The perils of desktop tracking [LWN.net]

The perils of desktop tracking

Posted Apr 19, 2012 14:14 UTC (Thu) by fb (subscriber, #53265)
In reply to: The perils of desktop tracking by fuhchee
Parent article: The perils of desktop tracking

>> "storing [keystrokes] for later analysis [...] seems incredibly useful."

> What sorts of incredible uses can you envision from this data?

I also can't see the point of it. Myself, I save all the keystrokes I care about inside 'files'.

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The perils of desktop tracking

Posted Apr 19, 2012 16:05 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Instead of saving what you remembered you wanted to save, it just saves everything.

I wouldn't mind a computer with photographic memory and instant recall. My PC nowadays is more or less just a overgrown terminal for most things I do nowadays anyways.

The perils of desktop tracking

Posted Apr 19, 2012 20:03 UTC (Thu) by fuhchee (subscriber, #40059) [Link]

"Instead of saving what you remembered you wanted to save, it just saves everything."

I'd love to have one with systemic undo capabilities, but that would need more than just keystroke recording.

The perils of desktop tracking

Posted Apr 20, 2012 8:42 UTC (Fri) by fb (subscriber, #53265) [Link]

> Instead of saving what you remembered you wanted to save, it just saves everything.

As I am sure you know, there is no point in having all the data in the planet if you can't make sense of it.

> I wouldn't mind a computer with photographic memory and instant recall. My PC nowadays is more or less just a overgrown terminal for most things I do nowadays anyways.

For me the 'best' current balance for (i) 'photographic memory', (ii) synchronization (between the 4 computers I use routinely -- make it 5 if you include the smart-phone), (iii) and keeping only relevant data is:

- GMail for mail and contacts
- Google Calendar
- RememberTheMilk for sharing notes with my boss (aka 'wife')

For managing/remembering/synchronizing/versioning anything else I just use Git and private repos at GitHub.

Actually the one thing I still need to improve is actually doing some form of 'transparent / easy' encryption so that I can also push sensitive data into GitHub (e.g. my Git 'tax info' repository).