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I'm surprised that HN readers would find this surprising. It's well known that cellular providers track user locations, Internet usage, and probably other thing

I'm surprised that HN readers would find this surprising. It's well known that cellular providers track user locations, Internet usage, and probably other things. It's well known that a very widely used strategy is to collect as much information as possible about end users by businesses for targeted sales and marketing, and by governments for security/control (to varying degrees depending on where you live, but it's even spread to poor nations such as Sudan [1]). Why is this story a surprise? I assumed it has been happening for a long time. [1] http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/10/african-states-hop-tech-surveillance-bandwagon/122876/ http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/10/african-states-...

falcolas 11y ago
Some of us wish to think the best about people or corporations. Naive, sure, but you have to start your chain of trust somewhere. > It's well known that a very widely used strategy is to collect as much information as possible about end users by businesses for targeted sales and marketing Yes, but it's usually limited to free services, or low cost services. It's rarely applied wholesale to a group who is already paying through the nose for crappy service.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > Yes, but it's usually limited to free services, or low cost services. It's rarely applied wholesale to a group who is already paying through the nose for crappy service. Why would you expect that? There's nothing about increased privacy levels in ToS or in product marketing, nor there was ever in history an actual, significant demand for privacy services. It may change now, as all the stories broken over the years slowly make people care about tracking. But why would anyone assume that if you pay for something, you get special treatment? You get only the minimum required treatment that's spelled in the contract. That's how it always has been everywhere.
wrsh07 11y ago
What's particularly outrageous about this is that there is seemingly no way for consumers to make a market "choice" for privacy.
arca_vorago 11y ago
I'm gonna try really hard to not go over the line of the recent rule about too much negativity, but this line of questioning/reasoning really pisses me off. I see it quite a bit on reddit/twitter too. As a matter of fact, one time Jacob Appelbaum asked why people do it and my response was that it seems like a variation on the loaded question fallacy. Implies "you should have expected X", therefore attempting to avoid actual discussion, or shifting of the discussion via the overton window. It's just such a useless statement. "Why is this a surprise?" Well, first of all, I'm sure there are plenty of people who might not have had any idea cell data was being used this way and on this scale. Second, I'm willing to bet of the many who might have had a vague idea, this gives a more concrete background with rough numbers to solidify the idea. Third, It's not a surprise to those of us who have been paying attention, but the problem is when we have said something in the past it almost invariably has been ignored or dismissed as paranoid or crazy... At least until a good story or leak comes out and gets enough attention to grab enough media mindshare. Edward Snowden was a classic example of this at work. Sure, many of use knew about tempest and echelon and five-eyes, knew about cell tower metadata issues via watching ownership of said towers. Everytime with few exceptions though, publicly stating these things got us called "conspiracy theorists". Maybe you just use this as a rhetorical and are one of us that have been paying attention, but this statement is not condusive whatsoever to intellectual discussion of a subject, and we need to address it's fallacy when we see it because it's too pervasive.
- zer0defex 11y ago
  /choir /agree next instruction?
  - arca_vorago 11y ago
    Next instruction is to vote out all incumbents in congress and instate term limits in order to shift the balance of power back to the people. You left that pretty open so I took it where I wanted...
halviti 11y ago
Can you please explain the point of your post? Why is it relevant whether the story is a "surprise"? Expressing your blasé attitude does nothing but downplay the significance of this. The type of people that express arguments like this are the reason that these sort of things continue to happen. "Oh, the Iraq war was based on lies? Yeah, everyone knows that". Just because it's an accepted reality does not mean that you should just let things get a free pass. That's how you allow the same things to keep happening. Congratulations on not being surprised. Everyone is very impressed. Sorry for the rant. This is probably my #1 pet peeve.

falcolas 11y ago

Some of us wish to think the best about people or corporations. Naive, sure, but you have to start your chain of trust somewhere. > It's well known that a very widely used strategy is to collect as much information as possible about end users by businesses for targeted sales and marketing Yes, but it's usually limited to free services, or low cost services. It's rarely applied wholesale to a group who is already paying through the nose for crappy service.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
> Yes, but it's usually limited to free services, or low cost services. It's rarely applied wholesale to a group who is already paying through the nose for crappy service. Why would you expect that? There's nothing about increased privacy levels in ToS or in product marketing, nor there was ever in history an actual, significant demand for privacy services. It may change now, as all the stories broken over the years slowly make people care about tracking. But why would anyone assume that if you pay for something, you get special treatment? You get only the minimum required treatment that's spelled in the contract. That's how it always has been everywhere.

wrsh07 11y ago

What's particularly outrageous about this is that there is seemingly no way for consumers to make a market "choice" for privacy.

arca_vorago 11y ago

I'm gonna try really hard to not go over the line of the recent rule about too much negativity, but this line of questioning/reasoning really pisses me off. I see it quite a bit on reddit/twitter too. As a matter of fact, one time Jacob Appelbaum asked why people do it and my response was that it seems like a variation on the loaded question fallacy. Implies "you should have expected X", therefore attempting to avoid actual discussion, or shifting of the discussion via the overton window. It's just such a useless statement. "Why is this a surprise?" Well, first of all, I'm sure there are plenty of people who might not have had any idea cell data was being used this way and on this scale. Second, I'm willing to bet of the many who might have had a vague idea, this gives a more concrete background with rough numbers to solidify the idea. Third, It's not a surprise to those of us who have been paying attention, but the problem is when we have said something in the past it almost invariably has been ignored or dismissed as paranoid or crazy... At least until a good story or leak comes out and gets enough attention to grab enough media mindshare. Edward Snowden was a classic example of this at work. Sure, many of use knew about tempest and echelon and five-eyes, knew about cell tower metadata issues via watching ownership of said towers. Everytime with few exceptions though, publicly stating these things got us called "conspiracy theorists". Maybe you just use this as a rhetorical and are one of us that have been paying attention, but this statement is not condusive whatsoever to intellectual discussion of a subject, and we need to address it's fallacy when we see it because it's too pervasive.

zer0defex 11y ago
/choir /agree next instruction?
- arca_vorago 11y ago
  Next instruction is to vote out all incumbents in congress and instate term limits in order to shift the balance of power back to the people. You left that pretty open so I took it where I wanted...

halviti 11y ago

Can you please explain the point of your post? Why is it relevant whether the story is a "surprise"? Expressing your blasé attitude does nothing but downplay the significance of this. The type of people that express arguments like this are the reason that these sort of things continue to happen. "Oh, the Iraq war was based on lies? Yeah, everyone knows that". Just because it's an accepted reality does not mean that you should just let things get a free pass. That's how you allow the same things to keep happening. Congratulations on not being surprised. Everyone is very impressed. Sorry for the rant. This is probably my #1 pet peeve.