October 6, 2008 at 11:30 am
Steve Jones - Editor (10/6/2008)
I don't agree with companies scraping this information, though I'm not sure they're wrong, either in the moral or legal sense. You put it out there and allowing someone to see it means giving permission for them to use it. Facebook means you allow your high school friends to potentially contact you (or you them), and I'm not sure that's different than a company using it. Perhaps Jostens trying to see if you want a duplicate or resized class ring from that year.As I said, I don't like it, but I'm not sure of what control we have, or even should have, over information.
That being said, I know someone will start mining/using this. It's a matter of time. So when they do, I'm concerned they might start trusting this data as valid. In some cases that might be annoying (perhaps you'll get cheese offers, Richard) and in some it might be troublesome.
What's very disconcerting is someone might post mostly true things about you and then a few false ones. And you might not be aware of it until something happens.
Here is a good question -which may warrant another article altogether. Do you agree with the following statements:
You are solely responsible for the opinions you express in a medium such as this forum. And you make yourself fully responsible for them: be them right or wrong, founded or unfounded.
October 6, 2008 at 11:51 am
Let's not forget what's completely and totally important here...
October 7, 2008 at 3:49 am
Richard Gardner (10/6/2008)
Agreed there is a (pedantic) distinction between data and information but rubbish information is based on rubbish data, to my mind the only difference is one of display.
Here, I'm wholeheartedly with Miguel. There is certainly a distinction between data and information, but it definitely isn't pedantic. Data is just the facts, whereas information is what the data tells you. You could easily have incorrect data (lies, for instance) that, because it came from a source you know is untrustworthy, can be transformed into correct and accurate information. For that reason, I agree with your comment of
If you think the data is your concern but the information isn't then I don't think you're considering the full scope of why you're doing what you're doing.
as absolutely correct, albeit missing the proviso that whilst information is a DBA's concern, it isn't solely his/her concern. My wife is a statistician, and her job is to derive information from data. She has had any number of annoying instances of DBAs trying to impose processes on her in the mistaken belief that, just because they understand data, they also understand information. Wrong.
Edit - Oops. Just reread this, and it sounds like I'm really getting on my high horse. Please bear in mind when you're reading this that that wasn't my intention.
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
October 7, 2008 at 6:40 am
I'll use a quote that I heard a long time ago... "The internet is a well paved on-ramp to a dirt road." If you put personal information out there, expect that it will someday be abused or even used against you. As for the accuracy of the information that other people post... why would you trust someone you don't know??? Phil Factor and I just went through some testing on a particular problem and the bottom line that we both agreed on so far as code goes is, trust no one... test everything "insitu" especially when it comes to code performance and scalability.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Viewing 4 posts - 16 through 18 (of 18 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply