State of the Hobby

This may be a tad on the over-the-top side....I know Vizio monitors and archives/sells owner viewing habits - if you don't turn the feature off; it's enabled by default - but recording conversations in the house is a blatant intrusion of privacy and violation of Federal wiretap law (18 USC 2510), and wiretap law is an area I'm familiar with.

 

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There's lots of technical details to this, but there are some that are capable - and of course once you do and you've accepted the EULA (end user license agreement) that says I agree to "whatever was in there" without reading it - you realize they have been recording it.

You DID read the End User License Agreement, right?

The bigger fear is that as more people find out how to exploit these technologies - you will have more viruses, spyware, malware, etc...

You have installed a 2-way communications device with storage, connectivity, microphone and camera on the inside of your home network. It has a read/write operating system on it and the wireless network password stored on it as well. It's a real computer and should be secured as such.

"It sees you when you're sleeping, it knows when you're awake" and it's very well enabled to capture information and broadcast it to the public internet.

"It hears you calling Coin Vault and giving your credit card number and details to the operator for their basement slabbed and overpriced ASE's"

Without proper controls in place (that manufacturers rarely put in - or enable because they want everything to be easy for the consumer), you have another exploitable device in your home.

I have a subnet between my entertainment network and "other" stuff in my house. I've got a little piece of tape across all cameras on all devices (phone, laptop, etc) and microphone controls disabled.

Sorry for the big brother scare (and thread hijack) - but education and awareness are the best security tools available. I deal with this stuff every day for a living, and have for decades. I could write a book on exploits, both simple and sophisticated.

Speaking of exploits, I will be attending a presentation by Kevin Mitnick next month. I wonder if the DOJ is still concerned about him whistling into pay phones.

Now... Do you really need to link your TV to Farcebook, and your credit cards to your phone which is linked to your downloaded apps that spy on you?

I'll close with some stark reality.

The site software app is down now, but the informational part is still available.

http://www.pleaserobme.com

It is a site that's designed to show how all of the social media tools can build a "predictability schedule" and map for the best time to rob your house - AS AN EXAMPLE... (yeah, it's real stuff)

It used to integrate Farcebook, Four Square, Twitter and the "Follow Me" which gave your location data (because your phone is geo-aware). It builds a map and shows your habits, where you go, what times you leave and arrive. It looks for key words and data like Vacation, check-ins and all kinds of other data.

It has algorithms built to identify the best time to rob your house. You put in "Hawaii Vacation for two weeks" on Farcebook, the geo-location of Follow-Me kicks in and shows you are at the airport - or your phone just sent out a beacon in Hawaii when you landed. You've "friended" all your neighbors so they can be tracked as well, and we even know who they are - so we can BS them "oh yeah, so and so mentioned you."

Since we have all this info, and we've probably cloned your phone apps by now, we also have access to your Home Security app (you connected that to your phone with a cloud service - right?).

We take our cloned phone apps, disable security and walk right into your house - knowing you're away and possibly knowing your neighbors are away too.

This is not easy stuff mind you - but the ability is there for someone with technical knowledge and the right opportunity to exploit your over-sharing of information.

And now to calm you down - a picture of a puppy!!!

 

That's what I thought too but I'm not a civil liberties lawyer

 

Would you mind stopping in here?

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/numismatic-facebook-pages.275266/

I'm being ridiculed for saying that.

 

Yer just paranoid... But you have a nice back yard!

Take notes on those that are ridiculing you for it. We'll map a plan to prove a point! (KIDDING!) Ignorance is bliss...

 

Funny thing is I've just realized I need to buy an Encyclopedia Britannica and now I'm thinking the best investments will be old electronics. Soon enough even the your refrigerator will be spying on you and posting it to the cloud.

They integrate these spying functions right into the hardware so they can't be disabled.

Your car is already spying and logging information.

 

Hey, you ALSO know that everything you say to Siri in an Apple device goes back to an Apple server, right? Siri doesn't work for most things if you're offline.

I refuse to use Facebook ENTIRELY, I have no smart TV (not enough bandwidth available where I live to stream video if I did! I can BARELY stream AUDIO!!! ), and I try to avoid Google at all costs. There simply IS NO Internet wired broadband where I live. Sheep? Hundreds. Cows? Ditto. Cats? Gazillions on the farms and my front porch. Amish horse drawn carriages? By the dozens. Broadband? Not a chance.

I'm "all in" with Apple against the FBI in the California case. The FBI can just go to hades, in my view.

 

Really? My 1995 Subaru Legacy wagon will be amazed to hear that. It will feel it isn't doing what's expected of it. My 1988 Thunderbird will probably shrug. The 1962 Lincoln Continental will say, "What's logging?"

 

I'm not worried about my 2000 Toyota unless the cassette tape player is somehow recording me.

 

As for the state of the coin hobby, it's largely doomed to a slow burn into irrelevance. We're dying faster than we're growing. Just ask Dave Harper at Numismatic News. It's not just shrinking, it's kind of "imploding".

 

Is that tounge-in-cheek?

 

The market certainly is, but that is far more from the economy than the hobby itself dying. If the market is still getting worse in a booming economy then I may start believing the hobby itself is in trouble

 

People with extra income to collect coins these days should count themselves among the fortunate. I do.

 

I think the hobby will be fine. Things will be different like coin shows. Hopefully buyers will become more interested in coins but I suspect they'll be more interested in slabs and stickers. And I think the hobby will always be dominated by people who have reached a point in their life where they have the time and money to spend on coins. I didn't get interested until after I had a stable job, married, and a son.

 

Not tongue in cheek at all. Just reality and macroeconomics. This is a hobby on its way out. Every year we become a smaller and smaller niche. You'd know that if you read about how vibrant the hobby used to be. Shows are shrinking and disappearing, brick and mortar dealers are fewer, and all we will soon have left is a bunch of quick buck flimflam artists and flippers trying to game each other.

 

I agree with you @V. Kurt Bellman that those things do and will happen but I think it's part of how things are changing.

 

Which can largely be attributed to the ever increasing online market.

Every aspect of sales has been impacted by the online market place from clothing to electronics ect. Physical stores are having a hard time competing with the fact the the consumer (or coin buyer) has a much greater chance of finding what they want online without having to bother to go into a shop and maybe find what they're looking for.

The younger the collector the more likely they are to make a substantial amount of their purchases through the various online sites. Not to mention far to many dealers attempt to jack up prices if a collector looks young and gullible which just pushes them online even more. Not every dealer does but a good percentage will especially at smaller shows.

 

Add in that numismatic publications' readership is plummeting, ANA exhibitors are disappearing so fast that a few people are winning scads of categories, instead of having varied winners, and MANY categories go with no entrants at all. If we're to become a bunch of morons waiting on line overnight for an unlimited mintage gold Kennedy half, just kill me now.

 

Add in that numismatic publications' readership is plummeting, ANA exhibitors are disappearing so fast that a few people are winning scads of categories, instead of having varied winners, and MANY categories go with no entrants at all. If we're to become a bunch of morons waiting on line overnight for an unlimited mintage gold Kennedy half, just kill me now.

 

All publications readership is plummeting! Welcome to the 21st century