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SPAMS, SCAMS & DAMNS (WORK IN PROGRESS)
The age of IoT has brought in the next-gen space in technology. However, it has also opened up a can of worms/pandora box to ever expanding spams, scams and more. Further, depending on who is involved, it becomes a great strategy or a scam. For example, a government or those who control the government to justify snooping into personal information can legalize ISP selling personal data, and as it comes from the government, it becomes a great strategy, which then sets a precedence for every other organization to track and snoop into privacy.
Timeline:
Our original video made on June 2nd
This video aired on NBC on June 7th
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=
As per EFF, Comcast, has a very low rating for privacy. Please also see some historical account of issues involving this ISP provider.
These issues further aggravate when the ISP owns a media company and outsource the research center to a country with higher corruption rates, poor HR and privacy practices, and no direct connection to business products of this entity. Then, when such entities has the ability to get unwarranted and unaccounted amounts of debt in forms such as PPP, Insurance and more, think about the level of power such entities would have. By the way, this is what is called the "Process Mapping".
Please note that though this reference pertains to a specific ISP, this market is a pseudo-monopoly, and there is not much difference among different players. If you were to search the forums, the complaints would be very similar across board.
To give another specific example, let us say that you contact your family member to find out whether a gift card would be an option as a birthday gift through messaging and over the phone. Immediately, within a short span in time, you can get an email from a credit card company acting as if they are a concerned entity sharing information on gift card frauds. If you were to check email communications prior to it, there would be none other the monthly balance summary emails. What is the big deal in this case? This example might not be a concerning one as we can discard the email, however, what if our conversations are tracked about, let us say, an action that we are planning to take for injustice met. Those with resources and ability to track that information can attack you in an preemptive manner. There is nothing new in this preemptive attack, but the IoT offers those with resources and reach to collude and to attack so fast, that it does not give sufficient time for those with limited or not much resources to counteract right away. If such actions continue and increase, it is a matter of time before the wealth gap would further widen, and the world of crooks would expand further.
What is in store in this article?
There is a saying in Tamil, "Pillaiya killi vittu, thottila aatradhu", meaning, "Pinching a child and then oscillating the child's hammock". (Rough translation). A stronger English proverb that conveys a similar meaning is, "the firefighter who starts blazes just so he can put them out" . Another being, "Steal the goose and give the giblets in alms.". In the same way, it is becoming more common nowadays that all kinds of problems are being created as there is supposedly a solution available for it, which usually does not work either. -For example, causing all kinds of chaos during COVID, and then offering free COVID test kits right prior to the elections.
This article will encompass real world stories, along the lines of what
was shared above, of some spams and scams that are happening, which
target individuals for different reasons. How there is a blurry line
between what large organizations are doing and what the same entities
categorize as spams and scams? By the time, those examples of real world scenarios are read by you, you would automatically say damn to those scams and spams, and those entities involved in it.
This article is also connected to the article written years ago on various issues:
1. Coupons and Einstein:
2. First Degree Price Discrimination and/or Targeting:
IoT
and technology in general has reduced the degree of separation from 6
to almost 1. This reduction has given opportunity to any asshole (jack
or jenny - believer of equality)(1) to exploit the system. As stated
before, one of the essential elements of effective communication is to
apply right choice of words, and "asshole" appears to be the right
choice here. If you happen to know of a better word, please feel free to
share. For example, right before elections, a large platform provider
would cite a video for not meeting some platform policy. However, that
policy was put in place a couple of years ago, and another policy
connected to that one more than 4 years ago, supposedly even prior, and
the video cited had been in that platform for more than seven years
never cited before. Further, the platform provider also includes a
preferential algorithm protocol that shows videos to their whims and
fancies, and this video was never viewed until this citation. Added to
it, the platform provider who acts as if they are following rules had
kids under 10 or so selling products on this platform with news media
headlines exploiting identifiable victim effect (you show a selected few success stories repeatedly and give halwa to everyone else) by showing a kid here or
there making millions , whereas the application itself is classified as
a teen app. A teen app means that anyone over the age of thirteen or
over, if I understood it right.
WHAT OTHER INSTANCES?
REFERENCES
(1) Dictionary.com
- Asshole used as an adjective here in this article
- Meaning: Slang. stupid, mean, or contemptible.
Origin of asshole1: 1350–1400; Middle English arshole
Examples
- It is a conversation about that person being a pompous asshole. - From Outside Online
- You want someone strong in power, but it’s such a fine line between being strong and being a total asshole bully and making fun of people, that kind of stuff I don’t like. - From Ozy
- As Mario Fraioli phrased it in his weekly running newsletter, The Morning Shakeout, the former marketing executive is “arguably the sport’s biggest benefactor, as well as perhaps its biggest asshole.” - From The Daily Beast
(4) https://archive.ph/5154B
ARCHIVES
ARCHIVE I (SEPT 22, 2024)
https://archive.ph/EgYjl (SEPT 22, 2024)
