whackberry's comments

Awesome! Wish I could upvote this twice.

That's not a problem with organ donation IMO, that is a problem with insurance companies.

> Living kidney donor here.

The "living" part is redundant.

Oh that sounds ok. Thanks for clarifying.

Interesting fact, TIL.

That't be nice, yes, thank you.

Just one question about this:

> If you installed the briarpatch extension, all of your bookmarks are now in sync.

If I had been using Chrome, all my bookmarks would have been uploaded automatically? Don't you think that's a bit intrusive? Trying to be constructive here, not criticizing your system at all.

> if you were driving around taking pictures of peoples homes some might call that creepy---but that's exactly what Google did to create Street View.

I do find street view creepy.

> We're sorry but the beta version of the briarpatch extension is only available for Google Chrome.

Looks like I won't be using it after all.

> It's one of the rare pieces of information that indicates altruism, along with charitable giving.

Depending on your region, being a registered organ donor in fact says a lot about your previous medical history. HIV status, etc...

Google and Facebook are the kings of plausible deniability.

Everything they do is meant to collect personal data, but they always have the perfect excuse for doing it.

> When did you stop beating your wife? How do we know for a fact?

I never was accused of that. Silly response. Google has been accused of several privacy violations.

Fair point, I stand corrected.

> Making it illegal isn't going to protect you.

Well if making things illegal doesn't protect us any more then we're in serious trouble here.

I am aware of the context.

To mark hotspots you don't need packet sniffing or data capture of any kind. Why is Google capturing packet payload during "wardriving"? Nobody does that. All you do is store the GPS location, plus basic AP identification, period.

> It's more like hearing a loud mouthed neighbor say to his wife "It's a secret! don't tell any one.. its very private too... we have won the jackpot"

Yeah, if it was only near your home. But if you went around driving and listening to hundreds of "loud neighbors" for a day that'd change from passive listening to being outright creepy.

Sure, but what is the parallel here?

The paparazzi make a living from those photos, so there is a reason for them to be out there doing that(not saying I agree, just saying there's a reason for it).

What is Google doing driving around collecting personal data for? Google is a search engine with several great products around it. WTF are they driving around collecting data for? See? It doesn't make any sense, this is plain creepy.

Exactly. We don't go into people's homes not because they have a fence and a shotgun but because we were not invited, that is the whole point.

Most of the arguments here circle around "ah you were a fool to let your data out, so Google was wise and snooped it". WTF kind argument is that? Since when is it ok for a corporation to hire "experts" who go around collecting private data? What is this data for? Why, in the first place, do they have a wifi expert driving around doing that?

> no law was broken.

We don't know that yet, do we?

> Personal information becomes public when it's not properly secured

Really? Do you have any idea how wrong that statement is?

So if a song is played in public, it becomes public?

> I don't, actually. There was no "hacking" or exploitation of any kind - any idiot with a wifi card can do the same thing.

What the hell? So if Pizza Hut were to start capturing radio waves you'd find that normal?

Why is it normal for Google to go around capturing customer data? That is my question. Even if my data is open to the public, absolutely not encrypted, why is it normal for a major corporation to go around capturing it. THAT is the question, not whether I had encryption or not!

IMO no corporation should be going around recording my data even if it was broadcast in plain sight.