say I still don't know how someone named Smith has both my numbers and what he is doing with it. Is Fancy real? And why did she leave a legit number in the voicemail? Still stumped.
Now I no longer get Ads on Yahoo, Amazon, eBay when I shop for some thing on either of them. Of course, some people actually want that. I don't.
They'll know when you are sleeping (low power usage),
They'll know when you're awake (increased usage),
and with a little bit of data mining, they'll know if you've been bad or good ...
They'll let you opt out: for just $10/mo, one can keep the "dumb" meter in place. Or if you've got a smart one, they won't simply deactivate it, they'll yank it out and charge you $100 for their effort, as well as the $10/mo.
Cable TV? I called to see what they'd offer me to stay. In talking about different packages, I was told that "this package has all your 30 most watched channels except X and Y". Aside from the privacy issue, the information wasn't even useful. I wanted to know all the stations that I'd lose - I watch stations 31-60 almost as much as I watch stations 5-30.
As I said above, they could still get the cost savings by "lobotomizing" the smart meters. Leave them smart enough to send periodic readings, dumb enough to not read anything else.
I discovered the meter replacement plan (which will take three years to execute) when some ESCO (energy service company) sales people (I'm being too kind here) came door to door. They said that the utility companies wanted to return money that they had overcharged. And we'd have to accept this today.
Actually they were trying to trick us into switching power suppliers. The only way I could see utilities owing us refunds was if they had misread the meters. Hence my research into plans for meters.
Smart utility boxes have been around for decades. Ma Bell, all the way back when it was Ma Bell, had phone line boxes that could be used for remote testing. Even earlier she was able to tell how many extensions you had connected by checking the load on the line. (The phone company provides power to your phones that is limited in the number of mechanical phone bells it can ring simultaneously.) And the phone company used to charge different rates for calls made at different times of day.
So it's not as though some monitoring by utilities hasn't been going on for half a century or more. Still, the new meters seem somehow more invasive and subject to fewer constraints than were imposed on the former fully regulated phone system.
@msf: Actually, Telco could check to see how many ringers were attached to the line, not how many extensions. The trick was to disconnect one lead to the bells within all of the "illegitimate" phones. I even went them one better: I disconnected all of the bells and substituted one relay in their place. The relay looked just like one bell set to Telco, and that relay controlled ringing voltage from a local power supply to as many bells as desired. While I was busy doing that Steve Jobs & associates were also busy, designing little "black boxes" which allowed them to make free long-distance phone calls. Those were indeed the fun days.
But - Yep, what msf said about measuring line load sounds a lot like what they do now to see if more than one set is connected. Of course, there may be ways to circumvent that - but I’m not at liberty to say.
"The company, which has insisted its Echo devices aren’t always recording, has confirmed the audio was sent"
"No matter how suspicious it has seemed that Amazon is encouraging us to put listening devices in every room of our homes, the company has always said that its Echo assistants are not listening in on or recording conversations."
"A spokesperson for the company said it had “determined this was an extremely rare occurrence"."
Link to Guardian article