A set of smart vending machines at the University of Waterloo is expected to be removed from campus after students raised privacy concerns about their software.
The machines have M&M artwork on them and sell chocolate and other candy. They are located throughout campus, including in the Modern Languages building and Hagey Hall.
Earlier this month, a student noticed an error message on one of the machines in the Modern Languages building. It appeared to indicate there was a problem with a facial recognition application.
“We wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for the application error. There’s no warning here,” said River Stanley, a fourth-year student, who investigated the machines for an article in the university publication, mathNEWS.
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
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Why the living hell would anyone agree to develop this? What douchbags are doing that job?
What kind of amoral, selfish monster, would know full well that car emissions are exterminating life as we know it on earth, and still decide to drive a car?
The same kind of monster who develops this technology.
I’m all down for using public transportation and electric cars when you pay to fix the infrastructure, have it run 24/7, or buy me an overpriced electric car that doesn’t destroy the earth as well with lithium mining and all the non-renewable resources used to manufacture it. Certainly better than gas.
Although I’d argue the car manufacturer is the one you should be angry with, not the buyer who is limited by availability, a limited public transit system, and price.
Ah, so there we go. You have a perfect set of excuses for your own actions and why they’re someone else’s fault, but you struggle to understand how someone could develop software like this. The answer is: the same way as you. Excuses.
Do you drive a car?
No.
Aren’t you taking this all a bit personally? I’m just using your own experiences to explain a situation you find difficult to understand. The douchebags are the same as you. Hope that helps.
Can you afford to finance $40,000?
Yeah, you’re taking this way too personally. I’m out here explaining how people can justify doing bad things to themselves, and you’re having a whole identity crisis over whether you’re a bad person about it. Look, your personal difficulties excusing your own actions are none of my business.
I’m not taking this personally at all. I think you’re reading my responses with the wrong tone.
There are people who actually believe that kind of dystopic bullshit, even in the tech sector. I remember a colleague a few years ago, told me he liked targeted ads because “it knew what I wanted”
Oh boy, those people frustrate me so much. The ones who have a verbal conversation about a topic they’ve never talked about before, like owning a cat, or taking a cruise to Alaska, and then giggle gleefully when they are inundated with cat litter and cruise ship ads wherever they go on the internet.
Some people just don’t care. And that’s actually fine. The ones who do care will try to look after the morons.
Bro theres plenty of people who run scams in big offices all day every day
I’d do that. Privacy should not exist. Everything must be public and available to everyone. Every person should have a tracking implant and anyone should be able to access it.
/s
Not /s. Privacy is a foreign concept for humans, invented a bit over a century ago. Privacy is a root cause of many social problems in our day and age.
Privacy as a human right is, indeed, new. The concept and the desire for it is old. Doing things and not wanting to get caught is as old as walking forward. What, you think the idea of cheating a romantic partner is new? That every military in history and prehistory exchanged letters with one another, saying what they were doing? That every important and “important” person always exposed everything they did and thought to everyone?
Also, keep in mind there’s a significant number of serious journalists that need privacy in order to do their job of exposing crimes. I can already see you replying “They wouldn’t need to do that if everything was public”. True, but that would also mean that tyrants and wannabe tyrants would have incredible ease in killing everyone they disliked.
Well, you said it yourself - you only need privacy to commit a crime or to cheat on someone. Privacy should NOT exist!
Huh, I didn’t know preparing surprises (parties, gifts, trips) was a crime. Today I Learned /s
Huh, I didn’t know that cheating on a romantic partner or starting a war was just preparing a surprise (parties, gifts, trips). Today I Learned, not /s
Like what?
In that case, I would guess that you’re a man, and one who has never had a stalker.
Privacy is what enables stalkers.
You’re fucking unhinged, mate.
And you’re deluded.
Their argument would be that the stalker having privacy allows them to do the stalking…
they are indeed unhinged. If everything was magically public like they wish. We’d have no resources as every government official would be outed for what they were hiding. Would be complete anarchy real fast.
Probably exploited labor, similar to those who have no choice but to work in scam call centers to survive.
Pretty unfortunate that things are like this IMO
I don’t think software developers working in AI are “exploited labour just doing it to survive”
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There’s a lot of people in the world who do, in fact, like to eat.
“I was only following orders”
Problem is, if you refuse to do it, they’ll hire another developer who will.
There are also a lot of people, already in the wealthiest upper percentiles, who would implement big brother just to be slightly wealthier.