[LINK] SBS: The Age of Big Data

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Frank writes,

> Google tried to get my mobile number off me the other week... to 'add
> value' to my YouTube account.. You can guess how that request went... 


Haha, yes. An unknown someone may be getting quite a few odd texts, etc, 
because we often enter a generic 0123 456 789 as our mobile phone number.

And this New Year's Day I received a half dozen email birthday-greetings,  
because for snoopy/cheeky websites I usually put 1st Jan as the birthday.

Imho there's often little or no essential reason that many websites must
know a date of birth, except for big-data identity-verification purposes.

Haha, I hope whomever owns this 0123 456 789 mobile number was also born
on Jan 1st. And so, our big-data will be almost completely schizophrenic.

What a shame.

That is unless, of course, my nemesis is criminal, and then big-data will 
screw us completely, as both BRD & Jan allude to. However, as Frank notes:

> I'm pretty sure that the 'powers that be' will eventually realise that
> if nobody trusts the medium and its major players, then the likelihood
> of the medium becoming the next Golden Goose goes out the door ...
> together with all that lovely moolah that everyone has been anticipating
> from the eggs ... and that the intelligence agencies will be told to
> pull in their heads and become more targetted and discrete with the data
> they collect - because money talks.

Sure hope you're right Frank 

> But until that happens ... well, we shouldn't blindly give data away
> like we've done in the past. That will come back to bite us in the arse.

Maybe even if we make data up. Sigh.

Cheers,
Stephen


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