5 ms·
Yes, telcos have an error of a few km. Google tells me, from another country, where exactly I came from, where exactly I went, and how (walking, driving, ...)
by leoferres 5y ago
Yes, telcos have an error of a few km. Google tells me, from another country, where exactly I came from, where exactly I went, and how (walking, driving, ...)
- Judgmentality 5y agoI've got a bunch of the privacy stuff on my Android phone, and even when I use Google Maps while driving I'll ask "where's the nearest grocery store" and it will regularly think I'm hundreds of miles from where I am. I can't even figure out why. It once thought I was in the ocean. To be clear, when I am asking this, the phone has access to my location data and everything else it asks for.
- titzer 5y agoThe accelerometer in most phones is accurate enough to detect individual footsteps. Phones also include a barometer that is sensitive enough to detect which floor of a building you are on. With dead reckoning based on accelerometers, calibrated by GPS, compass, WiFi, and barometric data, people can be located to within centimeters. Activity detection, mode of transport--ha, child's play! If you run Android, turn off "high location accuracy". It uses all of these features.
- leoferres 5y ago:) I really don't care that Google knows what I'm doing. What I do find amazing is that people are usually afraid of telcos for tracking, when it's more like you have to be afraid of Google and apps like Candy Crush...
- titzer 5y agoYou realize that with a NSL the US government can compel Google to disclose information on anyone and that the contents of NSLs are completely secret, right? Oh yeah, and Google operates globally and no one really knows what arrangements they have with the various governments around the world.
- rurban 5y agoOr even worse, arrangements with criminal and terrorist organizations, committing warcrimes all over. They now love to shoot you down with a drone based on Android High Accuracy Location Tracking, without any due process. They also love to block free travel without due process. It's called freedom (of civil rights, to block and terminate).
- eru 5y agoWell, not sure whether turning off a setting in your phone would help you in that case? They could probably compel Google to make the UI not reflect what the phone actually does.
- beauzero 5y agoOne of the hardest problems, a few years back, to solve was getting data to determine which traffic lane you were in. It was to provide targeted ads on billboards, that through reflection, could show different ads to people in different lanes based on "external" searches such as browsing patterns. To my knowledge the problem was not solvable using wireless telco data.
- eru 5y agoThe telcos probably have enough raw data that with a bit of machine learning they could get most of that information.