Want Life Insurance? Wear your Fitbit.

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Just posting this to see what others think.

Diet is obviously more important than physical activity but I see it as a tiny step in the right direction.

John Hancock adds Fitness Tracking to all Policies

 

[bilby]

"Creepy" and "dystopian" sums it up nicely.

Particularly in the light of the fact that the medical profession still has a medieval attitude towards body mass, obesity and diet.

Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The problem comes from those who can't keep fit for some reason beyond their control.

 

[Angry Floof]

Just posting this to see what others think.

Diet is obviously more important than physical activity but I see it as a tiny step in the right direction.

John Hancock adds Fitness Tracking to all Policies

Why do you think diet is more important than physical activity?

 

[Angry Floof]

"Creepy" and "dystopian" sums it up nicely.

Same with the trackers in your car for insurance companies. Nope, nope, nope. I'm sure I would benefit from using one of those as far as reducing my rates. I seldom drive my car, seldom go far when I do, and drive like the proverbial (and literal) old lady. I'd get super low rates if that tracker thing works as claimed. But I just don't want more connected gadgetry than I already have, especially when that connection is not in my control.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

"Creepy" and "dystopian" sums it up nicely.

Same with the trackers in your car for insurance companies. Nope, nope, nope. I'm sure I would benefit from using one of those as far as reducing my rates. I seldom drive my car, seldom go far when I do, and drive like the proverbial (and literal) old lady. I'd get super low rates if that tracker thing works as claimed. But I just don't want more connected gadgetry than I already have, especially when that connection is not in my control.

The car trackers should be banned, or at least what they observe should be limited.

The problem is they favor taking a chance on a light rather than a hard stop to avoid running one.

(I have no problem with a tracker that notes hours and location.)

 

[Keith&Co.]

There are a number of places i go during the workday where fitbits are prohibited. And most of any business trip is spent in no-go spaces.

Wonder how the company insurer will deal with those rules...

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There are a number of places i go during the workday where fitbits are prohibited. And most of any business trip is spent in no-go spaces.

Wonder how the company insurer will deal with those rules...

So there are fitbit free zones? Please elaborate.

Why do you think diet is more important than physical activity?

Isn't that common knowledge anymore? How is one to maintain health and vigor without the ingredients to do same? I'm not talking stupid fad diets, just mostly real wholesome food as fuel.

 

[bilby]

There are a number of places i go during the workday where fitbits are prohibited. And most of any business trip is spent in no-go spaces.

Wonder how the company insurer will deal with those rules...

So there are fitbit free zones? Please elaborate.

Not allowing devices that track your location and report that data to an unsecured server, or to a system that is not locked down by, and in the control of, the military, seems like a very sensible requirement for secure military facilities.

There was a situation in (IIRC) Iraq, where US airforce personnel took some team photos of themselves with their newly delivered aircraft at the dispersal point, and posted them online.

What they didn't know (or didn't think of) was that modern phone cameras attach EXIF data to photos, which includes the GPS coordinates where the picture was taken - so you can sort your photo album by location, which is pretty neat.

Or, if you are an Iraqi insurgent, you can use the EXIF data from online snaps, plus Google Maps, to precisely target an aircraft dispersal point in a large airfield with well aimed mortar fire, and take out a brand new jet fighter worth millions of dollars. Which is rather less neat, at least in the opinion of the Pentagon.

Information is a weapon of war. The military prefer not to hand that weapon to their enemies by allowing personnel to broadcast their every movement to the entire Internet.

It's one thing for the Russians and Chinese to know that US nuclear missiles are somewhere on a base that covers half of North Dakota. It's quite another thing to give them the exact location of each warhead to three metre accuracy - which could easily be gleaned from fitbit data, if the personnel at that base were permitted to wear them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There are a number of places i go during the workday where fitbits are prohibited. And most of any business trip is spent in no-go spaces.

Wonder how the company insurer will deal with those rules...

So there are fitbit free zones? Please elaborate.

Not allowing devices that track your location and report that data to an unsecured server, or to a system that is not locked down by, and in the control of, the military, seems like a very sensible requirement for secure military facilities.

There was a situation in (IIRC) Iraq, where US airforce personnel took some team photos of themselves with their newly delivered aircraft at the dispersal point, and posted them online.

What they didn't know (or didn't think of) was that modern phone cameras attach EXIF data to photos, which includes the GPS coordinates where the picture was taken - so you can sort your photo album by location, which is pretty neat.

Or, if you are an Iraqi insurgent, you can use the EXIF data from online snaps, plus Google Maps, to precisely target an aircraft dispersal point in a large airfield with well aimed mortar fire, and take out a brand new jet fighter worth millions of dollars. Which is rather less neat, at least in the opinion of the Pentagon.

Information is a weapon of war. The military prefer not to hand that weapon to their enemies by allowing personnel to broadcast their every movement to the entire Internet.

It's one thing for the Russians and Chinese to know that US nuclear missiles are somewhere on a base that covers half of North Dakota. It's quite another thing to give them the exact location of each warhead to three metre accuracy - which could easily be gleaned from fitbit data, if the personnel at that base were permitted to wear them.

There's also the issue of military people jogging with their fitness trackers. Anonymized data of such data from military zones did a very good job of mapping paths in secure military installations in combat areas. (The locals have very few such devices, thus basically all of them were being worn by military people.)

 

[bilby]

Not allowing devices that track your location and report that data to an unsecured server, or to a system that is not locked down by, and in the control of, the military, seems like a very sensible requirement for secure military facilities.

There was a situation in (IIRC) Iraq, where US airforce personnel took some team photos of themselves with their newly delivered aircraft at the dispersal point, and posted them online.

What they didn't know (or didn't think of) was that modern phone cameras attach EXIF data to photos, which includes the GPS coordinates where the picture was taken - so you can sort your photo album by location, which is pretty neat.

Or, if you are an Iraqi insurgent, you can use the EXIF data from online snaps, plus Google Maps, to precisely target an aircraft dispersal point in a large airfield with well aimed mortar fire, and take out a brand new jet fighter worth millions of dollars. Which is rather less neat, at least in the opinion of the Pentagon.

Information is a weapon of war. The military prefer not to hand that weapon to their enemies by allowing personnel to broadcast their every movement to the entire Internet.

It's one thing for the Russians and Chinese to know that US nuclear missiles are somewhere on a base that covers half of North Dakota. It's quite another thing to give them the exact location of each warhead to three metre accuracy - which could easily be gleaned from fitbit data, if the personnel at that base were permitted to wear them.

There's also the issue of military people jogging with their fitness trackers. Anonymized data of such data from military zones did a very good job of mapping paths in secure military installations in combat areas. (The locals have very few such devices, thus basically all of them were being worn by military people.)

Yes, the amount of information a skilled intelligence agency can extract from these things is astonishing, particularly when combined with other intelligence data. Hence the reason why people are often banned from wearing them in secure facilities. There's an issue with that too though - ideally, you would ban them from EVER being worn by military personnel or contractors, because a smart enemy can look for the 'holes' and gaps in the tracks, and glean useful information from those about which are the sensitive areas.

It's similar to the encryption problem for messages. If you encrypt EVERYTHING, no matter how banal and unimportant it may be, then you gift your enemy's code-breakers a huge sample of cyphertext against which to hone their skills. But if you only encrypt the critical stuff, the sudden change in the ratio between encrypted and plaintext messages is itself a dead giveaway that something is happening. Security is very much more difficult than most people realize - hence the real risk that some blissfully unaware jogger will alert your enemy to the precise dispositions of your military assets.

 

[Keith&Co.]

There are a number of places i go during the workday where fitbits are prohibited. And most of any business trip is spent in no-go spaces.

Wonder how the company insurer will deal with those rules...

So there are fitbit free zones? Please elaborate.

My entire facility, General Dynamics Mission Systems, prohibits cameras, and we need special dispensation for camera-capable phones.
All phones, personal memory devices, and pretty much anything with its own processor is not allowed in the vicinity of classified systems, or computers holding classified information.

The military (pretty much the only one of our customers i evrr deal with) does not approach these issues in quite the same manner. They do not try to find a balance between operational requirements and personal choices. They just go straight to Draconian.
No phones or memory devices, no matter who owns them, within most of the buildings.
No fitbits while deployed.
Before the crew takes the submarine, the Chief Of the Boat collects all phones to transport them to the ship, distributing them later.

If any of my wife's students join up, the ones who insist they have a right to check their texts during a test, the learning curve will be drastic.