<story><title>It was all downhill after the Cuecat</title><url>https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ggdm</author><text>&amp;gt;Cuecats were cool. The people who made them were assholes.&lt;p&gt;Thanks @doctorow&lt;p&gt;Look, we created it because barcodes had URLs below them on packaged goods that were generic. Google had a fresh “links in” algorithm that they were figuring out. We had the first concept of location or demographic based results for media and products.&lt;p&gt;Your :CC ID was used to see who the best distribution channels were. The software ID held your profile and zip code so someone swiping a Coke can in Dallas would see a Six Flags promotion, someone in Atlanta would get SeaWorld + Coke offers.&lt;p&gt;The light DMCA approved ROT 64 output scrambling was to prevent OS or browsers from natively decoding the scans, as we wanted to run the ONS (object naming service) and provide truly valuable links. How many QR codes go to 404 links today? Our magic from 1997 was dynamic in multiple ways.&lt;p&gt;Alas, the USB and portable devices shipped as the dot-bomb era encroached and our open plug-in framework gets forgotten by the researchers.&lt;p&gt;I’m proud of what the 300+ team built over those handful of formative commercial Internet years, and happy to see our creation in the Computer History Museum. Under oddity input devices.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>LocalH</author><text>Perception is a hell of a drug. You were a &amp;quot;trailblazer&amp;quot; in one of the nastiest, evilest segments of modern tech. I was glad to see the Cuecat crumble as a product, I remember being a tiny, tiny mirror of the information to hack the product, and I also remember (as a 17-year old) getting a nasty email from your legal team that taught me an early lesson in &amp;quot;might makes right, and corporations own the world&amp;quot;. Your team was one of the ones that set the stage for the dismal state of online rights. Thanks for that &amp;#x2F;s&lt;p&gt;Even though I never used it for anything, I was proud to disable the serial number of my old Cuecat on principle&lt;p&gt;I wish we could see the votes on this thread just to see the ratio your post is likely getting.</text></comment>
<story><title>It was all downhill after the Cuecat</title><url>https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ggdm</author><text>&amp;gt;Cuecats were cool. The people who made them were assholes.&lt;p&gt;Thanks @doctorow&lt;p&gt;Look, we created it because barcodes had URLs below them on packaged goods that were generic. Google had a fresh “links in” algorithm that they were figuring out. We had the first concept of location or demographic based results for media and products.&lt;p&gt;Your :CC ID was used to see who the best distribution channels were. The software ID held your profile and zip code so someone swiping a Coke can in Dallas would see a Six Flags promotion, someone in Atlanta would get SeaWorld + Coke offers.&lt;p&gt;The light DMCA approved ROT 64 output scrambling was to prevent OS or browsers from natively decoding the scans, as we wanted to run the ONS (object naming service) and provide truly valuable links. How many QR codes go to 404 links today? Our magic from 1997 was dynamic in multiple ways.&lt;p&gt;Alas, the USB and portable devices shipped as the dot-bomb era encroached and our open plug-in framework gets forgotten by the researchers.&lt;p&gt;I’m proud of what the 300+ team built over those handful of formative commercial Internet years, and happy to see our creation in the Computer History Museum. Under oddity input devices.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nullc</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re proud about harassing uses of the cuecat hardware with legal threats?  You&amp;#x27;re proud of the security vulnerabilities on your site that leaked the PII of users that were foolish enough to use your software? -- because these are also thing the team at Digital Convergence did.&lt;p&gt;You spied on people.
You leaked their private data.
When people tried to not get spied on, you threatened to sue them and forced them to take their drivers down.&lt;p&gt;These are the things that got you called an asshole.&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;#x27;re going to post here today saying that you were proud and not even &amp;quot;some mistakes were made&amp;quot; -- then I think the asshole label was well justified.</text></comment>