MasterCard Transactions To Be Mined For CO2 Data 124
seamus1abshere writes "In the latest twist from Big Data, MasterCard and Brighter Planet today announced that cardholder transaction data will be mined for clues about CO2 emissions. Initial coverage will be of flights, car rentals, hotels and other purchases for which the credit card company stores extra metadata. Interestingly, the science behind the offering is all open source."
Oh, sure. (Score:2, Funny)
Hah! (Score:2)
That's gonna shut the green privacy activists up!
Are there also any fossil-energy-loving privacy activists? Nuclear privacy activists perhaps? We depend on you now!
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Well, then let's eat all the cows. Problem solved.
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Let's feed the greenies to the cows, problem solved.
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Re:Oh, sure. (Score:4, Funny)
Don't worry, the anonymized it by removing your name and address. All they use as an identifier is that random 16-digit number on your card. They have to keep the expiration date as well so they can properly put their data on a time line.
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Don't worry, the anonymized it by removing your name and address. All they use as an identifier is that random 16-digit number on your card. They have to keep the expiration date as well so they can properly put their data on a time line.
As some one that processes credit card transactions on a daily basis, I know for a fact that all you need to run a credit card at a terminal is the 16 digit number, 15 if it's american express, and the four digit expiration date. The terminal never asks for the card holder's name and only rarely askes for the three digit security code on the back of the card. All they need to complete their pointless and meaningless study is a transaction date and number, and maybe the transaction amount. There is absolutel
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Mastercard has been giving aggregate data back to its member banks for at least 20 years. This is just another set of aggregate data, but given to corporate card holders. Even if they gave card numbers, names, and addresses, it's only going back to the owners of the cards.
I worked with Mastercard's data warehouse for 5 years. So if anyone has any questions about what *really* goes on there I might be able to answer (although I can only speculate about this particular program).
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So whats the typical process for getting data like this? What data do the internal people have access to? What data is filtered out before being given to the requester?
Re:Oh, sure. (Score:5, Informative)
The short answer is that data is somewhat compartmentalized by department. Each CC transaction first comes through the mainframes, which are very restricted, mostly just for IT. That data is fed nightly to the data warehouse (basically one massive database). A lot of IT get direct access as needed. Some business / reporting applications are then written to query directly from it, limited to the departments that would require it. Any department which needs aggregate data has separate database servers, with data warehouse IT staff facilitating the automatic feed and aggregation of the data.
Requests for data from outside the company are taken case-by-case. So, for example, when I had to write reports for a particular bank (a Mastercard member), I was careful to only pull that bank's data. I didn't filter anything that was specific to their cardholders. For applications which got aggregate data, individual transactions and CC-specific data was never sent to the application's database servers. It was carefully aggregated first at the warehouse, then transmitted. I have to say there wasn't much general oversight, but it's simply enforced by management throughout the company.
So... (Score:2, Interesting)
So the crazy loons are pulling the same stunt spammers do.
Thank you, assholes. Oh, wait. Thank you, crazy assholes.
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In this case it would be a CSRF [wikipedia.org] attack.
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A CSRF can perform an unwanted action
You mean an action like yahoo.com /send.php?subj=look+at+my+porn&body=porn+porn+porn&contact[]=Ok&contact[]=Ok&contact[]=Ok&contact[]=Ok&contact[]=Ok...
I wouldn't be surprised if someone wrote a "send to contacts" page that worked exactly like that, without checking to see if a request was via POST or GET.
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I think this would make a nice "Ask Slashdot" question. It's a very interesting question and can maybe be easily answered (JavaScript Drive-By attack or something). But I think one possible explanation is our good old friend flash.
It could also be that this is not directly related with the sites, but rather a rogue advertiser.
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They are consistent: abortion means less population growth which means less pollution and less of global warming.
Btw.who's they?
Kewl... Oh, wait (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Kewl... Oh, wait (Score:5, Insightful)
While I would dearly love to have Al Gore's data from this enterprise, I'm not so sanguine about him having mine.
As I'm sure you noticed from R'ingTFA, this programme basically involves some extra annotation on a system Mastercard's been running since 2002 allowing corporate clients to analyse spending on their cards. So yes, if you're working for Al Gore and spending his money on your company card, he will (shock horror) be entitled to data-mine your transactions for anything he damn well pleases. Get over it: you don't have any expectation of privacy when you're spending company money on company business.
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Are you ser
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So you're trying to tell me, that just because I'm using a company credit card, that means that when I hire hookers to entertain clients, my boss must be allowed to watch them have sex?
That would totally ruin our ability to attract clients.
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+1 Funny
Matching products (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine that the most important piece of information regarding the transaction is the supplier and a transaction number. The amount is worthless. How would you match an amount to a product, especially if more than one product is purchased? Many customers pay different amounts for the same product, how will they factor this in? They'd have to ask the supplier what was actually purchased with some kind of order number.
Some services are bought but not redeemed later in the future such as a flight or a cruise ship. They need to work out when a servie is actually utilised.
Somehow I think they'd be better of analysing public transport systems. Such as buses, trains, planes and traffic. If 10 people buy a bus ticket, the bus will expel the same amount of CO2 than if the bus was full. Same with trains, they are quite often under capacity.
Re:Matching products (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, a popular school bus line [wikipedia.org] weighs up to 36,200 pounds (without fuel I believe) and transports up to 90 passengers. In my experience, school buses cram about as many people as possible into the available space and have the lowest level of amenities so I would expect them to have about the lightest weight "per passenger capacity" of any bus. Anyway, this works out to an empty bus weighing about 400 pounds per passenger -- then add the passengers. I would be surprised if adding another 50% (assuming each passenger is 200 pounds - probably high when discussing urban transport where there's no real luggage) weight would result in a "huge" difference in CO2 output between an empty and a full bus.
I would expect that municipal buses and train cars would have even less discrepancy between their weights when fully occupied vs. empty.
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Divide the CO2 produced by the number of people on the bus.
It's more efficient if you have more people on bus. With nobody on a bus, it will generate X amount of CO2. Add more people to the bus and increase the CO2 maybe a little due to added weight but it's still more net efficient as those people share the CO2 contribution.
I'd hazard a guess that bus engines are so powerful that a couple of people would make little difference to CO2. People are not THAT heavy. When you compare full load versus no load the
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You can get even more gains If you assume that every passenger not taking the bus uses a helicopter to go to school.
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How would you match an amount to a product, especially if more than one product is purchased? Many customers pay different amounts for the same product, how will they factor this in?
I use least square matrix methods for this.
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Especially considering many buses operate in high-traffic city areas, where they are constantly accelerating and decelerating. That extra 10,000 pounds of meat takes more energy to get moving from a standstill, and more energy to bring to a stop from 30 miles an hour. If that extra weight required no additional energy, then a Volkswagen Beetle would be able to tow a 30 foot trailer.
Why? (Score:1)
What is the benefit of doing this? I'm pretty sure we can calculate how much CO2 is emitted by various activities without invading people's privacy.
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Because according to the cult of global warming, you have no privacy. They're doing this for *your* best interest.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because according to the cult of global warming, you have no privacy. They're doing this for *your* best interest.
I find the psychology interesting here. Companies have tracked spending on corporate credit cards since forever; after all, it's their money you're spending, not yours, and they don't want you to spend it on booze and hookers. I don't remember ever hearing anyone complain about the principle of this. But as soon as Mastercard start to offer carbon emissions analysis to their corporate customers -- because 80% of those customers wanted it -- we have a dozen outraged comments about "invasion of privacy" and "the cult of global warming".
Just try this: storm into the accounts dept. and tell them you're not going to submit receipts for travel reimbursement, because it's none of their damned business whether you rented a hummer or took the train, and if they say otherwise they're members of the cult of global warming. Maybe you could get the ACLU to take on your case.
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Companies have tracked spending on corporate credit cards since forever; after all, it's their money you're spending, not yours, and they don't want you to spend it on booze and hookers.
Those are just two of the many reasons I'm my own boss.
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Companies have tracked spending on corporate credit cards since forever; after all, it's their money you're spending, not yours, and they don't want you to spend it on booze and hookers.
"Entertainment Expense"
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Or maybe it's the fact that I live in a part of the world where I have the right to privacy, not the exception to privacy. Amazing what happens in a world when your right's are infringed. So yes, the reality that they're trying to tie things to an unproven science in order to create a fake market for the evils of carbon, really does lead to them doing it for your best interest. You have no rights in doing what you want.
Re:Why? or why not? (Score:2)
What is the benefit of doing this? I'm pretty sure we can calculate how much CO2 is emitted by various activities without invading people's privacy.
They're just following Kennedy's suggestion: "Don't ask 'why', ask instead 'why not?'". The 'why not?' would also be merely rhetorical, not needing an answer. After all, everyone else seems to be getting away with it, so there cannot be any valid reasons not to do the same...
Inquiring minds want to know (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Inquiring minds want to know (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the most idiotic and trollish response that always gets thrown about. Expending energy to figure out how to save energy can easily be a net positive. I'm sure automotive engineers expelled a great deal of energy designing cars that get 30+ miles to the gallon instead of 15. Electrical engineers spent energy designing LED lighting that is far more efficient than incandescent. But you aren't thinking about that, nor are you thinking at all. You're just trolling, because you've been trained to hate anyone who suggests that CO2 can have a negative impact on the climate.
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This is the most idiotic and trollish response that always gets thrown about. Expending energy to figure out how to save energy can easily be a net positive. I'm sure automotive engineers expelled a great deal of energy designing cars that get 30+ miles to the gallon instead of 15. Electrical engineers spent energy designing LED lighting that is far more efficient than incandescent. But you aren't thinking about that, nor are you thinking at all. You're just trolling, because you've been trained to hate anyone who suggests that CO2 can have a negative impact on the climate.
No the parent is not trolling. "How much energy will be spent tracking this" is a perfectly valid question. If I spend x+10 energy on monitoring to save x+1 energy then that's a problem. It's a bit like saying that electric trains are "cleaner" than diesel trains. They're not. The pollution (or expenditure of energy) is just transferred to somewhere else.
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But the parent doesn't care about the answer, and you know it. He's just JAQ'ing off, as all good trolls do. Ask a seemingly reasonable question with the implication that the answer is a bad thing.
Tell me, do you really think that the computing power used to mine this data would offset even a single trip by private jet?
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Yeah, my "gut feeling" is that you're correct. But my gut feeling isn't science.
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Actually, electric trains are, as a rule, "cleaner" than diesel trains. A giant power plant generally operates at much higher efficiencies (generally ~2x the efficiency of a typical car motor, if I recall correctly) than your automobile engine - less fuel is consumed to produce the same amount of energy, which means less pollution is emitted.
The giant power plants also have the option to generate some or all of their capacity from "clean" (or at least, "cleaner") sources. Diesel engines are... diesel engi
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It depends a lot on your electricity supply.
Sure, in the U.S. with a lot of coal power, electric can be pretty dirty.
But in Quebec, with 95% hydroelectric, advertising that "you'll reduce CO2 emissions by switching to these CFLs" is an outright lie. Diesel is guaranteed "dirtier" than electricity.
Similarly, Ontario has typically no more than 1/3 of its generating capacity from combustible fuels (fossil and bio). It's usually closer to 1/4; so even if the diesel train and the station-to-rails efficiencies
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The troll calling the troll green.
I haven't been trained to hate anyone who suggests that CO2 can have a negative impact on the climate I just hate hypocrites.
Take your own advice to reduce your CO2 emissions by stop breathing so much (at all) please.
I'm going to go driving around in my truck and look for an endangered animal to kick.
open source science? (Score:2)
Wikipedia: knowledge in the form of testable explanations
if it is not independently testable, it is not science!
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science is per definition open source.
You haven't been looking at the U.S. Patent System lately, have you?
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I think the person that wrote this summary meant to say "the applications behind this is all open source" - referring to the computer programs employed, not the "science" - how long before MasterCard offers to automatically calculate and sell you indulgences (carbon credits) as soon as you purchase the 'offensive' item (airplane ticket, fuel, etc.)?
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if it is not independently testable, it is not science!
Good point. The problem is that we're talking about global warming.
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if it is not independently testable, it is not science!
The big bang, string theory, evolution, the curvature of space/time, global warming/climate change, various theories proposed by relativity, etc are not all independently testable. Are they not science?
(Please do not troll with some test that produces evidence for one of above theories. For example, the only way to independently test the big bang would be to recreate the universe. Using an atom smasher to create a model doesn't cut it.)
Fact is that not everything in science is "independently testable", y
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(Please do not troll with some test that produces evidence for one of above theories. For example, the only way to independently test the big bang would be to recreate the universe. Using an atom smasher to create a model doesn't cut it.)
Glad you see it that way and agree with the OP. All the data for global warming is exactly that: a model.
And it is subject to Garbage In, Garbage Out.
See here: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/07/climate-models-go-cold/ [financialpost.com]
for the explanation why the models have been so
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anew
or we may have to learn a little bit from this fellow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper [wikipedia.org]
who introduced a good measure of common sense into the philosophical debate on knowledge and science:
"we trust a theory we can not proof to be wrong or limited
until we or somebody else shows us that it is:"
wrong
limited
or completely misunderstood
but still the question remains: is a theory nobody could cont
As usual... (Score:5, Informative)
Summary written by a troll.
Press release is about business services. They are releasing a service to help business track their travel expenditures. RTFA if you want the real story.
Cut off comment lines?? (Score:5, Informative)
Is it just me or is the text on most comments cut off to the top half? I tried with Firefox, Chrome, and IE and it's the same with all of them...
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Is it just me or is the text on most comments cut off to the top half? I tried with Firefox, Chrome, and IE and it's the same with all of them...
Oh no, its not just you. And Safari on Macs are doing it too.
.css file will be reverted shortly.
I expect a
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Is it just me or is the text on most comments cut off to the top half? I tried with Firefox, Chrome, and IE and it's the same with all of them...
Oh no, its not just you. And Safari on Macs are doing it too. .css file will be reverted shortly.
I expect a
And Opera (Windows + Linux). Actually, every browser I've used today and yesterday at home (Linux) or work (Windows) has had the crappy cropped text. And being logged in or not on Slashdot makes no difference.
as per the project plan (Score:2)
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It's been like this all day. Apparently Slashdot has moved to the "users == testers" school of software design.
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Huh. Things are borked as-described, for me; and I'm using Firefox 4.0.1 using Maverick. But then again I am reading the Slashdots from Europe.
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Mobile Safari, Safari on Mac, same result.
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Is it just me or links aren't working either? /. really "for nerds"?
Is
So.... (Score:1)
What's the carbon footprint of the Dragon dildo that Timothy bought?
What could possibly go wrong?
--
BMO
Ohgodohgodohgod (Score:1)
Not a privacy invasion, Ignore the trolls and RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
FTFA: "a new program to help make travel carbon emissions analysis easier ... for the businesses worldwide that use MasterCard corporate cards ... to help businesses more efficiently manage their corporate card programs and meet current and future analytical needs"
This is a program that companies can sign up for, in which Mastercard will help them analyze their corporate travel programs. Al Gore isn't digging through your receipts at the sex toy shop. Ignore all the Republican trolls.
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FTFA: "a new program to help make travel carbon emissions analysis easier ... for the businesses worldwide that use MasterCard corporate cards ... to help businesses more efficiently manage their corporate card programs and meet current and future analytical needs"
This is a program that companies can sign up for, in which Mastercard will help them analyze their corporate travel programs. Al Gore isn't digging through your receipts at the sex toy shop. Ignore all the Republican trolls.
As a Libertarian/Republican, I have to agree with you somewhat. If MasterCard wants to offer a service their customers want, they are certainly welcome to do so. MasterCard is not a government agency. As long as data is kept private, they should be able to do whatever they want with the data. It's not like they don't have the data now. All they will be doing is a bit more data mining at the request of their customers. If I were a tree-hugging* company owner, I might be willing to pay for the data. (*
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Its time to realize that CO2 is not the only measure of human pollution to our environment.We should be talking more about paving over green spaces and polluting the great lakes. Besides, if we want to exhaust more C02 by having more humans around, we can always increase the number of green plants to breathe this C02 to make food and oxygen. Maybe we can grow food in the cities on the walls of apartment buildings.
CO2 is important but let's not forget to keep our land fertile, our water clean, and our air pu
Burnt offerings (Score:2)
Well, what are they offering me? Jet engine exhaust? Vaporware?
Can't see condensed postings correctly. (Score:2)
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Yeah, they need to roll back a step to when they took all the whitespace out, but before they cut into the actual text.
Open Source? (Score:3)
The science of making up numbers and extrapolation?
Science?
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The science of calculating the amount of greenhouse gasses released from combusting fossil fuels. It's pretty simple, really. It all comes down to the amount of CO2 released when burning, for instance, 100lbs of jet fuel.
The source code is all on Github. Here's our flight calculation code, for instance: http://github.com/brighterplanet/flight [github.com] and detailed documentation, including citations: http://brighterplanet.github.com/flight/carbon_model.html [github.com]
For each calculation, you can also view its methodology state
Whew! (Score:2)
Glad I use my Discover card for buying tanks of CO2.
And yes, I do. I brew beer at home (better than any of the store bought swill any of you drink, really it is. Try home brewing it's easy and produces a far superior beer) as well as keep huge planted tropical fish tanks.. the aquatic plants utterly thrive when I inject CO2 into the water.
SKIP THIS. Seriously (Score:2)
A backdoor tax (Score:2)
Make no mistake, boys and girls, this will be used as a way to impose a carbon tax on you, the individual, never mind attempting to carbon tax businesses.
Airlines, Paintball, & Airforce One are small (Score:1)
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you beat me to it!