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> I use a trained neural network I keep between my ears... Recall is sometimes fuzzy with age, but it works well enough, and I don't have to worry about externa

> I use a trained neural network I keep between my ears... Recall is sometimes fuzzy with age, but it works well enough, and I don't have to worry about external queries violating my various rights nearly as much as with tech companies. I don't understand the point you're making (unless you're being snarky.) You recognize that most other users of Google Location History can do the same? > My first question, though, would be "Why?" What value do you get out of tracking your location with any great detail that self hosting it would be of much value? Another way of framing is what utility Location History can provide to users. Some use cases are casual ("Where did I go exactly on this trip two years ago?", "Where did I eat when I was in X city 9 months ago?", etc) while other people have personal uses for it: https://towardsdatascience.com/analyzing-my-google-location-history-d3a5c56c7b70 https://towardsdatascience.com/analyzing-my-google-location-... > However, various cheap GPS loggers and Google Earth import probably would do a lot of what you're looking for. That would probably work, as well perhaps another OSM-based mapping application. I don't know the value of all that extra metadata which is computed though (as highlighted in the above article).

Syonyk 5y ago
> I don't understand the point you're making (unless you're being snarky.) I am. I'm referring to my brain in a "tech industry buzzword" way. It is, technically speaking, a trained neural network. Just a biological one, not a silicon/code based one. I happen to like it, and it can also do things like tell the difference between a low moon in the sky through a smoke haze and a traffic light. > Another way of framing is what utility Location History can provide to users. "If there are any positives, then the technology is worth using!" style thinking misses, entirely, the concept of opportunity cost, and the various downsides. I won't argue that it's not pretty cool to see everywhere you've been - but it's also an exceedingly detailed record of who you are, and anyone who claims it can be suitably anonymized is full of crap (see the Grindr Bishop for a solid case study here). Where I really start to get upset, though, is that there's no opt-in for this, other than some vague, generic, "nobody reads this and it doesn't say anything anyone would understand anyway" clickthroughs. Android doesn't have a, "Would you like us to keep a record of your location and everywhere you've been? You can review it later and see what cool places you've been!" sort of opt-in. It just does it. Google clearly is getting some value from that data, and it's not at all clear what it is.
- chrononaut 5y ago
  Right, and I think OP (or at least myself) agrees with the points you've made, which is why they seem to be trying strike a balance between gaining the advantages of Location History, but keeping that data to themselves and outside the Google umbrella, and thus want to understand how to do it. I view it similarly as others looking at methods to self-host their photo backup with timeline indexing and searching, etc.
  - peterburkimsher 5y ago
    Ten years ago, in 2011, Pete Warden discovered that the iPhone was tracking peoples' locations. It was considered to be a bug at the time, because it was only intended to be stored for up to a week, for knowing which phone transmitter to use. https://petewarden.github.io/iPhoneTracker/ https://petewarden.github.io/iPhoneTracker/ "the advantages of Location History" I thought that this data would be useful to help geotag the photos in my iPhoto library. So I wrote a little script to parse the iPhone data, and cross-match the timestamps with photos. Never became really popular though, probably because people now use phones to take photos and they already include the location in the EXIF data. iPhone Geotag https://peterburk.github.io/programs/#iPhoneGeotag https://peterburk.github.io/programs/#iPhoneGeotag "keeping that data to themselves" Once the bug was fixed, and Apple stopped storing location data indefinitely, I thought it would be kind of handy as a feature. So I wrote a little PHP script that ran on my jailbroken iPhone and saved a log of my location every 30 minutes. It recorded data from Monday, May 12, 2014 3:44:52 PM to Wednesday, April 8, 2015 9:00:06 AM My battery life got worse, because the GPS kept turning on. During that whole year, I never wanted to check the data, not even once. So I turned off the script. Not tracking myself made me less self-conscious about where I was walking and what I was doing, and it was a relief. I do use an iPhone, but it's an old 4S with iOS 6.1.3, and I only switch on 3G rarely in case of emergencies. I don't use iCloud for backup, only USB sync. The phone companies will know my location, but Apple probably don't. With the security features all compromised through jailbreaking, I can see everything on my phone so I know what data they could possibly get. And that's good enough for me.
    - dragonsky 5y ago

Syonyk 5y ago

> I don't understand the point you're making (unless you're being snarky.) I am. I'm referring to my brain in a "tech industry buzzword" way. It is, technically speaking, a trained neural network. Just a biological one, not a silicon/code based one. I happen to like it, and it can also do things like tell the difference between a low moon in the sky through a smoke haze and a traffic light. > Another way of framing is what utility Location History can provide to users. "If there are any positives, then the technology is worth using!" style thinking misses, entirely, the concept of opportunity cost, and the various downsides. I won't argue that it's not pretty cool to see everywhere you've been - but it's also an exceedingly detailed record of who you are, and anyone who claims it can be suitably anonymized is full of crap (see the Grindr Bishop for a solid case study here). Where I really start to get upset, though, is that there's no opt-in for this, other than some vague, generic, "nobody reads this and it doesn't say anything anyone would understand anyway" clickthroughs. Android doesn't have a, "Would you like us to keep a record of your location and everywhere you've been? You can review it later and see what cool places you've been!" sort of opt-in. It just does it. Google clearly is getting some value from that data, and it's not at all clear what it is.

chrononaut 5y ago
Right, and I think OP (or at least myself) agrees with the points you've made, which is why they seem to be trying strike a balance between gaining the advantages of Location History, but keeping that data to themselves and outside the Google umbrella, and thus want to understand how to do it. I view it similarly as others looking at methods to self-host their photo backup with timeline indexing and searching, etc.
- peterburkimsher 5y ago
  Ten years ago, in 2011, Pete Warden discovered that the iPhone was tracking peoples' locations. It was considered to be a bug at the time, because it was only intended to be stored for up to a week, for knowing which phone transmitter to use. https://petewarden.github.io/iPhoneTracker/ https://petewarden.github.io/iPhoneTracker/ "the advantages of Location History" I thought that this data would be useful to help geotag the photos in my iPhoto library. So I wrote a little script to parse the iPhone data, and cross-match the timestamps with photos. Never became really popular though, probably because people now use phones to take photos and they already include the location in the EXIF data. iPhone Geotag https://peterburk.github.io/programs/#iPhoneGeotag https://peterburk.github.io/programs/#iPhoneGeotag "keeping that data to themselves" Once the bug was fixed, and Apple stopped storing location data indefinitely, I thought it would be kind of handy as a feature. So I wrote a little PHP script that ran on my jailbroken iPhone and saved a log of my location every 30 minutes. It recorded data from Monday, May 12, 2014 3:44:52 PM to Wednesday, April 8, 2015 9:00:06 AM My battery life got worse, because the GPS kept turning on. During that whole year, I never wanted to check the data, not even once. So I turned off the script. Not tracking myself made me less self-conscious about where I was walking and what I was doing, and it was a relief. I do use an iPhone, but it's an old 4S with iOS 6.1.3, and I only switch on 3G rarely in case of emergencies. I don't use iCloud for backup, only USB sync. The phone companies will know my location, but Apple probably don't. With the security features all compromised through jailbreaking, I can see everything on my phone so I know what data they could possibly get. And that's good enough for me.
  - dragonsky 5y ago