Ryan McGinnis
EF5
Once again, ST has proven that rational discussions can't take place without people getting emotional or snarky, or bringing arguments to the table that are not truly relevant or have been discussed up and down before. If no one is going to behave, I suggest we just lock this thread. Of course, that's just my opinion, and I'm sure my supporters will thank me, and my detractors will thank the first opposing opinion in a stunning display of the thanking system's intended use
I dunno, the discussion doesn't seem too crazy in this thread. While it may not be so in your case, I would submit that *usually* when people write open letters to individuals in a public forum or when they publicly ask to be removed from some service (or publicly quit a forum, or say "I'm through with the internet forever!",) they're looking for a sympathetic reaction. You may not have entirely received the reaction that you were expecting, but that's no reason to lock the thread. One of the reasons that I asked for additional information is that you didn't really provide much in your original post aside from the fact that you were really passionately upset; you may as well have been writing to General Electric or your landlord. It seemed less like you wanted a real discussion about the merits of your situation and just wanted a sympathetic pile-on.
While you've made some interesting points about privacy and data security, try to remember that you voluntarily signed up for a service that publicly publishes your positional data for the entire world to see. A data breach requires an implied sense of privacy; Spotter Network is the antithesis of privacy as you are voluntarily offering up positional data for public consumption. That's the entire point of the application. Additionally, you have to opt-in to publishing such data by running the Spotter Network program on your computer and asking it to listen to your GPS unit and you can stop reporting such data at any time by either turning the program off or telling the program to stop reporting positional data. Every time you turn on Spotter Network and tell it to listen to your GPS feed, you are in essence saying "I want anyone in the world to know exactly where I am, where I've been at precise times, and how fast I'm going and was going." This is common sense. I think this is why some are having a hard time feeling outraged for you; in essence, you are saying (to borrow a line from Casablanca) that you are shocked to find that positional data is being reported in here. It's either faux-outrage or it's outrage based on rather incredible misunderstanding of what Spotter Network is and what kind of data it collects and provides to the world.