Here is some non-basketball content I read or listened to this week that I found interesting:
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We Tested Ring’s Security. It’s Awful - Reason number 1249083 to not get anywhere close to Ring.
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Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy - “We are living in the world’s most advanced surveillance system. This system wasn’t created deliberately. It was built through the interplay of technological advance and the profit motive. It was built to make money. The greatest trick technology companies ever played was persuading society to surveil itself.”
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How to Track President Trump - “The possibilities for blackmail are endless. Once stolen, details on sexual interests and extramarital affairs can provide opportunities for extortion. Targets could be coerced in ways large and small, compelled to make decisions or take actions for a foreign government. Or the locations themselves could provide valuable intelligence about security practices, contacts, schedules and the identities of people in prominent and sensitive posts, with access to state secrets or critical infrastructure.”
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Smartphones Are Spies. Here’s Whom They Report To. - “In a test by Times Opinion earlier this year, the music and podcasting app iHeartRadio asked for location services to “get your favorite DJs.” But the app quickly sent the phone’s precise geolocation to the data company Cuebiq via its S.D.K. Like other location data companies, Cuebiq uses location data to fuel analysis, like measuring whether people visited a store after seeing an online ad or helping marketers build more detailed profiles for targeted advertising.”
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Where Even the Children Are Being Tracked - “This psychological bias in favor of faceless surveillance may explain why Amazon’s Alexa smart speaker faced such a backlash after reports revealed that Amazon hired thousands of people to listen to the recordings. Few people had seemed bothered that Amazon could store conversations for eternity and using them for targeted advertising or other profitable ends. That feeling curdled only when Alexa users learned that real people were listening in.”
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The Passion Paradox - “An equal challenge is bucking current trends that favor instant gratification and instead actively adopting the mastery mindset: maintaining drive from within; focusing on the process over results; not worrying about being the best but worrying about being the best at getting better; embracing acute failure for chronic gains; practicing patience; and paying full attention to our pursuits.”