Somewhat relatedly, I used to do tech support for a very large e-discovery vendor. The number of companies that configure their systems to archive (save, index and make discoverable) the contents of the /drafts folder in email clients is astounding. Surveillance of composition, rather than surveillance of communication, seems wrong.
The reason for doing that is to get all of the email in a system, as required by whatever rules apply.
Today I learned about "foldering"[1], which uses the drafts folder of email systems as a "dead drop" between multiple participants. It goes back to at least 2005.
Back when I was in IT, circa 2010, I learned that several of the users of our systems routinely relied on the "deleted items" folder of Microsoft Outlook as a filing system, with multiple gigabytes important files stored there. 8(
Our customs are routinely ignored by everyone else.
> Today I learned about "foldering"[1], which uses the drafts folder of email systems as a "dead drop" between multiple participants. It goes back to at least 2005.
Former head of the CIA, David Petreaus, was using the drafts folder of a shared Gmail account to communicate with his mistress.
The reason so many people used the deleted items folder as a filing system is exchange didn't set a quota on that folder and by default would only get emptied by a manual emptying. So back in the days when a user could have a 100mb mailbox quota 'unlimited' space could start looking very attractive. Especially if that quota was 5 years old because the server hadn't grown with the times, since what business wants to spend money on a 'cost center' that won't improve profits.
Then these people didn't change their ways when they were given adequate space.
"You need a little bit of logic... and programmer here and there"
--
"So, let me tell you a little bit, a few of the problems, that ah, and the solutions that I see in building large computers.
First of all... I think that building large computers should be done with the fewest possible people.
One is perfect, but you can't quite work with one.
So.. the next best thing is about 12."
"The reason you need 12 is you kind of need one person from each of the disciplines that are necessary.
You need a mechanical engineer to build the box that it'll go in.
You need an electrical engineer to put the circuit together.
You need a little bit of logic... and programmer here and there
And you need a secretary of course.
But not very many."
I have the $8/month ChatGPT 'GO' plan. I generally use it in the traditional 'text query'/'text response' type format, but yesterday I was driving back on the freeway from another state and decided to use the Android app's voice feature and was kind of shocked. I had to look up this morning what I was using (the latest 'Live 1 Instant' mode) but it's surprisingly natural. It's convivial, and responsive in the manner of an interested, enthusiastic sparing partner who never gets offended, in pretty much whatever wild thing you want to discuss, from a moment to moment basis if that's what you want. It's eerie in the way that you can interrupt it and re-point the direction of the discussion, and it just instantly jumps on-board.
re: 'but a crutch for those who rely on them.' - I was telling a friend about yesterday's experience this morning and was saying that I could easily see populations of people who might become overly reliant on (or completely subsumed by) these new classes of tools being released. They are compelling in a way that they weren't 18 months ago.
