blah64

gatorguy said:

The elephant in the rooms asks you if Apple still notes your location "when people think their settings are preventing tracking."? Granted it may be for different reasons in part, both of them needing to use location to "improve their services and features" with Google having a far larger emphasis on the ad targeting aspect it also improves. 

According to Apple "disable Location Services at any time. To do so, open Settings on your iPhone, tap Privacy, tap Location Services, and either turn off the global Location Services switch or turn off the individual location switch of each location-aware app or feature by setting it to “Never”.  While technically correct since it's limited to "Location Services" it is a bit deceptive IMO in that users may erroneously think that their location is no longer being logged once the global switch is set to off. That was the initial complaint about Google noting location even if also technically accurate. Toggling off the obvious setting didn't entirely turn off ALL location logging and some folks properly found that to be deceptive.

Not right for one, and IMO it's not right, should mean not right for the other. What do you think @ericthehalfbee @MacPro ;

You mentioned this before, but either you're saying something that isn't true, or I'm completely misunderstanding what you're saying. 

users may erroneously think that their location is no longer being logged once the global switch is set to off.

When you go into Settings -> Privacy and turn of Location Services on an iPhone, that does indeed disable ALL location tracking, including sending data to Apple.

The only exception is when you call 9-1-1, because all mobile devices are required by law to pass location.  Also, if you enable FindMyPhone's Lost Mode location data will be made available, but that is because you explicitly turned on location reporting for your device, just remotely.

Apple clearly states in their Location Services & Privacy "To use features such as these, you must enable Location Services on your iPhone and give your permission to each app or website before it can use your location data".  The "and" is italicized in their own copy.  Have you never actually looked at the Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services section on an iPhone? 

This is completely different from google/android's system, where you flip the master switch to No and your location is still being tracked and sent back to the mother ship because it's an either/or design.  Why are you trying to make it sound like they're the same?

gatorguy said:

blah64 said:

gatorguy said:

blah64 said:

macmojo said:

The app is designed to view your call and message logs, not just your contacts. The BJP Indian government is a hard right Hindu nationalist one. As with all hard right groups and parties, they believe in no rights or freedoms other than their own. This government has incited sectarian violence to further its political aims and has begun to undermine democracy in a serious way by going after independent media and journalists (even deploying Trump's favourite catch phrase - "fake news"). 

What they're trying to do here is lay the groundwork and put in place the basic infrastructure of a surveillance state, so they can monitor everyone, especially those opposed to them. Spam is just a cover for it.

Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS* undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of unintended purposes.  Like social security numbers in the U.S.  Like the data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world.  All large scale personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be repurposed

Don't forget the AppStore and Google Play apps we all install. There's zippity that prevents developers from selling or otherwise sharing whatever data they manage to harvest from our use of them. 

Ha, there you are...

Clearly you're right, this is a concern.  And yes, on ALL platforms. 

Kudos to you too for moving far beyond *All Eyez on Google* 

 I remember a couple of years ago when Google was the only one you ever mentioned. We all had to watch them with eagle eyes. You seemingly thought no one else was worthy of discussion when it came to privacy.

I also remember lwhen you once upon a time downplayed the dangers of the data aggregators who sell our personal information for profit, some of whom have since then leaked hundreds of millions of personal accounts on the web. Probably yours too. I think you were seriously underestimating them. Ask yourself how a relatively unknown company operating out of offices in Palm Coast Florida was able to amass personal dossiers on hundreds of millions of unique people, selling your data and mine that includes "entries that go far beyond contact information and public records to include more than 400 variables on a vast range of specific characteristics: whether the person smokes, their religion, whether they have dogs or cats, and interests as varied as scuba diving and plus-size apparel".... and then leaking it all on the internet! Thanks Exactis. 

You never used to mention the insurers and the health marketers and the financial institutions and other industry groups that maintain their own databases filled with our personal information to share amongst themselves.

And now you're making note of of the apps we're all installing on our phones and using day after day after day while the developers of some of them harvest, package, and sell what they learn about us to those data aggregators an industry databases who in my opinion are a far greater threat and make more of a financial impact on our lives than an advertising company who might not know you by anything other than an advertising ID number to begin with. 

 I think our conversations have been very beneficial

So many words, and written in a sideways-complimentary fashion, and yet so disingenuous.  I bet you were the star of your debate club in high school.  But it's ridiculously transparent to me.

I have NOT changed my view, or "moved beyond", or altered my thinking or behavior at all.  I am consistent in both my views AND BEHAVIOR, unlike almost everyone I know, whether here or offline.

google has *never* been the only bad guy on the block, and they're probably not the most "evil" either.  But they are still a huge problem, and you not only refuse to acknowledge this, but go to great lengths to paint them in a positive light whenever any mention of them comes up in a negative light.  That's not just weird, it's creepy.

"who might not know you by anything other than an advertising ID number" made me laugh out loud.  Your arguments are transparent in their motive, but this was surprising to read from you, because it's complete bullshit.  Adding "might" makes it technically not a lie, but it's pure legal-speak.  For all I know, you "might" be Donald Trump.  See how I did that?  They may not "sell" that information, but they most certainly have it in-house.

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but the reason I poke at google and fb in particular isn't because they're necessarily worse actors than the data broker industry.  In fact, I do call out companies like Acxiom in my many, many discussions and lectures on the topic.  But g/fb are probably the two biggest reasons why people's behavior has been radically altered over the past 15 or so years.  They have literally normalized sharing online and "trusting" 3rd parties with private communications and personal information.

At this point fb has lost a lot of the public trust, but they are so deeply ingrained in people's daily lives that it's hard for people to cut those ties.  I've spoken with many people that say they don't trust fb, but they somehow feel they can't use any other means of communication with their friends and family.  That's a sick amount of power.

And to reiterate the point above,

Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS* undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of unintended purposes.  Like social security numbers in the U.S.  Like the data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world.  All large scale personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be repurposed

You're still trying to make it seem like this doesn't apply to google, but it applies to EVERY company, EVERY agency, everywhere in the world.  The bigger the database, the more inclusive, the better the "quality", the more dangerous it becomes over time.  And google has one of the most comprehensive, best quality databases of human behavior and psychology in the history of our planet. 

The data broker industry is shadowy and evil, but the googles and facebooks of the world are guilty of altering human behavior and normalizing database gathering-friendly behavior.  Eventually laws can be created to rein in the data brokers (if we have the will), but it's going to be very, very difficult (maybe impossible) to roll back the changes to human psychology and behavior.  That damage runs deep, to the core.

gatorguy said:

blah64 said:

macmojo said:

The app is designed to view your call and message logs, not just your contacts. The BJP Indian government is a hard right Hindu nationalist one. As with all hard right groups and parties, they believe in no rights or freedoms other than their own. This government has incited sectarian violence to further its political aims and has begun to undermine democracy in a serious way by going after independent media and journalists (even deploying Trump's favourite catch phrase - "fake news"). 

What they're trying to do here is lay the groundwork and put in place the basic infrastructure of a surveillance state, so they can monitor everyone, especially those opposed to them. Spam is just a cover for it.

Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS* undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of unintended purposes.  Like social security numbers in the U.S.  Like the data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world.  All large scale personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be repurposed

Don't forget the AppStore and Google Play apps we all install. There's zippity that prevents developers from selling or otherwise sharing whatever data they manage to harvest from our use of them. 

Ha, there you are.  Took you all of 20 minutes to find this post and respond.  I guess it did have the word "google" in it....  ;-)

Clearly you're right, this is a concern.  And yes, on ALL platforms. 

But this isn't so much of an infrastructure problem as it's a social problem.  For anyone interested in privacy, quite frankly your worst enemy is probably your friends and family.  Every time they enter your personal information into their mobile devices (or their internet-connected computers) and then give various apps (and 3rd parties, most of which they don't even know exist, like baked-in analytics libraries, etc.) access to their Contacts, they are spewing your personal data all over the internet, to be packaged, sold, resold, analyzed and archived.

If a retail cashier asked each of their customers to please hand over the names and addresses and phone numbers and work titles and nicknames of all (or even just a couple) of their friends, most people wouldn't dream of doing so, even for a free coffee or raffle ticket or whatever.  And yet, when various mobile apps as for this permission people don't give it a second thought, and it's basically the same thing.  Worse even.

People need to be educated (and slapped around repeatedly, I think) not to give out other people's personal information without explicit permission. On a mobile device that means not giving ANY third party apps permission to access your Contacts.  It's convenient, but terribly invasive and generally not even very transparent because of 4th party embedded libraries.

macmojo said:

The app is designed to view your call and message logs, not just your contacts. The BJP Indian government is a hard right Hindu nationalist one. As with all hard right groups and parties, they believe in no rights or freedoms other than their own. This government has incited sectarian violence to further its political aims and has begun to undermine democracy in a serious way by going after independent media and journalists (even deploying Trump's favourite catch phrase - "fake news"). 

What they're trying to do here is lay the groundwork and put in place the basic infrastructure of a surveillance state, so they can monitor everyone, especially those opposed to them. Spam is just a cover for it.

India is indeed setting up to be one of the strongest surveillance states, and their Aadhaar system clearly shows their intent.  Not only is it pervasive (over 1 Billion enrollees), but it includes biometrics (fingerprints, facial scans, iris scans), name, date of birth, address.  Because it is so widely used and required, data has been pushed out to many agencies, resulting in personal data actually being published by 210 different government web sites on the public internet.  There's lots to read about, and lots to be worried about, not the least of which is that other countries have expressed interest in adopting Aadhaar.

Remember, as soon as data is collected en masse, it always, always, *ALWAYS* undergoes mission creep and ends up being used for all kinds of unintended purposes.  Like social security numbers in the U.S.  Like the data brokers and facebooks/googles of the world.  All large scale personally-identifiable data, once gathered, will eventually be repurposed, stolen, acquired by government orders or merely sold as part of changing business practices/goals.  It's simply too valuable in so many ways over the long run to think otherwise.

There's a ton of info to read on Aadhaar.

https://www.firstpost.com/india/aadhaar-privacy-debate-how-the-12-digit-number-went-from-personal-identifier-to-all-pervasive-transaction-tool-4308043.html

https://www.firstpost.com/india/uidai-reveals-210-govt-websites-made-aadhaar-details-public-did-not-specify-when-breach-took-place-4217597.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/aadhaar-worlds-largest-biometric-database/538845

and of course there's a bunch of info on wikipedia.

nunzy said:

 Ban India!

AI: Can we just ban this account?

I'm not sure nunzy has ever written a post that contributed in any way to the conversation.  They're all inane crap that appear to serve no purpose other than to increase a post count.  They don't (usually) cross the line into inflammatory or rule-breaking posts, but they're just one-liners with no thought put into them.  Over and over and over and over.  It almost makes me wonder if nunzy is a bot.

Note that I wouldn't normally quote a garbage post, but in this case I actually do want others who have blocked this account to see the crap that's still coming in daily.  Blocking only works if you're signed in, and I'm very rarely signed into this account, but I read AI almost every day.