RE: IoT: Went to Watch Black Mirror, Found Myself on an Episode.
I've worked for cable companies for many years and they have access to a lot of behavioral data through the boxes, I as a simple phone representative did. They can tell just how many times you rewinded that particular PPV scene...
This was many years ago and back then when the boxes were being rolled out because some analog signal was coming off I remember that having access to that kind of information was scary to me, that someone could know exactly what I was watching and what my preferences were.
Anyone that can collect data about you will or is already doing it because information is valuable. I try to keep it in mind without going too crazy with it because now phones have a front and back camera and I watched Person of Interest, hahaha. The perfect surveillance is the phones, even if in your pocket unable to use its eyes, it has ears too and they are traceable by GPS.
Oh yea, the surveillance is real. Thank you for the insights on your experiences as an employee of a cable company. The only internet app we use on that TV is Netflix and they keep a record of your viewing history so I saw no advantage to enabling the collection feature. I recall a bunch of convo when pokemon go came out about how they were using that game to map the real world for Google. I liked what @builderofcastles said about seeing what was running and what it was doing, that would go a long way in preventing unwanted surveillance.