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That steps way the hell and gone past my creepiness threshold. Being able to justify it in your own head as being "for [the users'] benefit" doesn't change the

That steps way the hell and gone past my creepiness threshold. Being able to justify it in your own head as being "for [the users'] benefit" doesn't change the fact that there's a shitload of raw data there that the users wouldn't voluntarily provide if they knew about it.

kstrauser 8y ago
In this specific case, given what I've told you about the kind of data they collected, how it was used, and how it was surfaced to the consumers of the data, what specifically about that data flow bothers you?
- pdkl95 8y ago
  > I've told you about the kind of data they collected, how it was used No, you've only talked about what currently happens when everything is working properly. What happens if the company ends up in financial trouble; to they have a Ulysses Contract[1][2] on record that binds their future ability to monetize all of this data? Without legal enforcement, we just have to hope this company will somehow resist the temptation that most other companies are not able to resist. > what specifically about that data flow bothers you? > it generates a UUID That's obviously personally identifying, which it's a header in all of the analytics you describe. Just because it's synthetic doesn't make it anonymous. Once it's mapped back to other information - which is trivial if you correlate IPs[3] or event timestamps[4] - this type of analytics is only an INNER JOIN away from being merged into someone's pattern-of-life[5]. The problem isn't what happens when everything works as intended. You need to also prepare for when (not if) your data is merged into other databases, and what others might do with the data in a future. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_pact [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6wjeCJYk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6wjeCJYk [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170468 [4] Take a set of "UUID 1234... launched app" events for a common app that is regularly launched e.g. when someone wakes up (or whenever). Correlate those times to other times that also happen to be launched (or webpages/email visited) at similar times. What are the odds that two unrelated people just happened to open different apps [..., 2019-02-04T10:11:22, 2019-02-06T10:17:44, 2019-02-07T10:14:52, ...] (+/- maybe 30 seconds)? A unique identifier and a few high resolution (seconds) timestamps can easily identify someone uniquely when you have enough data points. [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern-of-life_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern-of-life_analysis
chillacy 8y ago
I like what Apple does, they ask you if you'd like to automatically submit usage data and crash reports, and you can opt out without any loss of functionality. I have no idea what % of users opt in, but as long as some people opt in, it'll be win-win for users and developers.
kkarakk 8y ago
Literally every app that uses firebase can do this, and firebase is pretty much the standard for scalable apps for the indie dev

kstrauser 8y ago

In this specific case, given what I've told you about the kind of data they collected, how it was used, and how it was surfaced to the consumers of the data, what specifically about that data flow bothers you?

pdkl95 8y ago
> I've told you about the kind of data they collected, how it was used No, you've only talked about what currently happens when everything is working properly. What happens if the company ends up in financial trouble; to they have a Ulysses Contract[1][2] on record that binds their future ability to monetize all of this data? Without legal enforcement, we just have to hope this company will somehow resist the temptation that most other companies are not able to resist. > what specifically about that data flow bothers you? > it generates a UUID That's obviously personally identifying, which it's a header in all of the analytics you describe. Just because it's synthetic doesn't make it anonymous. Once it's mapped back to other information - which is trivial if you correlate IPs[3] or event timestamps[4] - this type of analytics is only an INNER JOIN away from being merged into someone's pattern-of-life[5]. The problem isn't what happens when everything works as intended. You need to also prepare for when (not if) your data is merged into other databases, and what others might do with the data in a future. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_pact [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6wjeCJYk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6wjeCJYk [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17170468 [4] Take a set of "UUID 1234... launched app" events for a common app that is regularly launched e.g. when someone wakes up (or whenever). Correlate those times to other times that also happen to be launched (or webpages/email visited) at similar times. What are the odds that two unrelated people just happened to open different apps [..., 2019-02-04T10:11:22, 2019-02-06T10:17:44, 2019-02-07T10:14:52, ...] (+/- maybe 30 seconds)? A unique identifier and a few high resolution (seconds) timestamps can easily identify someone uniquely when you have enough data points. [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern-of-life_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern-of-life_analysis

chillacy 8y ago

I like what Apple does, they ask you if you'd like to automatically submit usage data and crash reports, and you can opt out without any loss of functionality. I have no idea what % of users opt in, but as long as some people opt in, it'll be win-win for users and developers.

kkarakk 8y ago

Literally every app that uses firebase can do this, and firebase is pretty much the standard for scalable apps for the indie dev