Is Boardreader Cannibalizing Physics Forums?

[DoggerDan]

I'm still fuzzy on the purpose of archiving perhaps thousands of message forums, each of which has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of posts.

And greg, while it may be sending 500 visitors a day this way, consider what might happen if it didn't exist in the first place. Wouldn't those 500 visitors' Google searchs that took them to boardreader simply deposit them here in the first place?

Seems like an unnecessary step to me.

Besides, there are ads out there, so... Oh! That's why they do it.

 

[rhody]

I thought that the avatars were randomly picked from members that posted it that particular thread?

That is a possibility Evo, but three out of four who I regularly touch base with led me to wonder. I just want to know the nuts and bolts of what they data mine and how they do it. I don't worry about being stalked as you do, but I find it amazing that they can do this so effortlessly, that's all.

Rhody...

 

[Evo]

That is a possibility Evo, but three out of four who I regularly touch base with led me to wonder. I just want to know the nuts and bolts of what they data mine and how they do it. I don't worry about being stalked as you do, but I find it amazing that they can do this so effortlessly, that's all.

Rhody...

I'm not worried about being stalked. I just don't like not knowing where my posts are.

 

[rhody]

Ok, I just blew my own mind, I went into google images: and searched on Rhody PhysicsForums, and I swear almost every image I posted since being a member came up ! Try it with your ID's. I started with a friend of mine, just his name, guess what came up on the first page, his son's picture, click it and where he worked and went to school came up in his work profile. There is NO privacy folks, none, if you are clever with search tools, it takes mere minutes to find you and your likes and dislikes. Google is cataloging and referencing everything on the internet, now in near real time.

From my ID and forum name it is pretty easy to see my likes and dislikes.

Rhody...

 

[micromass]

Anybody googling my name will see a lot of lolcats

 

[Evo]

anybody googling my name will see a lot of lolcats

lol.

 

[rhody]

Oh, and BTW, all your facebook pictures come up too. I guess all google needs for a match is your Facebook ID, I don't have one, but I would appreciate someone who does, running a little experiment and reporting back, thanks... If this is true Facebook privacy is a joke as well with that critical bit of info, the FB user's ID. Let me know if anything you have posted private shows up.

Rhody...

Micro,

Check this out: http://www.google.com/search?tbm=is...62l0l22775l33l33l0l24l0l0l286l2000l0.4.5l9l0". Note your pic at the bottom right of the page.

 

[edward]

I brought the boardreader question up about three years ago. For some reason it was locked after 4 posts. I probably shouldn't have mentioned the black helicopters.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=234825

 

[Proton Soup]

googlecache is fun. especially if you're looking for info about what happened in threads that disappear.

 

[rhody]

If your friends, relatives have a FacePlant account, you can see some public profile pictures by google image: Facebook person@emailaddress.com

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

This is even more intriguing, type in the email address of your primary account minus the @ symbol and the .com or other extension into google. What comes back will amaze you, I guarantee you. My advice, don't give your primary e-mail name to strangers.

Rhody...

 

[Evo]

This is even more intriguing, type in the email address of your primary account minus the @ symbol and the .com or other extension into google. What comes back will amaze you, I guarantee you. My advice, don't give your primary e-mail name to strangers.

Rhody...

You mean like evohotmail ?

 

[rhody]

You mean like evohotmail ?

Are you messing with me, are you ?! Yep... 1,220,000 hits in 0.6 seconds...

On a serious note, if you post stuff on uTube or in my case PF and it gets lots of hits, it comes up right away... You may be buried 1,000,000 images deep, but I not digging for you.

Rhody...

 

[Evo]

Are you messing with me, are you ?! Yep... 1,220,000 hits in 0.6 seconds...

On a serious note, if you post stuff on uTube or in my case PF and it gets lots of hits, it comes up right away... You may be buried 1,000,000 images deep, but I not digging for you.

Rhody...

I don't have a hotmail account.

 

[dlgoff]

Ever do a google search on "hot evo"? If not, check out the first hit.

 

[rhody]

You mean like evohotmail ?

Are you messing with me, are you ?! Yep... 1,220,000 hits in 0.6 seconds...

On a serious note, if you post stuff on uTube or in my case PF and it gets lots of hits, it comes up right away... You may be buried 1,000,000 images deep, but I not digging for you.

Rhody...

I don't have a hotmail account.

I knew that from the start, I know how you value your privacy, you have to be more clever than that Evo...

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-...e49d561ad75bea3&biw=1024&bih=578&safe=active"

The article now over three years old is disturbing, at least to me.

Yang's new algorithm, which was created with the help of a team of researchers at UIUC, could mark a quantum leap in face-recognition technology. Current feature-based systems have accuracy that tops out at 65 percent when some form of occlusion is introduced. They also require relatively high-resolution images, and can easily be fooled by changing small details such as adding a mustache, donning a hood or changing one's expression.

The secret sauce in Yang's new method is a mathematical technique for solving linear equations with sparse entries called, appropriately enough, sparse representation (.pdf). While all other facial-recognition algorithms tend to compare a given feature set against all others in a database (generating percentages of likeliness along the way), Yang's algorithm ignores all but the most compelling match from one subject -- basically, its most confident choice.

and

Yang says he's already been approached by one startup (which he wouldn't name) interested in adopting this technique for what he calls "preannotation." For instance, this technology could automatically add family members' names to each image in a massive photo library, Yang says, saving you the trouble of flipping through thousands of photos to find that one of Uncle Bill.

It's also easy to imagine search engines like Google being interested in automatically recognizing the faces of the humans portrayed in publicly available photos, adding the image data to the textual information surrounding those photos to produce yet another dimension for targeting advertisements. Looking at a party photo of Johnny Depp on a fan site? Google could display advertisements for Sweeney Todd.

This new technique is also bound to raise a series of red flags for privacy advocates, since what Yang has developed is a highly accurate way of recognizing people even with occlusion or distortion.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see where this is headed.

Once your picture disguised or not, becomes a virtual entity captured in cyberspace, and google finds and catalogs you, it is game over.

Rhody...

 

[Proton Soup]

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see where this is headed.

Amidala makeup

 

[rhody]

This is funny... PF members beware... hehe... of what your spouse, BF, GF loads on your iPhone:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011...-my-friends-feature-found-his-cheating-wife/"

An unnamed New Yorker claims Apple's new "Find My Friends" app -- which uses GPS to locate any of your friends that have allowed you access to their location -- led to a stunning revelation: His wife has been cheating on him.

"I got my wife a new 4S and loaded up Find My Friends without her knowing. She told me she was at her friend's house in the East Village. I've had suspicions about her meeting this guy who lives uptown. Lo and behold, Find my Friends has her right there."

The user claims his wife told him she was going to the Meat Packing District, a location in the lower West Side of Manhattan. Instead, the Find My Friends feature indicates the woman was on 2nd and 65th St. -- a far different neighborhood that would be difficult to confuse.

"She said she is in meat packing district which is on 12th street. I don't think so," the user wrote, uploading screen shots to the website that appear to corroborate his story.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011...eature-found-his-cheating-wife/#ixzz1bSuSHgKl

The story is uncorroborated, and may be a hoax, but the technology isn't. The stories shelf life starts Oct 16 on the MacRumors Forum, and is reported the next day. Word travels fast, huh ?

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

Sigh... It just gets better and better, doesn't it ? FYI.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/241187/how_to_stop_facebook_google_and_twitter_from_tracking_you.html?tk=out"

The common solution to this is ornery, but functional: Use a different browser. I relegate Chrome to this task and use it exclusively for social networking and anything tied to common cookies, like Google. The kind and trustworthy folks at Facebook, Google, and Twitter must think that all I do is go to Google, Facebook, Twitter, and this page, because that's all that browser does. Is that a waste of local resources? Sure. Chrome is chewing on a vsize of 950MB right now and consuming some CPU cycles. Is the trade-off worth it? Most definitely.

As the TV show's star House is fond you saying, "You are all morons..."

Rhody...

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Let's please move the discussion back to Boardreader, thanks!

 

[rhody]

Let's please move the discussion back to Boardreader, thanks!

I agree Greg, there are lots of branch subjects related to what boardreader does. I say let this thread slide into oblivion, if I open a new one, I will make the thread title more general purpose to cover a wider range of ways you can be categorized and watched. This really isn't my cup of tea, I was curious that's all.

Rhody...