Britons Sign Away First-Born Children For Free Wi-Fi

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
This story reminds me of that HUMANCENTiPAD South Park episode where no one would read the terms and conditions on anything. :D

Several Britons agreed to give up their eldest child in return for the use of free wifi, in an experiment to highlight the dangers of public Internet, published on Monday. In the short period the terms and conditions were live, six people signed up.
Click to expand...
 
The experiment was aimed to highlight "the total disregard for computer security by people when they are mobile" the report said.
Click to expand...

Well I think it also highlights the insanity that the current "terms and conditions" statement.

I ran into one a couple days ago, as I recall it was an app available on my Samsung Smart TV and it was 35 pages in length, with each page was long enough that it was equal to 3 or 4 1080p screens in length.

The truth is that these are written to insure few ever actually read them. Not only do they use the "put so much text up that no one reads it" method but they also tend to written like a law journal so that even if everyone read it, most people wouldn't know what it meant anyways.
 
This should be more about requiring these EULA’s and ToS’s to be written is a form which most people can understand. Even people who read through the whole contract often don’t get it because it is written with so much legal jargon
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Well I think it also highlights the insanity that the current "terms and conditions" statement.

I ran into one a couple days ago, as I recall it was an app available on my Samsung Smart TV and it was 35 pages in length, with each page was long enough that it was equal to 3 or 4 1080p screens in length.

The truth is that these are written to insure few ever actually read them. Not only do they use the "put so much text up that no one reads it" method but they also tend to written like a law journal so that even if everyone read it, most people wouldn't know what it meant anyways.
Click to expand...

Agree 100%, plus, what CAN you do about it? no use the product you paid for? Return it due to EULA?
Its not like you can write back and say, listen, I don't want my TV meta data to go to you, so I don't agree to that, it's and all or nothing approach.
This stupid 'agreements' should be replaced with simple statements of what the product does:
This product tracks and sends data to samsung.. or whatever, of course it would not be blunt like that, but clearer.
Its not like a toaster has an agreement on it.. its just says it toasts bread.. you purchase it to use.. this is not different really, yeah more complicated product, but it can say what it does much simpler and call it a day.
 
DarkStar_WNY said:
Well I think it also highlights the insanity that the current "terms and conditions" statement.
Click to expand...

This, way more than

this
The experiment was aimed to highlight "the total disregard for computer security by people when they are mobile" the report said.
Click to expand...

That said, not sure the laws over there but pretty sure all first world counties have laws on the book about buying/selling/trading human beings, so while the people could use the internet for free the terms of the conditions are in no way enforceable and people might have actually read them (doubtful but a possibility) figuring that it was an illegal act to demand a human being :)

They said 6 people signed up, I'm curious if they have stats on how many people didn't sign up after the ToS popped up.
 
There are also laws in Britain that the terms and conditions cannot exceed what could be "reasonably expected". So really, this would be so far beyond that, why even read it as you know it won't be enforceable if it is ridiculous.

What's more damning is people connecting to any random WiFi hotspot and streaming all their data through it.
 
NeghVar said:
This should be more about requiring these EULA’s and ToS’s to be written is a form which most people can understand. Even people who read through the whole contract often don’t get it because it is written with so much legal jargon
Click to expand...

Written by lawyers, for lawyers. It's almost as if there's a market space for a site that would decipher these things and give a bullet point summary, or could answer specific questions on submitted EULAs.

Of course that would cost money to set up and run, and most folks (especially the loudest complainers) wouldn't pay a dime to benefit from such a service, so I don't see how you could make enough to run it.
 
There should be some sort of standard of information presentation

It is a common practice to just overwhelm users with so much information it's expected/known they will not digest it all.

EULAs and other similar legal agreements, hopefully should have commonalities in what they cover, and these should be condensed into some representative form that can express itself to a user in less than 20 seconds of review.
 
Kalabalana said:
There should be some sort of standard of information presentation

It is a common practice to just overwhelm users with so much information it's expected/known they will not digest it all.

EULAs and other similar legal agreements, hopefully should have commonalities in what they cover, and these should be condensed into some representative form that can express itself to a user in less than 20 seconds of review.
Click to expand...

The exact same thing that happened to credit card offers 4 years ago need to happen to EULA's as well. This is what I'm talking about: http://www.federalreserve.gov/creditcard/flash/offerflash.html

Something that is very brief (less than 2 pages), and easy to understand for the average person.
 
The morons that designed the experiment and reached that conclusion should be FIRED! They cannot properly process information or understand what they are measuring.
 
NeghVar said:
This should be more about requiring these EULA’s and ToS’s to be written is a form which most people can understand. Even people who read through the whole contract often don’t get it because it is written with so much legal jargon
Click to expand...

Simple solution would be a law that any EULA that are not understandable by the average person would be unenforceable.

Of course this would never happen as most elected officials are lawyers.
 
TwistedAegis said:
There are also laws in Britain that the terms and conditions cannot exceed what could be "reasonably expected". So really, this would be so far beyond that, why even read it as you know it won't be enforceable if it is ridiculous.

What's more damning is people connecting to any random WiFi hotspot and streaming all their data through it.
Click to expand...

And how are you supposed to know if something will be enforceable or not if you don't read it? :D
 
I call bullshit.

"As this is an experiment, we will be returning the children to their parents," said the tech security firm that ran the experiment, F-Secure.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-09-britons-first-born-children-free-wifi.html#jCp
Click to expand...

There's no way they would actually take people's kids... no way that would be legal.

The main point I thought they would be trying to make is that people just accept license agreements without reading them.
 
I wonder how many of those 6 went home and told their kids they were going to new homes.....
:D
 
What there should be is a law that prohibits EULA's and ToS's from overriding or nullifying laws and rights
 
Pretty sure the article isn't talking about one of the monolithic EULAs that Apple forces people to 'read' before they can use their device. I'm pretty sure that the clause in question was part of a brief list of requirements directly above a do you accept button.

What this demonstrates is that people don't read anything because we are fundamentally lazy. Also, the law protects us from this sort of idiocy to some degree.
 
NeghVar said:
This should be more about requiring these EULA’s and ToS’s to be written is a form which most people can understand. Even people who read through the whole contract often don’t get it because it is written with so much legal jargon
Click to expand...
The entire legal system is built upon self-originated job creation. Good luck passing a law like that when you keep electing lawyers.
 
You can't enforce a contact to do something illegal. But putting that aside, yeah, those EULAs are gibberish.
 
GoodBoy said:
The main point I thought they would be trying to make is that people just accept license agreements without reading them.
Click to expand...

That is the point they were trying to make. Though, as others have pointed out, it's BS anyway due to how convoluted and nonsensical (to the layman) that ToS agreements are in the first place, not to mention obscenely lengthy.
 
"As this is an experiment, we will be returning the children to their parents," said the tech security firm that ran the experiment, F-Secure
Click to expand...

Nope, they agreed to take my child, they are going to take them. they can put them through school and feed and clothe them. That shit isn't cheap.
 
MavericK96 said:
That is the point they were trying to make. Though, as others have pointed out, it's BS anyway due to how convoluted and nonsensical (to the layman) that ToS agreements are in the first place, not to mention obscenely lengthy.
Click to expand...

I don't know, I have read through a few recently that weren't that bad. Yes some are completely crazy, others are somewhat decent length and keep everything simple to read and understand.
 
Exavior said:
Nope, they agreed to take my child, they are going to take them. they can put them through school and feed and clothe them. That shit isn't cheap.
Click to expand...

Now that would be an interesting story:

"F-Secure forced to assume legal guardianship over child".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top