7 ms·

Windows Phone does transmit location information without user consent

66 points by 0x12 15y ago

palish 15y ago
This is probably due to incompetence, not malice. Bugfix a'hoy? They probably meant "It is our intention not to collect information..." rather than "Microsoft does not collect information..." If you make a mistake which contradicts something you've said in a formal contract, is there any way to basically say "Whoops, my bad, yo. We're pushing out a bugfix ASAP"? Would that even 'matter'? I guess it depends entirely on the exact contract, so there's probably no way to answer that. I mean, people make mistakes. It's life; it happens. I'm just wondering if the legal system reflects that fact at all, or whether it's a hardcore stonefaced slavedriver that laughs at how naive you are for thinking you get a second chance.
- anedisi 15y ago
  there is a lot of this type of "mistakes" if i would let my imagination to take over i could say they do it on purpose and say it is mistake only if they get caught.
  - palish 15y ago
    That's true, but very rare.
    - rwolf 15y ago
      Citation needed.
      - palish 15y ago
        Do you believe most of the world is honorless? If so, then no citation will convince otherwise. On the other hand, if you believe most people are fundamentally "good" (or at least "mostly not evil"), as I do, then no citation is necessary. Almost everyone of the thousands of people I've interacted with in the tech/programming field are good people. Of course, there are plenty of horror stories in relation to the business side of things. It's certainly possible most of them are mostly evil; I have no clue.
        rwolf 15y ago
        You may have meant to talk about humans in general, but the context here is Microsoft. Your claim that Microsoft has very rarely acted against the interests of users on purpose is in need of supporting evidence, as the general sentiment on this social news site is that this is not the case. To your question: Steve Mann has some interesting thoughts about how being a part of bureaucracy makes it easy to do evil. This is not a new idea: any discussion of collaboration in WW2 Europe will bring up similar themes. Do you think humans who are acting at the behest of an impersonal corporation are intrinsically good in that context?
CurtHagenlocher 15y ago
I suspect that the relevant semantic distinction here is between "transmit" and "collect".
- cgranade 15y ago
  Where personally identifiable information is concerned, transmission implies collection, as there is no way to verify that the receiving party does not record. Any statement to the contrary is to take the recipient merely on faith.
  - Someone 15y ago
    Not merely on faith; There also is the statement to the house of representatives. IANAL, but I would guess that could lead to some serious jail time, if it turned out that the data was collected.
ntoshev 15y ago
This looks like requesting an approximate position assisting the gps to to get the precise position. I'd bet all agps devices do it in this way; before the confirmation dialog, because it gives the optimal user experience. If they waited for confirmation to download the agps data, you'd haveto wait more to grt your location. Even if you don't want to get your location now, it makes sense to cache them because you are likely to want it in the near future. These are the same data iPhone was found to cache and back up.
- rufius 15y ago
  You're certainly spot on in my opinion. Thinking about it, I think the key thing is that they're "caching" but not necessarily "using" the info. If they don't use it at all, then it is what it is but what they're doing is likely in the best interest of the user for a seemless experience.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  I agree, but it all comes down to what they are sending. Sending "some anonymous device (assuming they cab truly keep things anonymous, a non-trivia, task!) is around here" is probably OK. Sending "device ae4f3297ffd is around here" is most likely not ok at all.
  - ntoshev 15y ago
    I agree, they are sending more info than they need to, in the same way Apple didn't need to store these data for so long or back them up on a computer. In both cases I don't think there is malice, but it's good people actually check what is going on and force vendors to take privacy seriously.
kurtsiegfried 15y ago
The actual source of the article is below. ZDNet didn't add much to the article other than ads. http://www.withinwindows.com/2011/09/23/dissecting-case-01438-exhibit-b-part-2/ http://www.withinwindows.com/2011/09/23/dissecting-case-0143...

66 points by 0x12 15y ago

This is probably due to incompetence, not malice. Bugfix a'hoy? They probably meant "It is our intention not to collect information..." rather than "Microsoft does not collect information..." If you make a mistake which contradicts something you've said in a formal contract, is there any way to basically say "Whoops, my bad, yo. We're pushing out a bugfix ASAP"? Would that even 'matter'? I guess it depends entirely on the exact contract, so there's probably no way to answer that. I mean, people make mistakes. It's life; it happens. I'm just wondering if the legal system reflects that fact at all, or whether it's a hardcore stonefaced slavedriver that laughs at how naive you are for thinking you get a second chance.

anedisi 15y ago
there is a lot of this type of "mistakes" if i would let my imagination to take over i could say they do it on purpose and say it is mistake only if they get caught.
- palish 15y ago
  That's true, but very rare.
  - rwolf 15y ago
    Citation needed.
    - palish 15y ago
      Do you believe most of the world is honorless? If so, then no citation will convince otherwise. On the other hand, if you believe most people are fundamentally "good" (or at least "mostly not evil"), as I do, then no citation is necessary. Almost everyone of the thousands of people I've interacted with in the tech/programming field are good people. Of course, there are plenty of horror stories in relation to the business side of things. It's certainly possible most of them are mostly evil; I have no clue.
      - rwolf 15y ago
        You may have meant to talk about humans in general, but the context here is Microsoft. Your claim that Microsoft has very rarely acted against the interests of users on purpose is in need of supporting evidence, as the general sentiment on this social news site is that this is not the case. To your question: Steve Mann has some interesting thoughts about how being a part of bureaucracy makes it easy to do evil. This is not a new idea: any discussion of collaboration in WW2 Europe will bring up similar themes. Do you think humans who are acting at the behest of an impersonal corporation are intrinsically good in that context?

CurtHagenlocher 15y ago

I suspect that the relevant semantic distinction here is between "transmit" and "collect".

cgranade 15y ago
Where personally identifiable information is concerned, transmission implies collection, as there is no way to verify that the receiving party does not record. Any statement to the contrary is to take the recipient merely on faith.
- Someone 15y ago
  Not merely on faith; There also is the statement to the house of representatives. IANAL, but I would guess that could lead to some serious jail time, if it turned out that the data was collected.

ntoshev 15y ago

This looks like requesting an approximate position assisting the gps to to get the precise position. I'd bet all agps devices do it in this way; before the confirmation dialog, because it gives the optimal user experience. If they waited for confirmation to download the agps data, you'd haveto wait more to grt your location. Even if you don't want to get your location now, it makes sense to cache them because you are likely to want it in the near future. These are the same data iPhone was found to cache and back up.

rufius 15y ago
You're certainly spot on in my opinion. Thinking about it, I think the key thing is that they're "caching" but not necessarily "using" the info. If they don't use it at all, then it is what it is but what they're doing is likely in the best interest of the user for a seemless experience.
SoftwareMaven 15y ago
I agree, but it all comes down to what they are sending. Sending "some anonymous device (assuming they cab truly keep things anonymous, a non-trivia, task!) is around here" is probably OK. Sending "device ae4f3297ffd is around here" is most likely not ok at all.
- ntoshev 15y ago
  I agree, they are sending more info than they need to, in the same way Apple didn't need to store these data for so long or back them up on a computer. In both cases I don't think there is malice, but it's good people actually check what is going on and force vendors to take privacy seriously.

kurtsiegfried 15y ago

The actual source of the article is below. ZDNet didn't add much to the article other than ads. http://www.withinwindows.com/2011/09/23/dissecting-case-01438-exhibit-b-part-2/ http://www.withinwindows.com/2011/09/23/dissecting-case-0143...