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antdude
Matrix Ant
Premium Member
join:2001-03-25
US

1 recommendation

antdude

Premium Member

Disney Tracks You With NSA-Style Wristbands

»mousechat.net/index.php/ ··· ic-plus/ and »entertainment.time.com/2 ··· me-park/ from »www.hardocp.com/news/201 ··· stbands/

They're watching us in the happiest places on "Earf". :P

mackey
Premium Member
join:2007-08-20

mackey

Premium Member

said by »mousechat.net/index.php/ ··· ic-plus/ :

The only thing is, it can be tricky getting the band to line up exactly and we found ourselves contorting our wrists to get the door to open or the elevator to light up.

*yawn*

a) The tech is no different then work ID badges that operate doors
b) The read range is very, very short (less then an inch) so there cannot be any long distance scanners tracking your every movement
c) They already have all the information on where and when you're going even without this wristband, it just replaces barcoded paper tickets.

This is anything but NSA-style.

/M
Secyurityet
Premium Member
join:2012-01-07
untied state
·T-Mobile

Secyurityet

Premium Member

said by mackey:

b) The read range is very, very short (less then an inch) so there cannot be any long distance scanners tracking your every movement

Actually, there's a powered WiFi transponder in the band as well, so they CAN track you from more than a few inches... and every time you use it, you'll leave a footprint in their database so they'll be able to recreate/analyze your activity/spending pattern.

But I agree -- NSA doesn't care about which rides you're enjoying at WDW.

sivran
Vive Vivaldi
Premium Member
join:2003-09-15
Irving, TX

2 recommendations

sivran

Premium Member

"Hey Bob, this guy stayed at Disney World for hours, and never once hit a water ride like Splash Mountain... I think he'd respond well to waterboarding, don't you think?"
Secyurityet
Premium Member
join:2012-01-07
untied state
·T-Mobile

Secyurityet

Premium Member

said by sivran:

I think he'd respond well to waterboarding, don't you think

Just waiting in line for Splash Mountain is enough torture to get me to spill my guts...

Link Logger
MVM
join:2001-03-29
Calgary, AB

Link Logger to antdude

MVM

to antdude
Given Disney is a private company and on private land and its your choice to go or not to go, Disney can do whatever the heck they want (ie how is any of this illegal?). Based on the attendance however I'd say Disney is pretty spot on in terms of providing what their clients want in terms of providing convenience and user experience, so I'd say good for them for embracing and using technology to fill their customers needs. The tin foil crew can avoid Disney if they like but I doubt its going to affect their attendance (ie they are going to complain, but will be buying tickets next week to enjoy the magic of Disney).

People need to understand that this 'tracking' is because they demanded the convenience of being tracked.

Blake

neochu
join:2008-12-12
Windsor, ON

2 edits

neochu to antdude

Member

to antdude
While apocalyptic in nature (every tinfoil hat conspiracy always rotates back to the techno-religious "revelation style" apocalypse conspiracies from the late 1800s) these seem to be very much a passive device that does not actively broadcast.
As said in the article the Wifi is terrible anyways so if you cant even get an internet browser to work, you certainly are not going to not pass hundreds of thousands of visitors GPS locales on it.

If anything it is nothing more then some kind of ID tag or badge that you wear with an RFID chip (or chips for various addons) embedded to your admission and registration information. Something more exclusive events (conferences like E3 special access for example) pre-configure and mail to you before you go (in the same way these do).

At the very worse it further removes the human elements in the reservation process and leaves a computer to make objective judgements on what amounts to a subjective decision. Something that'll never happen 100 percent correctly.

Its a great way to crowd control some of the rides and attraction though, since you can restrict access to the minute using the RFID tags and mobile reservation applications.

We already know that the NSA has access to everything already and if they are that concerned to focus on you they will pay a disney rep to sneak in a human observer without the RFID registration in place.

Plus with everything pre-sceduled before you even move locations (the practicality of moving to RFID) they can just look at your itinerary though already established channels.

Krisnatharok
PC Builder, Gamer
Premium Member
join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit

2 recommendations

Krisnatharok to antdude

Premium Member

to antdude
"NSA-style" to describe any sort of monitoring mechanism.

Looks like hyperbole has hit a new level.

antdude
Matrix Ant
Premium Member
join:2001-03-25
US

1 recommendation

antdude

Premium Member

»gigaom.com/2014/01/18/yo ··· ta-race/ from »yro.slashdot.org/story/1 ··· -privacy

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County

CylonRed to antdude

MVM

to antdude
They have known where everyone has been in the park for 15 years using the room cards that could be used to charge purchases and get into the parks/rides.

Blackbird
Built for Speed
Premium Member
join:2005-01-14
Fort Wayne, IN

Blackbird to antdude

Premium Member

to antdude
If a store uses a loyalty card to track my purchase, offering a discount for its use, I may or may not choose to use it when buying from that store... and what I do or don't buy there says nothing about what I might (or might not) buy next door - or on my next visit. So the loyalty information is extremely limited and incomplete from a personal-invasion standpoint. On the other hand, the store could track me all over their facility using security cameras to find out what I looked at and where I went first, second, etc. before finally exposing and correlating with my identity by my using a loyalty card at checkout. But the information would still be extremely limited and incomplete, since it lacks true knowledge about the "why" of my paths and purchases (or lack of purchases) at that store - or some other store next door. All they can attempt to do is garner some generalized data about product placement and collective preferences/linkages that might seem to apply, as well as perhaps some pattern for when I shop and perhaps tend to buy there. At the end of the day, I make my own decisions for my own reasons, and without actually knowing those reasons, all the observers' conclusions will remain merely guesses. Hence truly uncooperative exploitation of this kind of "tracking" has not really occurred.

The Disney parks are nothing but giant, well-crafted stores where people spend days (and lots of money) doing and buying things. Two points are relevent to keep in mind: first, nobody goes there without choosing to (perhaps except for the occasional child-beset parent); and second, the data tracked/collected there really has no value unless the people tracked give it value, in terms of how they make their spending choices. If one lives by impulse-spending, then he is susceptible to the tracking-based crafting of presented "opportunities" for impulses to take over. Otherwise, and absent an understanding of why a tracked person truly goes where he does and buys what he buys, it still all remains something of a guess about patterns and causes/effects. While there might be something seemingly personally-invasive about a marketer knowing if I went to a restroom or how often, the consequence of that on current or future spending choices (if any) remain entirely up to me. No matter how carefully the choices laid before me are fashioned, the final choice does remain mine, one option of which always is to simply walk away... hence the value of all the tracking data still remains limited.

Collectively, this kind of tracking probably provides the companies "herd" type data validity. Individually, it fails to fully explain to them the "why" of individual choices, leaving the true reasons and connections to remain speculative.
PX Eliezer1
Premium Member
join:2013-03-10
Zubrowka USA

PX Eliezer1 to Link Logger

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to Link Logger
said by Link Logger:

Given Disney is a private company and on private land and its your choice to go or not to go, Disney can do whatever the heck they want (ie how is any of this illegal?).

Even more private than you might think.

Florida was so eager to get Disney World that they created a special local government called the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID) which supplants most local government functions in the Disney World area.

RCID is controlled by property owners in the district, which effectively means Disney.

That means that Disney in essence does its own building inspections, health inspections, fire and ambulance services, etc.

Nothing wrong with that, and Disney does have high standards generally. But there is concern in Florida as to what might happen if Disney was ever bought out, with this legal setup remaining in place.

(Disney also set up two small city governments in the area, both cities are controlled by the legal residents who are actually Disney employees, and the two city governments [Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake] are run by the RCID staff.)

RCID is technically a government organization, a special improvement district of the State of Florida. It "contracts" with Disney to provide quasi-governmental security services. Yet after a young man died in a car chase, Disney security (contracted by the RCID, keep in mind) refused to release relevant records.
»www.rcfp.org/browse-medi ··· s-secret

TL/DR: Disney World has [more] power to do what it wants on its land, than do other Florida theme parks like Universal Studios, Sea World, or Busch Gardens.
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

1 recommendation

scross

Member

said by PX Eliezer1:

Nothing wrong with that, and Disney does have high standards generally. But there is concern in Florida as to what might happen if Disney was ever bought out, with this legal setup remaining in place.

The folks who run Disney these days AREN'T the same ones who built it and had such a cozy working relationship with local and state governments. And after a spate of accidents at Disney which resulted in several injuries and fatalities, many of which were blamed on cost-cutting and general mismanagement, the government now no longer takes quite as much of a "hands off - the Disney folks know what they're doing and can self-regulate" attitude towards WDW.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In ··· ey_World
scross

scross to Link Logger

Member

to Link Logger
said by Link Logger:

Given Disney is a private company and on private land and its your choice to go or not to go, Disney can do whatever the heck they want (ie how is any of this illegal?). Based on the attendance however I'd say Disney is pretty spot on in terms of providing what their clients want in terms of providing convenience and user experience, so I'd say good for them for embracing and using technology to fill their customers needs. The tin foil crew can avoid Disney if they like but I doubt its going to affect their attendance (ie they are going to complain, but will be buying tickets next week to enjoy the magic of Disney).

Attendance at Disney parks is officially trending down now, from what I understand, no doubt because ticket prices have reached unsupportable levels. Speaking as someone who has gone to WDW on a regular basis for over 25 years (my parents used to live in the area), based on my personal observations I haven't really believed the official attendance numbers for quite a while now. Unofficially I believe attendance has been falling off for years, ever since Universal Studios Resort hit its full stride. (Harry Potter has been a huge draw for Universal, and it's in the process of being massively expanded.)
EdmundGerber
join:2010-01-04

EdmundGerber to Krisnatharok

Member

to Krisnatharok
said by Krisnatharok:

"NSA-style" to describe any sort of monitoring mechanism.

Looks like hyperbole has hit a new level.

Or your head is shoved so deep in the sand you can't recognize the danger - instead labelling as hyperbole...

Krisnatharok
PC Builder, Gamer
Premium Member
join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit

1 recommendation

Krisnatharok

Premium Member

Don't go to Disneyland?
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

1 recommendation

dave to antdude

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to antdude
Can you provide a link to the actual NSA wristbands that Disney has copied? Or even NSA-issued tracking devices?

CylonRed
MVM
join:2000-07-06
Bloom County
·Metronet

1 edit

1 recommendation

CylonRed to Blackbird

MVM

to Blackbird
Reward cards with good statistical analysis can do many things. They are not used to find out why someone bought something but their buying habits. They can determine fairly well if you purchase something on a whim. How often and on what do you use coupons. Are you spending more or less than last year. What kinds of coupons would be good to send you in the mail and get you in the store. When do you spend the most money and is it consistent thru the year. This is just a tiny portion of what can be determined.

Buying habits can be gently nudged with coupons - especially when the economy is rough.

It's all about the habits - they don't care about why a person buys something. If the cards did nothing for them - they would not spend the money on them.

Edit: some things can be determined. Did you suddenly buy diapers on a regular basis? If so - you have a baby. Did purchases stop for a period of time then start back up? If so - you have at least a second kid. Did the baby buying skyrocket? If so - you could have twins. Did you suddenly buy close to double the money you used to for groceries and buy an anniversary card? Good chance you got married.

Majestik
World Traveler
Premium Member
join:2001-05-11
Tulsa, OK

2 recommendations

Majestik to EdmundGerber

Premium Member

to EdmundGerber
said by EdmundGerber:

said by Krisnatharok:

"NSA-style" to describe any sort of monitoring mechanism.

Looks like hyperbole has hit a new level.

Or your head is shoved so deep in the sand you can't recognize the danger - instead labelling as hyperbole...

It's simple.
Don't go to Disney if it bothers you.
Avoid the danger and save $100-$1000s per visit.
Secyurityet
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join:2012-01-07
untied state
·T-Mobile

Secyurityet to scross

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to scross
said by scross:

Attendance at Disney parks is officially trending down now, from what I understand, no doubt because ticket prices have reached unsupportable levels.

And yet all fall/winter 2013-2014, people who ALSO are very familiar with crowd levels based on frequent, regular attendance, report bigger than usual crowds and longer than usual waits... I don't think WDW has yet hit price saturation point.

Cogitate
join:2014-01-01
US

2 recommendations

Cogitate to antdude

Member

to antdude
Wrist bands? Hah!

I would be more wary of your Big Mac.

Digestible tracking devices have been used by the medical community for awhile now and they have a useful range of monitoring.

Was that "crunch" the pickle or......................
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

scross to Secyurityet

Member

to Secyurityet
said by Secyurityet:

And yet all fall/winter 2013-2014, people who ALSO are very familiar with crowd levels based on frequent, regular attendance, report bigger than usual crowds and longer than usual waits... I don't think WDW has yet hit price saturation point

Bigger crowds and longer waits can also be attributable to issues with reduced staffing and shorter hours in general - both of which have become quite noticeable to me over the past couple of decades. I've noticed an overall reduction in the quality of upkeep and maintenance over the years, too, and for a while now, at least, the quality of new attractions or changes to existing attractions has often been lacking. (Loss of long-standing sponsors and difficulties in acquiring new ones has often been blamed for this.)

Here are a few examples based on our last trip to Epcot for the Food and Wine festival a few months ago; I forget the proper names for some of these attractions:

1. HEALTH has been closed for a while now and is basically a shopping area and special events space.
2. ENERGY broke down while my wife and daughter were riding it; a ride breakdown like this has never happened to us at Disney before.
3. TEST TRACK has changed so much for the worse now that my wife and daughter say they will likely never ride it again.
4. SPACE has had any number of issues over the years and apparently still doesn't draw the crowds that it should.
5. IMAGINATION no longer has the after-ride activities area which was so popular. That's basically just a big, gutted, empty space now.
6. COOL WORLD was in a state of disarray, with many of the drink machines not working.
7. INNOVENTIONS is routinely a disappointment for me, even though I'm a geek at heart and I visit it every year anyway, on the off chance that I might find something new and interesting there.
8. The Wi-Fi situation in all the parks was erratic, at best.
9. Their Walt Disney World phone app was all but unusable most of the time, both inside the parks and outside.

Not on this last trip in particular, but on recent prior trips we've run into the following:

1. Some pretty discomforting hygiene/upkeep/maintenance/trash issues at or near the restaurants and food courts.
2. Similar issues at some of Disney's resort hotels. Although on a recent trip where we stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter we ran into just the opposite problem. The place looked practically brand new (even though it's been open for over 20 years) and was spotless - only it was deserted, and there were times when we felt like we were almost the only guests there.
3. Issues with backstage areas being visibly open to guests when they really shouldn't have been, and also being visibly in a state of disarray and/or poor maintenance. For example, one thing I've noticed several times now is the roofing situation on many of the buildings. Normally these aren't visible from the ground, but when riding the Monorail you can see many of the roofed areas, and some of them appear to be in dire straits.

IIRC, the statement I made regarding reduced attendance was based on figures coming from Disney itself not long ago, but I can't seem to find that link at the moment and a Google search turns up mixed messages here. (Statements about "record attendance" can be very misleading, BTW.) I will tell you, though, that the parking lots and parks themselves generally just don't seem to be as full now as they have been in years past, but there could be legitimate reasons for this, and I know attendance levels can vary dramatically from day to day and based on special events.

The recent rather dramatic price increases and other policy changes (such as the forced expiration of unused ticket media with no refund) are probably the beginning of the end here, unless these changes are rolled-back or modified soon (if they haven't already been). Long-term, repeat visitors like me who would otherwise gladly pay for full 10-day passes with no restrictions and no expiration date (knowing that this was cost-effective and would be put to good use in the future) will simply no longer do that, and once the last few days are used up on our current passes I highly doubt that we will ever go back. Our next trip to Orlando will probably revolve around the newly expanded Harry Potter area at Universal, just as one of our prior trips there did around the original HP area.
scross

1 recommendation

scross to Blackbird

Member

to Blackbird
One of the reasons for recent increases in purchase tracking is this: the credit card companies have always done this type of tracking of our purchases, and have been gladly willing to sell this information back to the retailers for a hefty price. Now many of these places have decided that they can get this information far more conveniently and cheaply if they just do the tracking themselves. I have no real problems with any of this, frankly, and am quite delighted by the convenience and sometimes discounts and special offers I get out of this. And if I were ever to get worried about a particular situation for any reason, then I would probably make my purchase at a place where I don't normally shop and I would pay for it in cash.

And for a place like WDW, where security concerns can be a real issue in this day and age, the ability to easily track a potentially suspicious person inside the parks would be a real benefit. (There would also be the added benefit of the security department being able to track down "lost" individuals - helping parents find their wayward teenagers, for example). But this suspicious person, if they were really up to no good, would probably go out of their way to avoid such tracking - which in itself might tag them as being suspicious.

Link Logger
MVM
join:2001-03-29
Calgary, AB

Link Logger to antdude

MVM

to antdude
If I understand correctly Florida didn't even have a state highway system until Disney showed up, so heck ya Florida thinks the sun rises and sets on Disney as before Disney Florida was just a bunch of bad jokes involving swamp land.

Now what would happen if you went somewhere and all your purchases etc were hidden from the credit card companies and just a total was submitted at the end of your visit? This would be seen as a benefit if the company selling you stuff was trusted more than the credit card companies, which I think I trust Disney more than Visa etc. So picture this, you visit Disney, staying in a Disney Hotel and spend a couple of days at the park and at the end of your visit a total of your purchases was submitted to your credit card. That way your credit card doesn't know exactly what you bought (ie they don't know you ate a boat load of junk food etc), just that you got it at Disney?

Blake
PX Eliezer1
Premium Member
join:2013-03-10
Zubrowka USA

PX Eliezer1

Premium Member

said by Link Logger:

If I understand correctly Florida didn't even have a state highway system until Disney showed up....

I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or not.

Florida has a well-established system of state highways dating back to 1917. In 1945 they underwent a major renumbering.
»www.southeastroads.com/f ··· -sr.html
»www.us-highways.com/oldfl.htm

And of course, many state-maintained US Highways (the predecessor to and separate from the Interstates) were/are in Florida.
»www.us-highways.com/flus.htm

Florida's Turnpike (formerly the Sunshine State Parkway) opened in stages between 1957 and 1964.
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

scross to Link Logger

Member

to Link Logger
said by Link Logger:

Florida thinks the sun rises and sets on Disney as before Disney Florida was just a bunch of bad jokes involving swamp land.

The Reedy Creek Improvement District (or what you and I know as Walt Disney World) WAS just a bunch of (mostly) swampland and maybe farmland before Disney came to town. In fact, Disney did so much environmental re-engineering of the entire area that they eventually got into trouble for that, so now they have restrictive agreements with the government over what they can and can't do there, and where they can and can't do it.

IIRC, one of the things they've had to do is buy up chunks of land outside of WDW, then designate that as permanently protected wilderness/wetlands - this to help offset what environmental damage they've done inside WDW itself. Also, IIRC, they are no longer allowed to, for example, just routinely pick up and remove fallen trees and logs and such from the wet areas inside WDW. Instead these must generally be left alone in order to provide habitat for any animals which might live there.
PX Eliezer1
Premium Member
join:2013-03-10
Zubrowka USA

1 recommendation

PX Eliezer1

Premium Member

said by scross:

Instead these must generally be left alone in order to provide habitat for any animals which might live there.

That's the least they can do for Bambi, Dumbo, Pumbaa, and poor Roger Rabbit.

They used to let Roger live in a house, but Disney has kicked him into the swamps too....
scross
join:2002-09-13
USA

scross

Member

With the recent reconfiguration of Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom in WDW, I believe that Mickey and Minnie have now both lost their houses, too. They've double-downed on Dumbo, though.
Secyurityet
Premium Member
join:2012-01-07
untied state
·T-Mobile

Secyurityet to Link Logger

Premium Member

to Link Logger
said by Link Logger:

If I understand correctly Florida didn't even have a state highway system until Disney showed up

Actually, Walt Disney was attracted to the Orlando-Kissimmee area by the intersection of Interstate Highway 4 and The Florida Turnpike.