4 ms·

Is there a use for this that isn’t to enable criminals?

selestify 6y ago
I don’t see how you can have it both ways. Any privacy protections for the average law-abiding citizen is going to help out the criminals too.
- dhosek 6y ago
  The question is what the non-crime use case is. I can't think of such a thing. In any event, having your phone in an uber with a bunch of other phones and not following "normal" uber ride patterns would be yet another detectable pattern.
  - vmception 6y ago
    Yes, that model would be detectable, what does that get anyone though? I found flaws with a lot of models, whether it was greater vulnerability of not getting your phone back, or having too many other phones in the same place. I decided that more phones in the same and route was more tolerable. But any model I didnt think of I’d like to read it.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    > The question is what the non-crime use case is. To protect against a tyrannical government.
    - dhosek 6y ago
      In the case of a tyrannical government, it would be easy to detect use of this service and the tyrannical government would have an easy way of identifying "enemies of the state."
- megablast 6y ago
  Of course. All privacy is like that. All encryptions is like that.
Sebb767 6y ago
Yes. Protecting innocent people from getting caught in the fallout. It seems the idea is to make (extended) phone tracking unviable and therefore stop the practice; not to enable criminals, but to avoid the side effect, which are perceived not worth the risk (in GPs opinion).
vmception 6y ago
Depends on whether you consider the people doing warrantless tracking to be criminals. Obviously people doing tracking with warrants will have useless data too and stop asking for that kind of dataset.
vmception 6y ago
I like to think of it as phantom cloning. You physically could be where you normally are at home, or out somewhere else with no phone, or out somewhere else with a burner. All while what people normally use to identify you is moving around randomly. There are plenty of times I wish I was connected but not tracked all the time because I get distracted with my device easily while Im just not used to being with no connectivity any more. Hiking, running errands, you name it. Might as well pollute the data set for everyone else while you’re at.
klyrs 6y ago
Maybe... phone walkers who scrape your data while charging and hand it over to the cops?
- vmception 6y ago
  The innovation that the gig economy needs. While everyone is worried about criminals, everyone else that wants to disconnect and has benign data is doing just fine.
travmatt 6y ago
To protect against harassment: https://www.androidheadlines.com/2019/08/t-mobile-hands-over-womans-location-data-to-a-stalker.html https://www.androidheadlines.com/2019/08/t-mobile-hands-over...
brantonb 6y ago
I remember a former-NSA penetration tester telling me, a naive college hire, that for us to be successful developing BitLocker Drive Encryption, we’d have to make it good enough for terrorists to be willing to use it. It was a few years after 9/11 and that was a sobering conversation.

I don’t see how you can have it both ways. Any privacy protections for the average law-abiding citizen is going to help out the criminals too.

dhosek 6y ago
The question is what the non-crime use case is. I can't think of such a thing. In any event, having your phone in an uber with a bunch of other phones and not following "normal" uber ride patterns would be yet another detectable pattern.
- vmception 6y ago
  Yes, that model would be detectable, what does that get anyone though? I found flaws with a lot of models, whether it was greater vulnerability of not getting your phone back, or having too many other phones in the same place. I decided that more phones in the same and route was more tolerable. But any model I didnt think of I’d like to read it.
- enriquto 6y ago
  > The question is what the non-crime use case is. To protect against a tyrannical government.
  - dhosek 6y ago
    In the case of a tyrannical government, it would be easy to detect use of this service and the tyrannical government would have an easy way of identifying "enemies of the state."
megablast 6y ago
Of course. All privacy is like that. All encryptions is like that.

Sebb767 6y ago

Yes. Protecting innocent people from getting caught in the fallout. It seems the idea is to make (extended) phone tracking unviable and therefore stop the practice; not to enable criminals, but to avoid the side effect, which are perceived not worth the risk (in GPs opinion).

vmception 6y ago

Depends on whether you consider the people doing warrantless tracking to be criminals. Obviously people doing tracking with warrants will have useless data too and stop asking for that kind of dataset.

vmception 6y ago

I like to think of it as phantom cloning. You physically could be where you normally are at home, or out somewhere else with no phone, or out somewhere else with a burner. All while what people normally use to identify you is moving around randomly. There are plenty of times I wish I was connected but not tracked all the time because I get distracted with my device easily while Im just not used to being with no connectivity any more. Hiking, running errands, you name it. Might as well pollute the data set for everyone else while you’re at.

klyrs 6y ago

Maybe... phone walkers who scrape your data while charging and hand it over to the cops?

vmception 6y ago
The innovation that the gig economy needs. While everyone is worried about criminals, everyone else that wants to disconnect and has benign data is doing just fine.

travmatt 6y ago

To protect against harassment: https://www.androidheadlines.com/2019/08/t-mobile-hands-over-womans-location-data-to-a-stalker.html https://www.androidheadlines.com/2019/08/t-mobile-hands-over...

brantonb 6y ago

I remember a former-NSA penetration tester telling me, a naive college hire, that for us to be successful developing BitLocker Drive Encryption, we’d have to make it good enough for terrorists to be willing to use it. It was a few years after 9/11 and that was a sobering conversation.