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Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

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Re: Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

#91
post #65
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve met their head of data science. They’re doing all that stuff and have been for many years. Porn has always been leaders in technology. They were the first to embrace home video and can arguably be credited for VHS winning over BetaMax despite being inferior, because it was cheaper and all the porn was VHS only.

> I’ve met their head of data science. They’re doing all that stuff and have been for many years. This sounds very much in violation of GDPR. Are they just betting on people being too embarrassed to take them to court?

It's not a violation of GDPR. However, is somebody makes a GDPR request to retrieve all of their personal data, or to delete their personal data, then they must comply within 30 days. They have to organize their datasets to make these operations easy.

Re: Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be my age demographic but everyone I know is very open with their choices of pornography and I have the link to several of my friend's favorite lists and playlists. There are also shared accounts of paid websites going around and we can see the "recently watched" lists. There shouldn't be any shame to pornography unless you are consuming illegal content. Unless you are a content creator and wish to keep your…

I find this hard to believe. Are you saying you have friends that sign up on porn sites with their real names? At which age are we talking about? I would wager you wouldn't talk casually about it to any prospective girlfriends, assuming you guys have any...

Of course not, that's usernames I'm talking about.

We'd say "Oh, go log in as 'CoolUser69'. The password is 'hunter2'. We are sharing this account together, chip in a few bucks a month if you can" or "oh, I have a curated playlist of [XYZ category]. Look up 'CoolUser69' on [KinkySite.xxx]".

The age range is 26-31 years. Both males and females. Anything from owners of small web development agencies to university students or government office workers. I attempt to keep a diverse social group.

I am female and currently in a stable relationship. There has never been a person I have been in a relationship with that didn't know my kinks and turn-ons. I am not sure how that would work exactly.

Re: Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can arguably be credited for VHS winning over BetaMax This is something that is always mentioned, but sometimes I wonder if it is not a myth, or a simple exaggeration or simplification.

It's definitely a myth, or at least a minor contribution. BetaMax housings were very small, so they didn't have enough capacity for feature films unless they were run at 1/2 or 1/3 speed, which reduced quality. The thing is, VHS could also be run slower to improve run times, but instead of maxing out at 90m, they could run for almost 250m for tapes about at the same price. Tapes with longer run times eventually came…

Something I've heard brought up regarding the length is that early Betamax couldn't tape the average sports game, while early VHS could. I'd imagine that was a big selling point.

Re: Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

#94

I've assumed (without evidence, only deduction) since the 90s that every pornographic thing anyone has ever looked at has been recorded for future blackmail use against social rebellions.

You reach a point where if nearly everyone is blackmail-able for the same thing, that it stops becoming effective. If everyone is cheating on their spouse, then who is anyone to judge?

You'd need to stop the act from being shameful. The number of people doing it does not _necessarily_ map to "less socially shameful"

Re: Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can arguably be credited for VHS winning over BetaMax This is something that is always mentioned, but sometimes I wonder if it is not a myth, or a simple exaggeration or simplification.

It's definitely a myth, or at least a minor contribution. BetaMax housings were very small, so they didn't have enough capacity for feature films unless they were run at 1/2 or 1/3 speed, which reduced quality. The thing is, VHS could also be run slower to improve run times, but instead of maxing out at 90m, they could run for almost 250m for tapes about at the same price. Tapes with longer run times eventually came…

Is it true that Sony deliberately did not make feature length tapes so people would not record feature films from TV?

Re: Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

#96
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that why YouTube thumbnails seem to focus on segments with a woman wearing little clothing, even though it’s a small part of the video?

Funny related story! At Reddit we built a tool to create thumbnails for webpages. The algo was basically find the biggest “squareish” image and then remove a row or column of pixels. The row/col was chosen based on which one left the image with the most entropy. We kept doing this until the image was a square. That algo basically cuts off women’s heads and leaves just their cleavage. Obviously we had to adjust it to…

Seam carving gone wrong?

Re: Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

#97
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that why YouTube thumbnails seem to focus on segments with a woman wearing little clothing, even though it’s a small part of the video?

Funny related story! At Reddit we built a tool to create thumbnails for webpages. The algo was basically find the biggest “squareish” image and then remove a row or column of pixels. The row/col was chosen based on which one left the image with the most entropy. We kept doing this until the image was a square. That algo basically cuts off women’s heads and leaves just their cleavage. Obviously we had to adjust it to…

I thought that a face would contain more entropy than two flesh mounds! Color me surprised. Could the algorithm be tweaked to favor removable from the bottom part of the image, since humans generally perceive from top to bottom? Most images contain the 'meat' at the top or middle, I'd assume?

Re: Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that why YouTube thumbnails seem to focus on segments with a woman wearing little clothing, even though it’s a small part of the video?

Of course, along with the very-fucking-annoying Youtube Face [0]. It's so ordinary to mess with human psychology, anything to increase click through rates! [0] https://boingboing.net/2018/04/11/youtube-face-the-same-thum...

It seems like most of the examples of that are "reaction" videos, and if you're trying to sell a reaction video, you show the reaction, right?

Re: Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

#99
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Porn has always been leaders in technology. This is typically repeated but I question if there is actual proof of it rather than one of those '8 glasses of water a day' which just keeps getting passed along or some kind of plausible and believable anecdote.

If people had the star trek holodeck around today what would one of its primary uses be

I mean, there would be holodeck sex, but unless you're a teenage boy, you're not going to do that more than maybe twice a day max, and you're usually going to do it alone. After you get off, you do the same thing even teenagers do today with the internet: you start playing shooting/fighting games with all your buddies.

Re: Tracking Sex: Implications of widespread data leakage and tracking on porn sites

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this hard to believe. Are you saying you have friends that sign up on porn sites with their real names? At which age are we talking about? I would wager you wouldn't talk casually about it to any prospective girlfriends, assuming you guys have any...

Of course not, that's usernames I'm talking about. We'd say "Oh, go log in as 'CoolUser69'. The password is 'hunter2'. We are sharing this account together, chip in a few bucks a month if you can" or "oh, I have a curated playlist of [XYZ category]. Look up 'CoolUser69' on [KinkySite.xxx]". The age range is 26-31 years. Both males and females. Anything from owners of small web development agencies to university stude…

Yes, but you may be talking about your social circle. I am skeptical that casually sharing your porn habits is going to be seen as acceptable and normal in the eyes of most of your peers.

I'm a few years from the age range you mentioned, and I can't say I have seen the same level of openness. Not even close.

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