by Mazille wrote:http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.843611-Microsoft-Kinect-Almost-a-Spy-Tool-for-British-Intelligence-Update
Well. I remember being called paranoid for warning against just that.
I went through the thread up to page 12 with intent to demonstrate that someone on the internet was wrong, in this case you. Then I got bored and lazy.
You called yourself paranoid several times in the first place and that was before anyone called you paranoid. Then I got on page 12 where I wrote:
tuco wrote:Mazille wrote:You know, what with that NSA prism thing blowing up in the US's face right now, is there still someone who finds my slight paranoia over a surveillance system connected to the tubes all that silly?
While I do not want to be confrontational over this (Xbox), especially as I do not consider myself fanboi of MS business, yes I do. Or rather, the problem is not primarily with Xbox One having Kinect mandatory. We've already touched the issue about talking to robots for example and even you were able to imagine it, just not in your room iirc. So forget about your room, imagine where else similar technology to Kinect could be used.
Interactive robots could be just about everywhere, from hot dog carts to space stations, and in this sense your paranoia should not be slight but quite heavy as each and everyone of them would be online, watching, and we would not be able to turn them off like Kinect. With this new technology, and I mentioned it before, we face new challenges which may require new approaches, thinking out of the box so to say. Privacy, as known to us thousands of years when moral was doing the same whether someone was watching or not and only God could see everyone at all time, became to have different meaning. Phones, cars and dogs have GPS, surveillance cameras are on every corner, paparazzi's, credit card records, the internet where we send information without being able to control them, etc etc.
This is the time we live in and reject it, technology, on the grounds "it can be abused .." is just not good enough. What is needed, in my opinion, is debate or realization of how technology affects us and what is required to do so it can be abused as little as possible. For example, and at least where I live, many concepts from the internet are not properly defined in laws simply because they are new (like internet web page). So this is where your slight paranoia has its place. If it triggers debate its fine, but if it triggers irrational fears leading to radical solutions .. I dunno. Now, I was not trying to diagnose your state of mind, just put the whole Stasi thing into a perspective.
BTW Kinect is not silly peripheral. The tech is pretty cool, applications may vary however. The idea is that developers can be certain that when they implement voice/gesture features to their products they will be used. ME3 gameplay where voice commands replaced the power wheel, for example, seemed much smoother with Kinect than without. Liara? Blow .. Warp Warp!
1) There is no evidence that NSA, MS or any other influential agency/institution/corporation hacking XBOX One Kinect nor using data gathered through it illegally.
2) The possibility of being hacked was always there, this is obvious and trivial, and nobody was denying it.
3) Anyone can go back through the thread and, in retrospect, evaluate her/his statements. I still maintain that some of them were hysterical.
