back to article Using email? Text messages? Congrats, you're in the 'underbelly of dark social sharing'

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden got tired of hearing himself referred to as a tech geek this week and told the world that, actually, he’s real-life James Bond type. Speaking to NBC News, Snowden said he wasn’t some lowly outside contractor, but a bonafide 007: I was trained as a spy in the traditional sense of the word in …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dun, dun, daaah. Terrifying stuff. Could it get any worse?

    I got that far before breaking into a big grin, just right for Friday, thanks.

  2. Anonymous Blowhard

    "That’s something that’s already happening in cars, which can be fitted with devices that monitor driving skills so that good drivers get better premiums."

    More likely when you next hit a patch of black ice, the ABS system will inform your insurance company and you'll get an SMS terminating your policy just before you hit a lamp post...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "SMS terminating your policy "

      Already predicted as a general idea in Pohl & Kornbluth's The Space Merchants, written I think in 1953 and increasingly looking less and less like science fiction and more and more like a collection of very reliable predictions about the future.

      1. Anonymous Blowhard

        Re: "SMS terminating your policy "

        An up-vote for the Frederik Pohl reference; I think he must have had a thing about insurance companies, in "Preferred Risk" the world is run by one.

    2. Tom 35

      They could even try something like the US health insurance companies who would give you a complex form to fill out. Take your money, and only check it if you make a claim.

      What's that you have cancer? Oh dear it seems you missed one check box on page 7 of the forum so your insurance is invalid, here is your money back.

  3. RyokuMas
    Big Brother

    "Perhaps the marketers can get together with insurance companies and make certain that we’re all being watched and evaluated at every moment of every day using the Internet of Stuff?"

    Why not? I mean, Google are doing their level best to ensure they are doing just that to everyone on the internet as we know it right now...

    1. Yugguy

      I make a mental note NEVER to purchase ANYTHING I see advertised before a youtube video.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "NEVER to purchase ANYTHING I see advertised before a youtube video."

        Eventually the prediction algorithms will notice this is happening, and Ford will be paying to insert GM adverts at the start of any youtube video you see.

        If only there was a meatworld version of Adblock so that checkout assistants wouldn't ask if I had a Nectar card/Clubcard...you've been asking that for 20 years plus and the answer is still no.

        1. launcap Silver badge
          Mushroom

          Re: "NEVER to purchase ANYTHING I see advertised before a youtube video."

          >If only there was a meatworld version of Adblock so that checkout assistants

          >wouldn't ask if I had a Nectar card/Clubcard...you've been asking that for 20

          >years plus and the answer is still no.

          <rant>

          And in the same wonderful world they also wouldn't look a me (almost 50, male) and say pityingly "do you need help with your packing?"

          Strangly enough, they never seem to ask my wife the same question.

          The other one that bugs me is them giving me the "please enter your PIN" prompt. The same prompt that I can SEE ON THE SCREEN OF THE CARD READER!

          I can read y'know. Despite the handicap of being male and 50-ish (see above)

          </rant>

      2. LaeMing
        Meh

        I've never seen anything advertised before a youtube video that I was the least inclined to buy, advertised or not.

        And 'Dark Social' : I need a black T-shirt with that printed on it in about 12-point white sans-serif. I'd wear it with pride.

        1. Elmer Phud

          Dark Social

          It's nice to think that rather than being just an old git who doesn't Tweet and has a Facebook account with some very odd personal info is no longer an out-dated dinosaur but actually ahead of the game for once.

          Power to the (old) people!

          (some of whom remember when they could go in a shop and by a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook and other subversive literature)

        2. monkeyfish

          Change the font colour to black as well and I'll buy one. What the point of being dark social if you're just going to advertise it?

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "And 'Dark Social' : I need a black T-shirt with that printed on it in about 12-point white sans-serif. I'd wear it with pride."

          Now if Google or Amazon were really doing their job properly, you'd shortly get an email to say your T-shirt had been dispatched, and your authorised credit card had been charged...

          1. Don Jefe

            Commercials generally aren't designed to introduce you to a product. That's done in other ways, like the product embedded in TV shows, adverts on bus stops and train stations, emails and displays in the store. Commercials are generally designed to keep your mind from wandering once you've already made a subconscious buying decision. You might not be thinking of buying a specific car, or maybe you are, but the important part is that you've decided to buy a car. The commercial is just reinforcing how great a particular car is. All in all it's a massive numbers game and if you see a 1% bump in sales tied to a particular advertisement your investment paid off.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Yugguy - Even if I tried hard

        I still couldn't buy something advertised on YouTube. It's totally rubish, like I'm watching a famous pianist playing J.S. Bach French suites and Google is helpfully advertising single Chinese ladies to date with or better, teatment for nail fungus. Come on, Google, stop wasting my bandwidth with this nonsense, you have nothing to get me interested!

      4. DiViDeD

        They advertise stuff on YouTube?

        I never know what's being advertised on YouTube. I'm always too busy watching that tiny video in the corner.

        You know, the one that goes 'you can skip this video in 9...8...7...

  4. James 51

    Perhaps the self-drive electic cars could have pedals fitted so you could generate power for the gadgets in the car and get less unhealthy at the same time.

    1. Elmer Phud

      That's called a 'bicycle' - many of which come with GPS and video cameras and have an in-built game where you have to get from one side of town to the other - somehow. (though if you fail the restart could take a while - or you might have to start again from worm level)

  5. disgruntled yank

    Let's step it up

    How about "Dork Social" for such as Usenet, Register forums, and so on?

  6. Oh Homer
    Paris Hilton

    "dark social"

    Oh poor spammers. Let me wipe the tears from my glass eye.

  7. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Happy

    Not me.

    I'm for dark anti-social

  8. heyrick Silver badge
    Stop

    Yeah, but...

    Just wait until "free" email services, or emails sent via a low-cost domain host, start containing embedded advertising that might be even longer than those idiotic disclaimers you see from time to time.

    Of course, the choice of said advert(s) was absolutely totally NOT based upon scanning the content of the message and looking at the known "preferences" of the recipient based upon past messages. Oh no, not all all. Honest!

    1. P. Lee
      Coat

      Re: Yeah, but...

      > even longer than those idiotic disclaimers you see from time to time.

      --

      I'm sorry, I'm sending this from my iphone.

  9. poopypants

    Dark social?

    Oh, that'll just be me emailing myself a link to something interesting I saw on my smartphone so I can read it on a bigger screen. I do that a lot.

  10. F0rdPrefect

    Devices in cars.

    "That’s something that’s already happening in cars, which can be fitted with devices that monitor driving skills so that good drivers get better premiums. But the flip side of that, of course, is that less capable drivers will get slapped with higher premiums if the Internet of Stuff becomes all ubiquitous and all powerful. And drive-monitoring could be just the tip of the iceberg."

    The ones I want to see are those that stop unlicensed or uninsured drivers from driving the vehicle, together with the one to stop drunks and druggies from doing the same. And for them to be mandatory for all vehicles on UK roads.

    From a card carrying member of the underbelly of dark social sharing

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