:Cuecat's Original Function

Why does it seem there is so little concern about the :cuecat's original function of reporting data to its corporate masters? Yes the company is gone, but are we just assuming there is no risk of the data being harvested by someone else? I understand that declawing will reduce the risk by removing the serial number from the output (it seems like that ought to be the standard instruction to every user - not just an option for people who want to unencrypt the output). But even if you do that, isn't the cuecat still trying to send data about what you scan somewhere? Or am I missing something?

The CueCat doesn’t report to it’s corporate masters. It just identifies itself every time you use it. This is an interesting feature that can be used for good or evil. If YOU take your CueCat to some evil corporate WEB site then the evil corporate masters can ID you. They could use this for evil. Or you could use the unique ID number string from your CueCat to create a more secure environment for your own privacy. For example, it could be used as a hardware password generator. That would be good. (The string is a bit long for that actually). Or you could use it as the key of an encryption system to prevent evil corporate masters from reading other data. That would be good. The LibraryThing system currently ignores the CueCat serial number strings. But they could use it to log you on and save you from having to type in your password. That would be good. It is useful and interesting that there are devices in the world that have unique ID numbers. On the whole, if you control who you let your CueCat reports to, I think the serial number has more potential on the Good side, so I’m not de-clawing mine.

Thanks for the insights!