Big Brother Barbie Sets Dangerous Precedent

[apiltch]

I understand the concern, but I'm not sure why people would assume that the government is involved. The doll only records when a button is pressed so that makes it a poor eavesdropping tool for spy purposes. The real danger here is not intentional spying by the companies involved or the U.S. government. It's the possibility that, like any personal data stored online, the voice data can be stolen.

 

[LORD_ORION]

Government usage is just one facet.
They don't use it to spy, the use it to create profiles. (cloud data never goes away)
Voice is easily digitized into a comparable format.
It sounds like Star Trek technology, but it is not. If little Sally one day decides to march in a protest and (from underneath her Guy Fox mask) say something picked up by a microphone, there will once day be a voice profile of her that can be matched. (assuredly processed by a fusion center hooked up to a national bio profile database that gained all of this profiling information by innocuous methods)

The other usage would be to do a pass with a recognizer on the recorded files for advertising purposes. Though I guess since you write for Tom's you're all for this kind of thing. (/me disables Ghostery to make this post without getting booted to the sin bin)

 

[WyomingKnott]

Wouldn't Barbie be Big Sister, not Big Brother?

 

[f-14]

how does it broadcast signal to the cloud? via ham radio waves? something new and interesting for the neighbors to be listening to on their police scanners, and my neighbors are cops as well as hospital workers and social workers. just imagine what they will hear they are required by law to report.

 

[alerodsan77]

Great plot for a bad movie

 

[Justin Tyme]

I can just see it...

Barbie: "Wouldn't it be great fun, Kevin, if you and I had a little secret. Just between the two of us?"
Kevin (enthuastically): Yes, yes"
Barbie: Just you and me and maybe your parents, knowing their bank account numbers and their pin codes. Wouldn't it be a good secret?"
Kevin (almost keeling over with excitement): Yes, yes, yes".
Barbie: I bet you can't get a hold of the numbers just like that".
Kevin: "Can too... I know where they put them. You just wait...".
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Dad: "Griselda, have you seen our latest bank account statements? Our accounts have been completely cleaned out... Our fortune has gone, even down to the last penny and the bank say that there's nothing they can do about it".
Griselda: "Of course it has, Robert and I also know that it's the 1st of April today".
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Four weeks later we see Dad, Mom, Kevin and Barbie in the soup queue in front of the local shelter for the homeless.