DAILY MANIFESTO

So Much For Privacy

Posted on Monday, September 11 @ 20:47:12 Eastern by Duke_Ferris

When I set up my home account for Xbox live, I set my gamertag to be "Duke Ferris". Little did I know what I was getting into.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Xbox Live service - the seamless matchmaking, the leaderboards, even the headset that I hardly ever use. Then it started to get freaky when anonymous people were able to peer over your virtual shoulder and watch you race in PGR3. I started thinking about how much information about me was being collected, and then shared with the entire internet.

What I'm playing, when I'm playing it, what games I have... it's creepy enough with the office pseudonym account, and it's a whole different box-o-worms when you're driving around in the always-online, massively multiplayer Test Drive: Unlimited with your own name floating over your car everywhere you go.

But nothing, and I mean nothing, drove home the point regarding how much my xbox was blabbing about me as when I put my name in on this site last week, and my 360 started its own blog. That's just weird. And spooky.

Also, just to really freak me out, last week Microsoft sent me the new Xbox 360 web-cam. Right now it only works with Uno, but to be honest, I'm a little scared for the future. Is there really anyone out there who desperately needs to see me drink beer and play video games? Don't answer.

I know this all sounds pretty harmless so far, but when did that paradigm shift happen? When we all got MySpace pages?

Would you care if your DVD player reported to the world what movies you where watching and when you watched them? Maybe not, but 18 years ago people cared so much that Congress made it a federal crime for video rental stores to release their customer data. Now we're just giving it away ourselves.

Of course, to bring things full circle, I realize that I just blogged about my Xbox blogging about me. It's only fair.

Comments

Chill_02
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Sep 11th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
O_______________o

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Zachai
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Sep 12th, 2006 at 10:17 am
That has got to be one of the creepiest ideas that has ever come out of the internet.

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Voxen
Joined: Aug 2006

Posted: Sep 12th, 2006 at 11:13 am
Don't worry dude, it's only a bad thing if anyone actually cares about what you're up to.

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Barth_Vader
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Sep 12th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
"Duke Ferris is the best. He treats me right." That's quite disturbing.

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Joe_Dodson
Joined: Oct 2005

Posted: Sep 12th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
Odd, it didn't say anything about me wiping a used kleenex all over its power and eject buttons.

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Mike_Reilly
Joined: Oct 2005

Posted: Sep 12th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Quoted from Duke's Xbox 360 blog site on 9/11/06: "[Duke Ferris] played Test Drive Unlimited gaining 5 achievements, and after we were done, Duke Ferris hugged me with his eyes. It was one of those man hugs... you know..." Oh really?

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thelostmind
Joined: Aug 2006

Posted: Sep 13th, 2006 at 7:42 am
Brrrr.... Creepy as you like.

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Wolvaroo
Joined: Sep 2006

Posted: Sep 13th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Little does he know how many FRs he's going to get now that he has revealed his GT to us!

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Hellfire1014
Joined: Oct 2005

Posted: Sep 14th, 2006 at 12:46 am
Technically you can't do anything. I mean common knowledge is that you accepted for this information to be collected, and sent liek this when you agreed to the terms & service. But the technically was that your X-Box 360 can do what it wants, because how can you sue your 360 for freely expressing itself in a blog? ;)

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DH_Ninja
Joined: May 2006

Posted: Sep 14th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Pretty creepy. *from the way that 360 is blogging, im oretty sure its gay., manhugs, treats me right.*

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ChaosBahamut
Joined: Aug 2006

Posted: Sep 18th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
At least they're not getting the real important stuff. i.e. CC number, anything used to take your figurative/literal life away from you, etc. But yeah, still a bit creepy. (and another reason not to play EA online games on XBL, they have access to your CC number if you use it for XBL)

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m6
Joined: Jul 2006

Posted: Sep 23rd, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Cry me a river...

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Yoshi
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Sep 28th, 2006 at 10:10 am
"He rallied SAMURAI WARRIORS 2, and after we were done, Duke Ferris hugged me with his eyes. It was one of those man hugs... you know... " Your Xbox is gay, Mr. Ferris. There's nothing I can do. I'm sorry.

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ryandebraal
Joined: Jul 2006

Posted: Oct 1st, 2006 at 3:32 am
Forget big brother! - worry about lil' brother

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Slappy-X-
Joined: Jan 2006

Posted: Oct 2nd, 2006 at 4:46 am
lol that is some wierd stuff but just think off all the thinging you sign all the data is save in a report somwhere thats WHY YOU NEED TO READ EVERY THING YOU ARE ASKED TO SIGN.

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