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One question I have as someone who tries to maintain (some) data sovereignty: is there any way as an end-user to circumvent/mitigate this kind of surveillance —

One question I have as someone who tries to maintain (some) data sovereignty: is there any way as an end-user to circumvent/mitigate this kind of surveillance — aside from abandoning iOS and Android completely?

sneak 3y ago
On iOS, all notifications must go via the centralized APNS, but on non-Google Android (eg Graphene) it is possible to run the device with the Google FCM stuff blocked off. Some apps will break, but stuff that runs in the background for polling or does non-Google notifications will continue to work.
- CharlesW 3y ago
  The Reuters article says that the government is getting this data from Apple and Google, which means it doesn't matter if your phone displays or even receives the notifications, no?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jeroenhd 3y ago
Google-free Android will allow you (force you) to use alternative push servers. That could be your own server (using something like Unified Push) or querying your apps' servers directly. This comes at the cost of battery life, sometimes significantly so, but it does decentralise the notification system. Of course, your data will still be in the hands of app vendors unless you choose your apps wisely. You should also block analytics on the network level (using firewall apps or alternative means) because these days developers like to send analytics events for every button pressed, all associated with your phone's unique identifier. If the government can use push notifications for tracking, imagine the tracking they can do through Firebase Analytics or one of its many data hoarding alternatives.
- forward1 3y ago
  Parent is asking about government surveillance. You're suggesting a deviation from the norm (99.99% of users) by installing a custom operating system (which they will now also be on the hook to secure and update regularly) by developers with nothing to lose. This will greatly increase scrutiny on you, or colloquially speaking definitely put you on a watch list, the opposite of what is allegedly desired. Rather, accept the plain fact electronic communications are subject to government surveillance and adjust your threat model accordingly. Don't try to fight the bear with a flyswatter.
  - greentea23 3y ago
    AOSP is not a deviation from the norm. It's the thing Google ships, vendors install play services as separate apps on top, so there is nothing oddball about your device fingerprint just by not installing Google specific services like the push handler. Your traffic will look like any other android making web requests, but then those requests will only be tracked by the servers they target instead of the OS itself betraying you and sharing metadata about them with various 3rd parties. Running non-vendor ROM alone will not get you "on a list". "Custom" ROMs also get OTA updates, so keeping up to date is as easy as it is on a vendor spyware ROM. In fact, you will usually get updates from the community well beyond when vendors stop support.
    - forward1 3y ago
      > NSA: Linux Journal is an "extremist forum" and its readers get flagged for extra surveillance https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extremist-forum-and-its-readers-get-flagged-extra-surveillance https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extre... But they totally can't figure out you use a custom OS built to resist surveillance. Go figure!
      - greentea23 3y ago
        But that's tracking your web requests to search engine servers. The way those requests look is dependent on your browser, not which ROM you are running. You can setup your user agent to be whatever you'd like at least on android or desktop browser.
yohannparis 3y ago
Disable notifications on all applications you do not want to be tracked via metadata.
- forward1 3y ago
  Absolutely and confidently incorrect. Local notification settings have no bearing on this metadata, which is generated, collected and stored with your consent by using Apple/Google app stores.
  - kccqzy 3y ago
    Wait. Are you saying that even if I disable notifications on my phone, the app backends will continue to send notifications to Apple and Google only to be ignored? If this is the way it is intended to work, I find that hard to believe.
sowbug 3y ago
Read at least the summary of James Scott's Seeing Like a State (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State) and let the concept of legibility percolate for a bit. Governments view legibility of their constituencies as a feature, not a bug. They want to be able to query the population like a database in order to manage it better. This is exactly like a product manager at a tech company who wants to know whether a certain feature is being used, and asks for more instrumentation in the next release of the product if needed. Over time the product (the population) becomes better and better instrumented. Of course, the other side of the coin of better legibility is worse privacy. Their feature is your bug. Are there ways to circumvent or mitigate what's happening? For you, personally, sure. You can turn on all the buried options, add VPNs, proxies, additional profiles/accounts, etc. And for a while it will work. But you're defeating legibility by doing that, so you're fighting against a very strong opposing force. Over time, the bugs that reduce legibility coverage will be fixed. The options will go away, VPNs will be banned or at least instrumented well enough to nullify their utility, COPPA and porn age-verification laws will extend to make multiple or anonymous identities impractical, and so on. And the few of us who do manage to go online fully anonymously might as well be wearing a "CRIMINAL" hat, because the public will have been trained that only bad actors want privacy, but not to worry if they themselves have nothing to hide. You can see this already happening with financial transactions. Try to conduct a significant low-legibility transaction (in other words, buy something big with cash). Your bank will ask why you want to withdraw $20,000. Cops might seize the cash, legally and without probable cause, while you're driving to the seller. And when the seller deposits the cash, the bank might file a SAR. This is all working as designed. You're being punished for adding friction to legibility. Even on HN, where you think people would be ahead of the curve, the PR campaign against financial privacy and censorship resistance is winning. Mention The Digital Currency That Shall Not Be Named, and suddenly the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse are in control. Why HNers are pro-VPN but anti-Bitcoin, when both stand for privacy and censorship resistance at the price of reduced legibility, is beyond me. The battle to fight is not just protecting your own privacy. It's protecting your right to protect your privacy without being ipso facto declared a criminal for doing so. Turn on all the options, hold Bitcoin, use VPNs, pay with cash, delete cookies, etc. But above all, be an ordinary, conscientious, law-abiding citizen. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Be average. Be unremarkable. Privacy should be the default. Not unsavory, not for those with something to hide. Just the default.
jjav 3y ago
> aside from abandoning iOS and Android completely? These platforms are so opaque and completely controlled by US corporations (so we know they are beholden to NSLs etc). If you care about your data and privacy, the best suggestion is to avoid phone platforms completely for anything important.

sneak 3y ago

On iOS, all notifications must go via the centralized APNS, but on non-Google Android (eg Graphene) it is possible to run the device with the Google FCM stuff blocked off. Some apps will break, but stuff that runs in the background for polling or does non-Google notifications will continue to work.

CharlesW 3y ago
The Reuters article says that the government is getting this data from Apple and Google, which means it doesn't matter if your phone displays or even receives the notifications, no?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jeroenhd 3y ago

Google-free Android will allow you (force you) to use alternative push servers. That could be your own server (using something like Unified Push) or querying your apps' servers directly. This comes at the cost of battery life, sometimes significantly so, but it does decentralise the notification system. Of course, your data will still be in the hands of app vendors unless you choose your apps wisely. You should also block analytics on the network level (using firewall apps or alternative means) because these days developers like to send analytics events for every button pressed, all associated with your phone's unique identifier. If the government can use push notifications for tracking, imagine the tracking they can do through Firebase Analytics or one of its many data hoarding alternatives.

forward1 3y ago
Parent is asking about government surveillance. You're suggesting a deviation from the norm (99.99% of users) by installing a custom operating system (which they will now also be on the hook to secure and update regularly) by developers with nothing to lose. This will greatly increase scrutiny on you, or colloquially speaking definitely put you on a watch list, the opposite of what is allegedly desired. Rather, accept the plain fact electronic communications are subject to government surveillance and adjust your threat model accordingly. Don't try to fight the bear with a flyswatter.
- greentea23 3y ago
  AOSP is not a deviation from the norm. It's the thing Google ships, vendors install play services as separate apps on top, so there is nothing oddball about your device fingerprint just by not installing Google specific services like the push handler. Your traffic will look like any other android making web requests, but then those requests will only be tracked by the servers they target instead of the OS itself betraying you and sharing metadata about them with various 3rd parties. Running non-vendor ROM alone will not get you "on a list". "Custom" ROMs also get OTA updates, so keeping up to date is as easy as it is on a vendor spyware ROM. In fact, you will usually get updates from the community well beyond when vendors stop support.
  - forward1 3y ago
    > NSA: Linux Journal is an "extremist forum" and its readers get flagged for extra surveillance https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extremist-forum-and-its-readers-get-flagged-extra-surveillance https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extre... But they totally can't figure out you use a custom OS built to resist surveillance. Go figure!
    - greentea23 3y ago
      But that's tracking your web requests to search engine servers. The way those requests look is dependent on your browser, not which ROM you are running. You can setup your user agent to be whatever you'd like at least on android or desktop browser.

yohannparis 3y ago

Disable notifications on all applications you do not want to be tracked via metadata.

forward1 3y ago
Absolutely and confidently incorrect. Local notification settings have no bearing on this metadata, which is generated, collected and stored with your consent by using Apple/Google app stores.
- kccqzy 3y ago
  Wait. Are you saying that even if I disable notifications on my phone, the app backends will continue to send notifications to Apple and Google only to be ignored? If this is the way it is intended to work, I find that hard to believe.

sowbug 3y ago

Read at least the summary of James Scott's Seeing Like a State (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State) and let the concept of legibility percolate for a bit. Governments view legibility of their constituencies as a feature, not a bug. They want to be able to query the population like a database in order to manage it better. This is exactly like a product manager at a tech company who wants to know whether a certain feature is being used, and asks for more instrumentation in the next release of the product if needed. Over time the product (the population) becomes better and better instrumented. Of course, the other side of the coin of better legibility is worse privacy. Their feature is your bug. Are there ways to circumvent or mitigate what's happening? For you, personally, sure. You can turn on all the buried options, add VPNs, proxies, additional profiles/accounts, etc. And for a while it will work. But you're defeating legibility by doing that, so you're fighting against a very strong opposing force. Over time, the bugs that reduce legibility coverage will be fixed. The options will go away, VPNs will be banned or at least instrumented well enough to nullify their utility, COPPA and porn age-verification laws will extend to make multiple or anonymous identities impractical, and so on. And the few of us who do manage to go online fully anonymously might as well be wearing a "CRIMINAL" hat, because the public will have been trained that only bad actors want privacy, but not to worry if they themselves have nothing to hide. You can see this already happening with financial transactions. Try to conduct a significant low-legibility transaction (in other words, buy something big with cash). Your bank will ask why you want to withdraw $20,000. Cops might seize the cash, legally and without probable cause, while you're driving to the seller. And when the seller deposits the cash, the bank might file a SAR. This is all working as designed. You're being punished for adding friction to legibility. Even on HN, where you think people would be ahead of the curve, the PR campaign against financial privacy and censorship resistance is winning. Mention The Digital Currency That Shall Not Be Named, and suddenly the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse are in control. Why HNers are pro-VPN but anti-Bitcoin, when both stand for privacy and censorship resistance at the price of reduced legibility, is beyond me. The battle to fight is not just protecting your own privacy. It's protecting your right to protect your privacy without being ipso facto declared a criminal for doing so. Turn on all the options, hold Bitcoin, use VPNs, pay with cash, delete cookies, etc. But above all, be an ordinary, conscientious, law-abiding citizen. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Be average. Be unremarkable. Privacy should be the default. Not unsavory, not for those with something to hide. Just the default.

jjav 3y ago

> aside from abandoning iOS and Android completely? These platforms are so opaque and completely controlled by US corporations (so we know they are beholden to NSLs etc). If you care about your data and privacy, the best suggestion is to avoid phone platforms completely for anything important.